Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s

by David DeCouto

  “If you’re cold, come have some brandy,” Elton told them. “Don’t be shy. Come on.”

  “This went down really well,” said journalist Chris Charlesworth, “and I was really taken with him. This guy was really trying hard here under difficult conditions to cheer everyone up. He was the star of the show, and an unknown.”

  “I hope this dispels the myth that I am [BBC] Radio One Club and The Tony Blackburn Show!” Elton shouted out cheekily before returning for a rollicking encore of the Stones’ recent chart-topper, “Honky Tonk Women.”

  “I think we are going to be hearing a lot of this man in the near future,” Charlesworth wrote in Melody Maker. “[Elton] was fantastic.”

  “Border Song,” which had been released in America on the Congress label, Uni’s foreign label imprint, made it onto the charts the very next day, albeit at an anemic 93—and that meager success was based largely on its regional popularity in Memphis. The record stalled out short one week later, at a high of 92.

  “92 with an anchor, no bullets at all,” Russ Regan grimly joked. “Unfortunately, we couldn’t spread ‘Border Song’ out of Memphis.”

  Elton returned from the Yorkshire Moors to learn that despite his earnest efforts, his records simply weren’t selling. In a last-ditch effort to salvage his investment, Dick James decided that the only course of action left was to send Elton to America. Tasked with finding takers Stateside, Ray Williams had little luck. “I remember the first effort to get a gig was in New York,” Ray said. “It was Chartwell Artists. And they offered us fifty bucks, and I said, ‘No.’ Then I get a call from a guy called Jerry Heller, and he said, ‘Look, I can get you a gig in L.A. for $150.’ And I said, ‘No, this is ridiculous.’”

  Russ Regan suggested Ray talk to Doug Weston, owner of the Troubadour, a showcase club in West Hollywood. “[Uni/MCA] was looking for an anchor date on a proposed tour by this new artist,” Weston said, “so I listened to about half the [Elton John] record and immediately got very, very excited. I then gave the go-ahead to book him into the Troubadour. There was no record play on him at the time, but we booked him in as a headliner nonetheless.”

  The venue offered the perfect strategic launching pad for Elton, boasting as it did a proven track record of fostering young talent. James Taylor, Neil Young and Bob Dylan had all played early gigs at the Troubadour. Counterculture comedic duo Cheech and Chong were discovered there, as was Steve Martin. The Eagles’ Don Henley and Glenn Frey first met at the Troubadour’s bar, later memorialized on the Eagles’ “Sad Café.” Lenny Bruce had even been arrested on the club’s stage back in ‘64 on obscenity charges.

  Despite the Troubadour’s storied history, Elton was dubious about the entire venture, underwhelmed at the prospect of having to travel halfway around the globe just to earn a measly $500—split three ways—for a full week’s effort. “I wanted to sort of maintain the reputation the band was getting over in England,” he said. “And I sulked and became a prima donna a little bit…I thought, ‘How the hell are they going to break a record by just playing a club for [a few] days?’”

  But Dick James was insistent. “It’s make-or-break time,” the avuncular publisher said, clapping a heavy hand on the pianist’s shoulder. “So make it. Otherwise I know of a shoe store just down the road from the Troubadour. You can all stay in California and get jobs making shoes there, as far as I’m concerned. It’s sink or swim, lads. Am I coming through?”

  He was, in fact. Loud and clear.

  If this trip were really going to happen, Elton decided, he might as well go in style. Swinging by Mr. Freedom’s, a clothes boutique on Kensington Church Street, he bought some proper threads for his foray into the unknown. His purchases included a yellow jumpsuit with a piano design ironed on across the back, green-winged boots, a tweed cap, and a wide leather belt with oversized Texan stars. They were the first seeds of sartorial excess, the fruits of which no one could have quite imagined.

  Seventy-two hours later, a Pan Am jumbo jet was screaming across the North Pole. Stuffed into its cramped economy-class seats sat Elton, Bernie, Nigel, Dee, Steve Brown, Ray Williams, Bob Stacey and David Larkham.

  Elton stared restlessly out his tiny oval window for most of the thirteen-hour, 5,472-mile trip. Beneath his massive nerves thrummed an unchecked excitement at finally being able to visit the mecca of rock ‘n’ roll, the fabled land from which his favorite music had sprung. “I’m much more into American bands than British bands,” he said. “Most of the British bands are hung up on loud guitars and tight trousers, they’re just a flash. All the American bands stay together for such a long time and really get into each other. Bands like Spirit, Airplane, Steve Miller, the Band and the old Buffalo Springfield create so much atmosphere. They concentrate on communication rather than being pop stars.”

  Elton and his entourage touched down at LAX on a balmy Friday afternoon, in a land disenchanted by the Vietnam War and distrustful of their own president.

  The eight Brits were met by a bright red London Routemaster double-decker bus, upon which a giant banner shamelessly proclaimed “ELTON JOHN HAS ARRIVED.” The bus was the misguided pièce de résistance of flamboyant press agent Norm Winter. Hired by Ray Williams to help spread the word about Elton in L.A., the ten-gallon-hat-wearing Winter had thrown everything he had into promoting the unknown pianist—purchasing billboards up and down Sunset Strip, making sure that Elton’s album was well-stocked in every local record shop, and glad-handing disc jockeys the entire week preceding his arrival.

  “We became so excited it became almost like an orgasm,” Winter said. “We treated him as if an Elvis Presley was opening in Vegas, even though nobody had ever heard of Elton John.”

  Elton appreciated Winter’s enthusiasm, yet would have much preferred being to have been picked up by a Cadillac. Something luxurious. Something American. “I found that [bus] extremely embarrassing,” he said. “Everyone was sort of getting into a crouch and trying to hide below the windows. It seemed like a cheap trick. I really couldn’t believe it. I didn’t think it was happening. I mean, I’m a great lover of things that are done with taste…and double-decker buses don’t qualify.”

  The bus struggled through the sun-dazzled traffic on the 405 for what seemed like hours, rusted gears grinding. To help pass the time, Elton began a running commentary on the outlandishly dressed hippies they passed out on the sunbaked sidewalks.

  “There’s a splendid lad, this one in the leopard-skin fedora, eh?” he said in his best Goon voice. “Me and Eccles know where he wented, Captain. Not likely, that. Eh?”

  Bernie, meanwhile, gawked in disbelief at the endless landscape of neon-lit taco joints and burger stands that rolled past his double-paned window, until finally the group made it downtown.

  “We got to the Sunset Strip and it was like being on parade,” Nigel later recalled in the BBC documentary, The Making of Elton John. “It was just unbelievable. The California sunshine and the pretty girls all over the place. It was amazing.”

  Elton checked into the Continental Hyatt House under the name William A. Bong—a reworking of billabong, an isolated lake—his tongue planted firmly in his cheek. Once his entourage was settled in, they were immediately hustled back out the lobby doors and off to the Troubadour, where Longbranch Pennywhistle—which featured future Eagles coconspirators Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther—were appearing alongside cult bluegrass band the Dillards.

  “They were incredible,” Elton said. “Just knocked me out.”

  Later that night, Three Dog Night’s Danny Hutton took Elton and Bernie to the Black Rabbit, a restaurant on Melrose Avenue owned by Billy James, a publicist who had been instrumental in launching Bob Dylan’s career. After dinner, Hutton drove Elton and Bernie up to his house, where Elton played piano for hours. Up close, Hutton was even more impressed with his musical prowess.

  “I phoned up Van Dyke Parks,” Hutton told author Mark Bego, “and said, ‘You had better come over
and check this cat out.’ So Van Dyke came up, and I remember he sat on the floor next to the piano, and….Elton just sat there playing.” For his part, Van Dyke was impressed yet skeptical, feeling that Elton “was somewhat too imitative of Leon Russell.” But Hutton remained wholly convinced. “It was just mind-blowing,” he said.

  An early highlight of the trip came the next day, when Elton and Bernie were taken to Tower Records. The songwriters were in all their glory, gladly emptying their less-than-bulging pockets to purchase as many records as they possibly could.

  “The reason I came over to play the Troubadour,” Elton later told Phonograph Record magazine, “was because I wanted to go to a record shop. I didn’t want to play at the Troubadour. I thought it was going to be a joke. I thought it was going to be a complete hype and I thought it was going to be a disaster, and I just really wanted to go to an American record store and buy some albums.”

  “Elton’s a musicologist,” Russ Regan said. “He appreciates other artists, which is great. Some artists are so much into themselves that they don’t appreciate other artists. But he does. Which is just wonderful, it’s a wonderful trait to have.”

  Back at the Hyatt House, and in desperate need of that most essential piece of preening rock star gear—a hairdryer—Ray Williams called up an old girlfriend, Joanne Malouf. Joanne was out of the country, but her younger sister, Janis, volunteered to bring her hairdryer by. She arrived an hour later, accompanied by a lithesome, honey-voiced blonde named Maxine Feibelman. Bernie was immediately taken with the blond-tressed flower child.

  “California was it, man,” he said. “Fabulous. It was the candy store.”

  Janice and Maxine offered to show the newly arrived Englishmen the local sights. Elton demurred, preferring to explore his latest record purchases in his room. Soon enough, however, he found his self-exile less than ideal. Sitting alone in his nondescript hotel room while his compatriots raided second-hand clothing shops in Palm Springs and got drunk at the edge of the desert, Elton quickly sunk into a blue funk.

  Manager Ray Williams hadn’t given a second thought about leaving his charge alone. “Elton was really nervous about the Troubadour,” he said. “But of course me, considering us as friends rather than as a business thing, didn’t even stop to think that he was shitting himself back at the hotel.”

  Feeling abandoned, Elton called Dick James back in England.

  “I’m going the fuck home!” he howled across the international wires. “I don’t want to be here! I’ve had enough! I’m fucking leaving!”

  “Where’s Ray?” a confused James asked. “Isn’t he there with you?”

  “He’s in Palm-fucking-Springs!”

  “Just calm down.”

  “I’m going the fuck home!”

  Elton slammed the receiver down, kicked his bedside table over, then sat quietly on the edge of his neatly made bed, waiting impatiently for the fractious storm to pass.

  “That’s where Elton and I started to fall apart,” Ray said years later. “That’s where the split really started.”

  A recomposed Elton attended a small party at Neil Diamond’s house off Coldwater Canyon that Sunday. The pianist was particularly excited—the last album he’d purchased back in England before his trip had been Diamond’s Tap Root Manuscript. Diamond was pleased—the “I Am…I Said” singer was not only a fan of the Elton John album, but also a fellow label mate; given that, he readily agreed to introduce Elton onto stage opening night. He was willing to do anything that he could do to help the introspective lad who seemingly had the odds stacked against him.

  “He sat in my living room holding his cap in his lap,” Diamond said. “He was super quiet and shy. I thought to myself, ‘This kid’s never gonna make it.’”

  On Monday, the day before Elton’s first show, Uni Records arranged for he and his group to be taken on a VIP trip to Disneyland. It was the pianist’s first ride in a limousine, and his first real taste of star treatment, as he and Bernie and Dee and Nigel were ushered past long lines of people waiting for the bumper cars and rollercoasters.

  Later that afternoon, roadie Bob Stacey began setting up Nigel’s enormous drum kit on the Troubadour’s tiny wooden stage. Sitting behind the house piano, Elton counted Nigel and Dee in. Together they ran through a four-song soundcheck. It felt good to them, being their first opportunity to play together since a London rehearsal the Thursday prior.

  “We still had it,” Dee said. “Everything was fine.”

  Russ Regan, who wasn’t able to attend the soundcheck due to a scheduling conflict, sent Rick Frio, Uni’s national sales director, over in his stead. “He called me from the Troubadour,” Regan later recalled, “and he said, ‘You’re not gonna believe this guy. He’s got a three-piece band, but they sound like an orchestra. Elton’s incredible.’ And I said, ‘Oh my God.’”

  Tuesday night, August 25, 1970 was a muggy night. The dimly lit Troubadour Club was hot and smoky, music industry insiders chatting around tiny wicker tables while the bar in front bustled with activity.

  When he arrived, Elton immediately took notice of the fact that his name was listed above that of folk singer David Ackles, whom he was sharing the bill with. The pianist hustled inside, found Doug Weston in his office, and insisted that Ackles name be given top-billing.

  “He’s a bloody living legend and I’m a nobody,” Elton snarled.

  But Weston refused to change the billing—Elton was the headliner, and that was that.

  The pianist couldn’t believe it. “There was no way that anyone could have convinced me that I should be above David Ackles…I was flabbergasted.”

  Stunned, Elton joined Nigel and Dee in their miniscule dressing room. He sipped a Coke. Shut his eyes. Rested his chin on his chest.

  Nigel and Dee glanced at each other warily. Ten silent minutes past. When the wall clock hit ten o’clock sharp, Dee clapped his hands together.

  “Showtime, lads,” the slender bassist said with a grin. “Lord help us.”

  Neil Diamond took to the stage to make the introductions. “I’ve never done this before, so please be kind,” he told the two-hundred-and-fifty in attendance. “I know Elton John’s album and I love the album, and I have no idea what these people are about to do. I just want to take my seat and enjoy this with you.”

  A bearded Elton stepped onto stage moments later in blue jeans, his Texan star belt and a blood-red T-shirt which brazenly proclaimed: rock ‘n’ roll.

  Many of the agents, writers and concert promoters who made up the bulk of the audience were still hanging out by the bar as the visibly nervous pianist began his set with the quietly introspective “Your Song.”

  “Thank you,” Elton said afterward to polite applause.

  “Elton appeared extremely shy and nervous,” music critic Robert Hilburn noted in his memoir, Corn Flakes with John Lennon. “He kept his eyes on the piano and the microphone in front of him. Someone next to me whispered that Elton had better be a good songwriter, because he certainly wasn’t a very compelling performer.” Ignoring his compatriot, Hilburn closed his eyes and concentrated on the music. “The tone felt wonderfully soothing after the emotional turbulence of the 1960s,” he said. “Elton’s approach, it turned out, was one of the first signs that the creative center of pop music was changing direction in the new decade.”

  Hilburn was one of the few inside the Troubadour impressed by the lilting ballad. Boisterous conversations emanated from the bar through the song.

  “Right!” Elton shouted, angrily kicking his piano stool away. “If you won’t listen, perhaps you’ll bloody well listen to this!”

  He and his band crashed headlong into “Bad Side of the Moon,” Nigel’s thunderous drums exploding like thunder as Elton’s piano battled with Dee’s arpeggiated bass riffs.

  Heads turned.

  Conversations ceased.

  “We just made a lot of noise,” Dee said. “We had to make up for the orc
hestra. We hit that thing so big.”

  Blues-folk singer Odetta leapt out of her chair and shook her mighty torso manically to the fervent music. The entire crowd soon joined in, rising as one.

  “It gave me chills,” Russ Regan said. “From that point on, it was all over. Everyone in the audience knew something very, very special was happening.”

  A startled Carole King couldn’t believe what she was witnessing. “I was blown away, like everybody else,” she recalled years later. “Wow. Great songs, great performance, great presence. And then Elton just took it to an Elton level.”

  A couple tables over from King sat T-Bone Burnett. “This young English cat…blew the place apart,” he said. “I was sitting about twenty feet from him…It was beautiful and free.”

  Neil Young was also impressed by the Briton’s boundary-breaking set. “[Elton’s music] caught my ear,” the “Heart of Gold” said. “It wasn’t like rock ‘n’ roll, but it wasn’t like pure pop, either. I didn’t know what it was. That’s what got me about it. It seemed like an extension of something. It was something I hadn’t heard before.”

  Standing against the far wall stood a bedraggled, pre-Eagles Don Henley. “I don’t know how I got in,” he later told Billboard, “but I was among the fortunate ones who gathered there on the evening of August 25 to hear the latest rage from England…That night, Elton John forever changed the history of popular music.”

  “Nobody had ever seen anybody playing a piano with their feet up in the air like that,” Doug Weston said. “[Elton] literally flew…In the whole eighteen years of Troubadour history, no artist had ever captured the town as completely and thoroughly. It was unique for a total unknown to have gotten such a widely positive response. The Elton John situation was nothing short of phenomenal.”