The single was soon followed by Yugoslavian songbird Zdenka Kovacicek’s disco offering, “Hallo [sic] Mr. Elton John.”
“I suppose this means I’ve made it,” Elton joked about the novelty 45s. “What a world, I say.”
The pianist was much more impressed by a test pressing John Reid played him of Queen’s upcoming single, an operatic phantasia entitled “Bohemian Rhapsody.”
“Are you fucking mad?” Elton said. “You can’t release that. It’s brilliant, but…it’s too much. Nobody’s gonna play that thing, not in a million fucking years. Play it again.”
Reid went back to Queen the next day.
“We’re on, boys,” he said with a Cheshire grin.
Elton cohosted the first annual telecast of the Rock Music Awards, on August 9. Broadcast live from the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, the production was the brainchild of rock impresario Don Kirshner, who’d originally gotten the idea for the show while at the Grammy Awards. “I said to myself, it’s absolutely incredible that there are no awards for such groups as Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones and other progressive rock musicians,” Kirshner said. “It was so blatantly obvious that these groups hadn’t been recognized…If country music can have its own awards program, why not rock?”
Decked out in a gold suit and rhinestone-studded glasses, Elton handed out awards to Bob Dylan, the Eagles, Joni Mitchell and Bad Company. Nominated himself in multiple categories—including Best Group and Best Pop Male Vocalist in a Rock Movie (Gus Dudgeon was also nominated for Best Producer)—Elton would win Best Rock Single for “Philadelphia Freedom,” as well as being named Outstanding Rock Personality of the Year.
“It might seem odd,” critic John Rockwell sniped in the New York Times, “that Mr. John was considered the year’s ‘outstanding personality’ when he wasn’t chosen the best male vocalist or the producer of the best single or album…For the best group, it seemed peculiar to include Mr. John’s band among the nominees, since he is such a strong solo artist and has disbanded his old group.”
Elton, for his part, himself was less put-off by any vagaries of the nominating process than by the tenor of the show itself. “We had a script meeting with CBS and it was the most disgusting thing I’ve ever heard in my life,” he said. “They wanted all shark jokes [because of Jaws], so they could reach the middle-aged in Peoria. I mean, they had David Janssen and Brenda Vaccaro and Michael Douglas presenting awards. What a joke. I was gonna get out, but I’d asked Diana Ross to be hostess on the show, and she was pregnant, and someone pointed out it would be harmful to her if I left her in the lurch.”
Despite Elton’s misgivings—and in large part directly thanks to his presence—the show pulled in over 40 million viewers, easily landing in the Nielson’s Top 10. The success of the broadcast gave the pianist an idea for an “all-time great” TV special. “Just have music all the way through and no bullshit,” he said. “With just people like Grand Central Station, and then you’d cut to the Ohio Players, and then you’d cut to the Who or something. Just go Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! with great sound. So we’re going to try and work on that.”
Elton turned his attention back to the performing stage. Making a pilgrimage of sorts to the site of his initial breakthrough, the Troubadour, he played a handful of five-year anniversary shows on August 25, 26 and 27. Demand for tickets was so high, a special postcard lottery raffle had to be held to allocate tickets in a fair manner; with more than two-hundred-thousand entries received, Elton and Bernie personally drew the winners.
The opening night gala performance was a true event, coming complete with complimentary champagne and a lobster buffet dinner. As had been the case half a decade earlier, Neil Diamond was on hand to introduce Elton onto stage.
Leading his band through a ninety-minute set which featured a revolving door of hits—as well as the premiere of “Street Kids”—Elton’s efforts were rewarded by multiple standing ovations from the celebrity-studded crowd, which included Tony Curtis, Hugh Hefner, Helen Reddy, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh, Cher, and Elton’s original drummer, Nigel Olsson.
“Now I know he’s the greatest,” Nigel said. “I’ve never been able to see him from [the audience] before. It’s weird being out here rather than on stage, but he’s just fantastic. Fantastic.”
Promoter Bill Graham was also impressed with the performance, which was a benefit for the Jules C. Stein Eye Institute at UCLA. Calling Elton’s new group the best band he’d ever seen in support of a vocalist, Graham went on to claim that their “fullness is something you just never get outside of a studio. It was an absolutely brilliant set. [Elton] is number one.”
Robert Hilburn, whose original Troubadour review was so instrumental in helping launch Elton back in 1970, noted the pianist’s growth as both a writer and performer. “He has not only created a major body of work,” the critic wrote, “but his light, good-natured manner on stage has helped kick much of the pompousness out of rock.” Still, Hilburn was disconcerted when he met up with the pianist after the show in a small trailer behind the club. “Uncharacteristically, he didn’t want to say hello to all the well-wishers,” Hilburn said. “Elton pulled me aside and said he wanted to tell me something just as a friend. The man who I thought was the anti-Joplin said his life was spinning out of control and that he had tried to commit suicide. All the joy in him seemed to have vanished.”
A special limited edition hardcover book, entitled Five Years of Fun, was created especially for those lucky enough to find themselves in attendance at the opening night performance. Written by Robert Hilburn and art directed by David Larkham, its yearbook-like pages provided a kaleidoscopic overview of Elton’s life from August 1970 to August 1975: Elton at the Troubadour, Elton at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium, Elton at Madison Square Garden. Elton with Annie Leibovitz, Tatum O’Neal, Richard Chamberlain and Candice Bergen. Elton posing beside Harry Nilsson, Martina Navratilova, John Lennon and Steve McQueen. Elton signing his eight-million-dollar contract. Elton clowning around with Bernie at the Caribou album cover shoot—Bernie pretending to relieve himself against the bucolic backdrop while a monocle-wearing Elton stares vacantly off into space, both of them swigging from bottles of Coors.
“The simplest and safest thing to say now,” Hilburn wrote in summation, “is that [Elton] has dominated pop music in the 1970s. He has not only helped reintroduce the element of fun to pop music through his stage shows, but he has, with the help of lyricist Bernie Taupin and record producer Gus Dudgeon, given us a body of work that has touched a wider and more celebrative pop audience than anyone since the day earlier in 1970 when Paul McCartney announced the end of another era was over. The consummate rock fan has, in short, become the consummate rock star.”
The Troubadour shows served as an extended rehearsal for Elton’s 15-date West of the Rockies tour. Opening on August 29 at the San Diego Sports Arena, multiple stadiums’ worth of tickets sold out as fast as overburdened Ticketron computers could spit them out. Hysteria reigned in each city where tickets became available. In Las Vegas, when a local deejay announced that tickets were about to go on sale at the Cinerama Dome—instead of at the expected Convention Center box office—a throng of desperate fans already lined up at the Convention Center raced madly across the desert. Once at the Cinerama Dome, one girl passed out in the 102-degree heat. Her friends got out of line, dragged her limp body beneath the shade of a palm tree, then immediately got back in line, even as hundreds more converged on the cinema.
“It looked like something out of a disaster movie,” fan Bob Bell said years later.
Though the shows themselves were as highly anticipated as ever, the core feel of the production had shifted. Swapping glitz for a harder edge, the gigs—powered by Roger’s deep-in-the-pocket drumming, and the cannonading twin-guitar assault of Davey Johnstone and Caleb Quaye—pushed the outer limits of rock ‘n’ roll lunacy. “It was the closest Elton had to a real zapping rock ‘n’ roll band,” Ray Cooper said. �
�This was a hard-edged band. Caleb doesn’t take any prisoners.”
Each concert was a marathon event, a thirty-song, four-hour extravaganza which encompassed every stage of Elton’s career. Opening with the gentle strains of “Your Song,” “I Need You to Turn To” and “Border Song,” Elton and his new band were soon dishing up shattering live-wire performances of “Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future),” “Island Girl” and “(Gotta Get a) Meal Ticket,” while also brocading their set with rare treats which included an extended workout on “Empty Sky” and a sinewy revamp of Caribou’s countrified pastiche, “Dixie Lily.” “Harmony” would also make its live debut during the tour. “It’s our most requested song, so we thought we’d better start doing it,” Elton said. “Because people came up to us and said, ‘Why don’t you sing it? It’s the only happy song on Yellow Brick Road.’”
Elton’s band was augmented for the tour by backup vocalists Jim Haas, Jon Joyce and Cindy Bullens. While Haas and Joyce had come to Elton’s attention through manager John Reid, Cindy Bullens’ route proved a bit more circuitous.
“I crashed a press party for Neil Sedaka, hosted by Rocket Records, at Cherokee Recording Studios in Hollywood on Wednesday, September 17,” Bullens said. “I had been hanging out at Cherokee, recording with Bob Crewe and singing backup on occasional sessions there. I had become friends with the owner, the Robb Brothers, and had heard that Elton was going to be at the studio for the party. The brothers and I were watching the party from the control room of Studio One, when I suddenly decided I was going to go in.” Walking into the party, Bullens headed straight for the food and tried to mingle. “After a few minutes, Elton walked up to me and asked me my name. I was in shock. He was the last person I expected to talk to. We chatted for a few minutes and then someone led him away. I thought I might get kicked out, but I didn’t. A few minutes later, one of his management team asked me what I did. I told her I was a singer. A few minutes after that, she came back up to me and asked me what I was doing for the next two months, and that Elton wanted to know if I wanted to go on the road with him. Two weeks later, I was on the road with Elton John. True story.”
The first time all three backing vocalists worked directly with Elton was at a rehearsal stage at Columbia Pictures.
“We’d been given a set list and told to learn our parts,” Jim Haas said. “Strange as it sounds, I sang top, Cindy sang the middle part, and Jon sang the bottom. Because most of Elton’s stuff back in that time, Nigel’s was the high voice. So we got a real edgy, kind of Brian Wilson/Frankie Valli sound going on up high, and everything else beneath it to fill it out. And we all just learned our parts and then we added things that we felt were essential, or good to do. The music was so good, it was a blast to work on. I mean, Davey was still there, he was still playing. But we also had Caleb and James Newton Howard, for Christ’s sake. You don’t get any better than that. It was a remarkable group of musicians, and Elton was so musically gifted. Every piece of music was a joy to work on. It never got old.”
Rolling Stone’s Ben Edmonds was effusive in his praise of an early show at the Las Vegas Convention Center, one of the few non-stadium gigs on the tour. “On a musical level,” he wrote, “Elton delivered, and the 6,000 people who packed the Las Vegas Convention Center got more than three hours of Elton’s best. On this night, Elton gave his people everything they wanted.”
The high Elton received from performing a great show was matchless. Yet they didn’t erase the darker moments that still haunted him. “I saw a couple occasions on the road never took it out on anyone else—but Elton would just lock himself away and he would go into this really deep, dark place,” Jim Haas said. “And nobody in the band even tried to approach him then. He just took things out on himself, he just stuck to himself and got very moody. But when he was fine and in a good mood, which was ninety-five percent of the time, we’d fly back from shows—we’d stay in one city and do the southern part of the tour, and then if we were in Phoenix and did Tucson or Denver, someplace close—and we got back relatively early, he would invite me up to his house to play baccarat. So just he and I would sit around and talk and play baccarat. He would disappear occasionally, and I’m sure he was back there doing a line or two, and he drank pretty heavily as well. He either had Southern Comfort or Jack Daniels. I remember a couple ties watching him down a whole quart of one or the other and then just taking off his clothes and diving into the pool. And it was time for me to go home, but I was worried that he was going to hit his head or drown in there, so I always stayed and made sure that he was okay, because by then everyone else was conked out. But the combination of the little white powder and booze—he was always a very alert, awake drunk. And he could play the shit out of baccarat. Very few times did I win. But we had a great time, and he was always very kind to me. Always interested in what I did for a living outside of when I was around with him, and what my goals were. He was a very nice guy.”
As always, Bernie once again joined the caravan as it lit out for territories old and new.
“I don’t sing and I don’t play anything, yet somehow I get treated like a rock ‘n’ roll star,” he said. “But I couldn’t live with the pressures Elton has. I hate going on stage, even when Elton makes me come on and wave. I prefer to stand aside and absorb the excitement.”
Whether on the road or off, Elton’s streak of musical achievements seemed unstoppable. Latest proof came that October, when “Bad Blood”—a single from Neil Sedaka’s Rocket Records album, The Hungry Years, which featured Bernie Taupin on the cover dressed as a hobo—reached the top spot on the Billboard charts. The effervescent track, featuring prominent backing vocals from Elton, became the most successful single in Sedaka’s entire career. The crooner was hardly surprised. “Within seven takes, [Elton had] put his voice on ‘Bad Blood’ perfectly. I knew then it would be a big hit. It was full of energy.” While in Clover Studios on Santa Monica Boulevard, Elton also lent his voice to a bouncy trifle called “Steppin’ Out.” “I played him three or four songs,” Sedaka told East End Light’s Kevin Bell. “I played him ‘Your Favorite Entertainer’, [and] I said, ‘Do you want to do background on that?’ He said, ‘Maybe not’…Then I played him ‘Steppin’ Out’, [and] he said, ‘I want to do that.’ And ‘Bad Blood’, he said, ‘I want to do that.’ He was kind enough to accept both of them…I will be indebted to Elton forever…He’s a genius of all time. Everything he touches is perfection.”
Elton then lent a hand in the America resurrection of Cliff Richard, helping shepherd “Devil Woman” into the Top 10 and securing a Gold disc for the Peter Pan of British pop. The pianist was only too glad to help. “I admire Cliff very much,” he said, “as he’s kept a hold on what he believes in and also makes very good music.”
Yet despite the faultless Midas Touch that Elton displayed with others, his attempts at releasing his own “Dan Dare (Pilot of the Future)” as the leadoff single from his upcoming album proved futile. Manager John Reid—supported by MCA executives—insisted that “Island Girl” get the nod instead, and so it did. Backed with “Sugar on the Floor,” the rhythmic A-side, released on September 19, quickly stormed up the charts. Within weeks, “Island Girl” knocked “Bad Blood” out of the top spot and became Elton’s third U.S. Number 1 single of the year.
“Island Girl” proved a mere appetizer for the main feast, when, on October 4, the unapologetic guitar crunch of Rock of the Westies was released. The album, which had gone through various title changes during its brief gestation—from Bottled and Brained to Street Kids to It’s Banana Time Again—hit record store racks with a preorder sale in excess of one million copies. Seemingly a fait accompli—and abounding as it did with casual stunners—the collection became, after Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, only the second album to ever enter the Billboard charts at Number 1, as well as Elton’s seventh consecutive chart-topping studio LP, a feat never accomplished before.
“We were elated and devastated all at once,”
Bernie said. “We thought, ‘Well, we’ve finally done it.’ But then we thought, ‘Where to now?’”
“Elton could shit bricks and people would go out and buy them,” the Who’s Pete Townshend wryly noted.
The packaging for Rock of the Westies—the final studio product Elton owed to DJM (though a “floater” disc, either a hits collection or a live album, still remained contractually due)—featured the peerless photographic work of Terry O’Neill. “I set up the back cover picture of the band on one of the log cabin verandas,” he said. “The front cover shot was just a casual shot snatched of Elton while he was having breakfast al fresco. Nothing posed, just an off-the-cuff shot.” Each band member was also featured on the inner sleeve, their individual portraits boasting cheeky bio write-ups. Elton was “a boring little musician” who was “prone to getting fat at Christmas,” while Bernie was described as “a small, almost midget-sized Lincolnshire Imp whose main interest in life is trying to pass wind while suffering from the acute runs. Has succeeded in this with his second-form lyrics.”
“Elton John was great,” the Tubes’ outrageous lead singer, Fee Waybill said. “Being out here in San Francisco, we didn’t care that he was gay. We thought it was cool. He was the greatest. And on Rock of the Westies, under the picture of the guitar player, Caleb Quaye, it said, ‘Caleb Quaye, not to be confused with Quay Lewd of the Tubes’. I just thought that was really cool. So yeah, I’ve always loved Elton John. Great singer, great songs. He’s the real deal. I’ve always been a fan.”
The LP, which featured handwritten lyrics courtesy of Denise McMurtrie, wife of Rocket Records’ art designer Hogie McMurtrie, was dedicated to Nigel and Dee. Though neither musician appreciated the gesture, the general public did—Rock of the Westies would stay atop the U.S. charts for the better part of a month.
Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s Page 46
