Even with the slight dust-up, the pianist was decidedly pleased with his efforts. “We had tried to change with every album up to that point,” he said, “but Blue Moves was the most drastic. I was aware that we had been at the peak of our careers, and that that was going to level off. And we just did a blatantly uncommercial album. It wasn’t on purpose—it’s full of fine songs and has a great band. I think Blue Moves is a very poignant album. We were all weary, feeling the pressure, and needed a break. Out of those situations comes rawness, and some of the lyrics are desperate…Musically, I attribute it to the Elton John album—lots of slow, romantic songs and jazzy-type tinges in them. Three instrumentals. But who knows?”
Unable to appreciate the more subtle charms the collection had to offer, Robert Christgau lamented that “none of the few rockers on this impossibly weepy and excessive double-LP match anything on Rock of the Westies,” while Rolling Stone’s Ariel Swartley condemned the work as “one of the most desperately pretentious albums around. It’s a two-record catalog of musical excess.”
But Sounds’ Mick Brown dissented. “Even before I’d heard one note of Blue Moves, I had divined that this album was going to be the Big One,” he wrote. “This is an album that’s going to slowly insinuate its way into your bloodstream, pump round your body for a few days and finally end up lodging in your brain, rather than grabbing you by the throat and demanding you to take notice. It couldn’t be otherwise.” Much in the same vein, ZigZag’s John Tobler declared the work “absolutely essential listening…In fact, this is the album for which 1976 will be remembered. Forget Frampton, Stevie Wonder and all the rest—they’re by no means bad records, but they just don’t live next to this one.”
“Elton has given us a more-than-generous supply of often-breathtaking, often moving rock ‘n’ roll to sing along with,” Phonograph Record’s Bud Scoppa noted days later in his review. “Theme music for all of us, like we haven’t had in ages. Because of the hours, days and dawns we’ve spent together, I’ve come to think of this now-scratchy album as a buddy.”
“It’s a different album,” Caleb said. “I think it was ahead of its time. There was some great musical stuff on there. That band was very tight, and we had already toured from the previous album, so we got very tight on the road. Ninety percent of the Blue Moves album was done live in the studio, very few overdubs. A lot of the solos were done live. Roger Pope’s drumming, with Ray Cooper’s percussion, that was all done live. It was a great album, great musicians. There wasn’t a weak link in the band at all.”
The broodingly contemplative LP was destined to become Elton’s personal favorite. Bernie’s, as well. “Blue Moves was like our Mount Everest in many ways,” the lyricist said. “Elton had filled every major stadium in the world. We’d written strings of Number One records. You couldn’t fart without hearing Elton John…It felt like there was no way we could go any further. There was only one way to go from here.”
“[Blue Moves] was a steel curtain for me,” Elton was to later reflect. “It slammed down, and things weren’t quite the same after.”
The first order of change occurred the very night Blue Moves was released, at Rocket Records’ Annual General Meeting, when Gus Dudgeon unexpectedly quit.
“That evening there was a press reception,” the producer told journalist David Wright. “Everyone was going to be in [England] at last—Bernie, John, Elton, all the directors of the company. There were a lot of things about Rocket that I really didn’t like, so I let one particular person know a good month before the meeting that there were a lot of things I was very upset about. And that unless they were taken care of, I was going to have to quit.”
During the meeting, Gus noticed Elton seemed particularly restless.
“Someone turned to me and said, ‘Gus, we understand that you’ve got some particular things you want to discuss.’ I said, ‘Yeah, I do. The things I think need to be taken care of are as follows…’” The producer then listed a half-dozen items which he felt had to be addressed, from signing Dave Edmunds to instituting tighter accounting protocols. “Everyone sat there and listened, and Elton was shuffling about more and more. When I finished, there was a long silence.”
“Well, quite honestly, Gus,” John Reid said, “we don’t agree with you.”
“So what you’re saying is that you don’t agree with anything I’ve proposed, and you understand that if these things aren’t sorted out, I’m going to have to go?”
“Yes.”
The producer stood. “Well, okay. Looks like we have nothing more to discuss.”
Stepping out of the office, Gus stayed by the door for a good ten seconds. “[I was] waiting for someone to go, ‘Hang on, Gus. Hold it. Let’s talk about this.’ And no one did. So I thought, ‘Right. Well, I’ve obviously made the right decision.’ And off I went.”
The producer fully understood that severing ties from Rocket meant severing ties with Elton as his producer as well, but it didn’t matter—they had already accomplished everything they’d originally set out to do, and much more. “I felt I needed to quit, and I was very glad I did,” Gus told East End Lights’ John F. Higgins. “I mean, okay, yes, of course my income altered very radically. But so what? I’ve got to live with myself, and you have to have some pride. That’s what it really comes down to—pride.”
Elton was nonplussed about the separation. “I haven’t fallen out with Gus,” he said. “But I honestly believe that after fourteen albums we needed a break from each other. Also, by now I know exactly what I want.”
Blue Moves relative chart failure (“We thought we were finished,” Bernie admitted)—combined with Gus’ unceremonious exit—forced Elton and his lyricist to reevaluate their nearly decade-long partnership.
“I didn’t think we had any choice but to take a break,” Bernie said. “I had to run away from it, because I was frightened to keep going. I was frightened of failure. I’m sure drugs, alcohol, the geographical thing, it all contributed. But the base core of it was, I don’t know if we knew what we wanted to do next. Or if we could do it. But we never argued about it.”
The amicable break was, seemingly, a minor hiccup, as—for the fourth year in a row—Elton topped the list of the world’s most successful entertainers, earning the first Platinum double album ever as well as laying claim to the top-selling single of the year. His concert gross receipts topped those of Elvis Presley, Led Zeppelin, Paul McCartney & Wings, the Who, Bob Dylan and everybody else. He was still, ostensibly, at the very top of the heap.
But that was about to change.
Part Five:
A Single Man
Chapter 31:
The Blue Max
1977 began with relative calm. Declaring to Daily Express’ David Wigg on January 27 that he’d “had five or six great years, but I have to say goodbye to that era, I have to start from the word go again,” Elton went on to claim that he “would rather have a wife and children [than a full-time career], because I adore children. That’s one of the things I would really like to do.” When asked about his enormous salary as the world’s top-earning rock star, the singer was forthright. “Sure, I’m earning more than a doctor or a nurse, but then I’m paying more to help bail out this country. I think people tend to forget that a lot of the time.”
The interview served as modest damage control for the continued fallout that had been generated by Elton’s Rolling Stone admission. Also helping mitigate matters—to some lesser degree—was the February 4 release of his latest U.K. single, “Crazy Water.” Backed with “Chameleon,” the single quickly broke into the Top 40, ultimately managing a modest Number 27 placement.
Though the cracks were clearly beginning to show, that didn’t stop the pianist from still proving popular in America as well, taking the Favorite Rock or Pop Vocalist nod on The People’s Choice Awards.
Unable to accept the award himself, Elton sent Ronnie Wood and Keith Moon on his behalf.
“Elton gave
me a special message to say tonight,” a visibly confused Moon said, fumbling with a handwritten scroll.
“Which, in fact, he can’t remember,” Wood teased. “But I know [Elton] would love to say, ‘Thank you,’ wouldn’t he?”
Moon blinked. “Yeah, he’d love to say thank you.”
“Stupid boy.”
“Stupid boy,” Moon repeated amiably.
Though Elton and Bernie’s professional sabbatical was by now in full effect, their personal friendship was still very much alive and kicking, as evidenced by their joint attendance at Frank Sinatra’s March 1 concert at the Royal Albert Hall.
“Here’s an interesting song, fairly new, by Elton John,” Ol’ Blue Eyes announced, breaking into a tenderly nuanced rendition of “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word.” After the song ended to enthusiastic applause, Sinatra asked the songwriters to stand up and take a bow. “I nearly died,” Elton said. “[Sinatra’s] someone I admire because he always credits the writer, the arranger, and he tries not just to do his old songs, he tries to do obscure things. As an artist, he’s remarkable.”
Elton was so flattered by Sinatra’s attentions, he decided to suspend the self-imposed hiatus he and Bernie had implemented long enough to write one final song together. The result was “Remember (I’m Still in Love with You),” a tender ballad specifically tailored to the iconic crooner’s barroom style. Sinatra would eventually record the song the following July, at TBS Studios in Burbank, California. Mysteriously, his version of the lonesome plaint would remain forever locked in the vaults, though singer Donatella Rettore would score a Top 10 hit with her rendition in 1981.
Writing “Remember” proved a one-off blip on Elton’s creative radar, as eventless days turned into restless months. Finding himself alone in his Windsor manse with no commitments in front of him for the first time in his adult life, Elton became despondent. “I thought, ‘What am I going to do? Sit here for two years?’”
Salvation came, as it had so many times before, in the form of the Watford Football Club, which offered Elton their chairmanship on June 11, following the resignation of sixty-nine-year-old Jim Bonser. “If I didn’t have [the chairmanship], I don’t know what would have happened to me,” he later admitted to Chris Charlesworth. “I owe a great deal to Watford. They gave me a sense of balance. They were the sanity to the pop side of it all. They say they owe a lot to me, but I owe far more. I dream about standing there in the Directors’ Box the night that Watford wins promotion. All the time, that’s my one dream.”
Elton turned thirty that weekend. He wasn’t alone in hitting a major milestone, however—the music industry itself was feeling its age as punk rock exploded onto the scene, threatening to shove established stars such as Elton off to the sidelines. “The first time I saw punk,” he said, “was on the Janet Street-Porter Saturday morning show, when she did an interview with the Sex Pistols, Siouxsie and the Banshees and the Clash. I sat there in my bed in Windsor watching it, and I got slagged off by one of them. But it was kind of endearing. ‘God,’ I thought, ‘you cheeky buggers.’” Recognizing the protean nature of musical fashions, he remained equanimous about the entire situation. “Five years ago it was high-heeled shoes. Now it’s safety pins through the nose. The funny thing is, they have all the same things as we have. There’s no way they can avoid having their Rolls-Royces, their accountants. They’ll end up the same as we do.”
While sipping a scotch and soda in Watford’s boardroom during a Saturday afternoon match against Sunderland AFC, Elton noticed a familiar face from the past—George Hill, owner of the Northwood Hills Hotel pub where he’d gotten his professional start years before. The two men got to talking. After the game, George invited Elton back to the pub to look around his old stamping grounds. The pianist was greeted by George’s wife, Ann, and their eighteen-year-old son, Andrew, who was preparing to head to university that coming fall.
“You shouldn’t go straight from A-levels to college,” he told Andrew. “Take some time off first. See the world, broaden your horizons.”
Elton offered to take him on as his personal assistant for a year, as a way of thanking George and Ann for their kindness to him years before. Paid £420 per month, Andrew’s first duty was to follow the superstar on a trip to the United States. “Elton turned up for the Concorde flight trip in white shorts,” Hill later recalled to author Philip Norman. “And each of his socks was a different color, and each of his shoes was a different pattern.”
It didn’t take long for Hill to notice how lonely the pianist’s life truly was. “Everyone else in [Elton’s] organization had a circle of friends that they could call on at the end of the day. Elton had good friends, but they didn’t make any kind of structure around him. I couldn’t believe how this incredible figure, who was the envy of millions, used to go back to an empty house most nights, and just be there on his own.”
Left to his own lonesome devices, Elton had more than enough time to ponder his life and career. Yet foremost in his thoughts was the fate of his football club. Eager to help lift Watford out of their extended slump, he attempted to secure the services of manager Graham Taylor.
“I thought it was the last thing I wanted, to go back into the Fourth Division,” Taylor said, “managing some southern club with an outrageous pop star messing around as chairman.” Yet the coach eventually succumbed to Elton’s persistence. “What impressed me was Elton’s reaction when I rang him to say no. I expected him to try to hustle me with big talk about money and potential. But he didn’t argue, didn’t try to change my mind. Just wished me all the best at Lincoln and said he hoped he might see me one day. By the time I rang off, I wanted to meet him.”
Within weeks, Taylor signed a five-year deal with Watford, officially taking over the club’s reins for the upcoming 1977-78 season.
Elton’s optimism grew boundless after this success. Yet beyond any eventual win/loss statistics on the pitch, he was well aware that Watford’s true and lasting value was in allowing him to shake free of the coddled superstar lifestyle which had kept him in a state of suspended animation for so many years. For the first time ever, he was beginning to live a life of true adult independence. “At the start [of my career] I was glad to be protected, because I was frightened of something,” he conceded to Sounds’ Phil Sutcliffe. “I don’t know what of. But then it got so that everything was done for me. The only thing I did for myself was get in the shower and wash. Royalty probably weren’t treated as well…I was being completely locked away, like a prize tiger…I know it’s boring, but being involved in the soccer club has brought me down to earth, mixing with the same people who used to go to the pub I played in when I was seventeen or eighteen.”
When not in Watford’s Director’s Box, Elton’s days were taken up with endless tennis matches against fellow enthusiasts like Rod Stewart and Roxy Music’s Bryan Ferry. He also began dating Melanie Green, the stunning seventeen-year-old daughter of an international banker whom he’d met at a Prince Charles-attended charity dinner at the Ritz Hotel the year before.
“[Melanie] came to post-gig parties but was not a regular companion in the sense of being a steady girlfriend,” a Rocket Records associate said. “Still, she was pretty wild for him there for a time. And he too, or so it seemed.”
“There’s no doubt in my mind that Elton was born to be straight,” Andrew Hill concurred. “If he hadn’t gone into the music business and met all those other people, he’d be living in Pinner now, happily married, surrounded by kids.”
The romance was short-lived, Elton deciding that the disparity in their ages was too prohibitive for any kind of sustained relationship. Thereafter, his love life fell “a bit off the rails”—as did that of old friend Kiki Dee, whose relationship with Davey Johnstone had recently ended. Evidence came in a pair of cryptic ads which appeared in The Time’s Personal Column weeks later. One read: Pauline from Sheffield would like to announce it is a year since she last had a man, while the other simply s
tated: Lord Choc Ice would like to announce it is 10 years since he travelled on a bus.
Elton attempted to soothe the wounds caused by his unfulfilled love life by turning to the one great constant in his life—music. Together with Clive Franks, he produced an album for Rocket Records’ latest signees, China, a group which featured ex-band members Davey Johnstone and James Newton Howard—who had formed a songwriting partnership during the Louder Than Concorde tour—along with drummer Roger Pope, guitarist Jo Partridge, and bassist Cooker Lo Presti.
The process of producing a full-length LP’s worth of material for an up-and-coming band proved both cathartic and fulfilling—unless, of course, you were the brightest star in the entirety of the rock firmament. Sure enough, it wasn’t long before the inevitable siren song of the stage came calling yet again. Elton found himself missing the chaos, the adrenalized waves of affection that rolled in nightly from shriek-filled chasms. Yet thoughts of pulling a band together and heading out on another lengthy world tour left him enervated.
It seemed an unresolvable quandary. Until one gray-skied Saturday afternoon, when—sitting alone at his piano, half-heartedly playing Chopin’s Piano Sonata No. 2, Op. 35—inspiration struck Elton hard. Why not perform a two-man show at an intimate theater? It would afford the pleasures of performing before a live audience without the extended commitments and byzantine machinations which inevitably drained the joy out of the whole experience.
The pianist phoned Ray Cooper, deciding that he would be the perfect foil, adding percussive depth without ruining the stark nature of the presentation he envisioned. Ray was intrigued by the idea—for reasons as much financial as artistic. “Suddenly the touring and the pay-packets stopped,” he noted of Elton’s dismissal of the band the year before, “and I had to go back to work. Everybody thinks you’re a millionaire because of your associations, but your bank balances are vastly different.”
Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s Page 55
