Thursday, Jul 24, 2008
He may be rock's most unlikely star, but he's also the king craftsman of pop who's charted more singles than anyone except Elvis.
Jan 2, 2002 | "This dumpy guy came into the office. He was a bit fat, a bit forlorn looking." That was the reaction of one of the staffers who watched a boy named Reginald Dwight walk into a London song-publishing company in 1967. The interesting thing about Elton John -- for it was he -- is that the story of his career does not include an obligatory remaking. Pudgy he remained, somewhat forlorn he stayed, and in the nearly 35 years since then he has continued to be a slightly blurry and eager-to-please persona.
The entrancing wonderment of Elton John's career is this utter ordinariness. At the beginning he made a name for himself being himself: He recorded albums full of courtly, pleasant songs far removed from the acid rock tropes of the day. He was polite and unassuming, and worked hard and persevered in a state of beatific (if sometime agitated) self-doubt. The outlandish costumes and ferocious stage shows that came later were merely a way to compensate for this humility, and not disappoint fans.
In the end, he accomplished, one could argue, three things. First, for a time, he recorded utterly distinctive, if unfailingly pop-based, albums and singles, a surprising number of the tracks of which are highly listenable and delightful to this day -- albums like "Empty Sky," "Elton John," "Honky Chateau," "Madman Across the Water," "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" among them.
Second, he became popular on a level very few pop stars are allowed to. Paul McCartney, after being a part of the dominant commercial pop force of the 1960s, put his mind to it and sold more records than the Beatles did during the subsequent decade, creating a commercial juggernaut that obliterated everything before it -- save for the career of that dumpy boy from Metroland, who handily out-sold and out-charted McCartney through the '70s. And finally, even after a long period of irrelevance, John pushed himself again into the spotlight, using little else but his agreeable personality to become a sober sight at celebrity funerals and an adorable toupee-wearing teddy bear at benefits.
His latest album hit the top 10 -- and a few years ago a remake of a 25-year-old song became one of the biggest-selling singles ever. He's now been a most unlikely star for 30 years.
The arc of John's career, artistically speaking, is not an unusual one -- early works of irresistible charm and prodigious commercial appeal, followed by a decline that, as the decades pass, takes on a length that eclipses, many times over, the period of the good stuff.
But ... his good stuff is so good. Fans forget that his first few albums -- "Empty Sky," "Elton John," "Tumbleweed Connection" and the soundtrack to the 1971 movie "Friends" -- are for the most part soft and moody exercises of slightly elevated singer-songwriting, chamber rock division. (His seminal '70s albums, with the exception of "Friends" and "Blue Moves," are available now in terrific remastered versions, complete with outtakes, non-album singles, live tracks and so forth.)
His record company liked his work but worried that, amid the furious psychedelia of the day, his music would get lost. This was not without reason; many of those who heard it simply loved John's self-titled second album, yet so complex and overwrought were the dominant sounds of the day that the record languished as single after single was released. It was months before someone noticed that John had written a pop standard for the album -- "Your Song."
The hit that resulted suddenly made him a star. By this time, fortunately, he was poised to capitalize on it. A body of artistic support had cohered around him, including a songwriting partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin, who hailed from a town in eastern England called Owmby-by-Spital; arranger Paul Buckmaster, who would create the striking, sometimes shattering string backings in songs like "Madman Across the Water"; and the members of what came to be called the Elton John band, including Nigel Olson, Davey Johnston, Dee Murray and Ray Cooper.
Perhaps the most important of these was producer Gus Dudgeon, whose remarkable good taste virtually never erred, from the deceptively plain ("Daniel") to the deceptively outré (the alluring "Rocket Man"). (If nothing else, consider how John has never delivered a persuasive live album, despite decades of trying; and for one small example, think about how the futuristic "Rocket Man's" most telling touch is an anachronistic slide guitar. Dudgeon may be the most underappreciated producer of the era.)
From this point on John released a succession of lucid and accomplished constructions: "Madman Across the Water" remains one of the great albums of '70s rock, including songs like "Tiny Dancer," "Levon" and the ambitious title track. "Honky Chateau" contained "Honky Cat," "Rocket Man" and the pretty "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters." The next album, "Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player," had a fabulous retro hit, "Crocodile Rock," and a luminous song about a man "leaving tonight on a plane": "Daniel."
Both became big hits in America and the U.K.; indeed, as Philip Norman notes in his well-reported biography, "Elton John," John had unexpectedly become a teenage idol. Even as he retained the reluctant respect of the rock intelligentsia with his undeniable flair for melody and his partner's enigmatic lyrics, he became a safely and lovably outlandish glitter boy, sexless in a cuddly way and artistically dependable like no other star of the day.
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