Today(January 26, 2013), Elton John's Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only The Piano Player was released on this very day, 40 years ago. As much as I dig Daniel and Croc, I love the deep cuts(Teacher, I Need You, High Flying Bird, and Blues For My Baby And Me). I bought this used many years ago at FYE, and haven't stopped listening to it since. How about all of you?
i don't like elton john and he's not prog....
Here is a review I wrote many years ago:
"After "Honky Chateau" became Elton's first album to top the charts, he continued on with this next release in a still more commercial direction. This album gets mixed reviews from Elton fans. Fans of his older material cried sell out, as Elton continued to gain more and more commercial success. This, and the previous album, gained Elton a whole new following of fans at the time. For me "Piano Player" is a solid album and although not Elton's best, it is mostly quite good. Of the two hit singles I like "Daniel" a lot better than "Crocodile Rock", which never really clicked with me. Of the album tracks there are several good to great ones including "Teacher I Need You" (which pre-dated Van Halen's "Hot For Teacher" by about a decade), the funky pop rock of "Elderberry Wine", "Blues For My Baby And Me", the epic "Have Mercy On The Criminal" which is my favorite song on the disc, and the album closer "High Flying Bird". Elton was on a commercial role at this time and "Don't Shoot Me" remains one of his classics."
Steve Sly
This one I'm not familiar with, but after a certain lady from East NY played Madman Across The Water for me, I've been finding myself a little bit more open to hearing more Elton John.
"Madman" is better than "Don't Shoot Me" IMO. Elton has done some absolute crap over the years, but he has also done some brilliant stuff. To My ears "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" is still his all time best, but many of his other albums are also worth exploring.Originally Posted by GuitarGeek
Steve Sly
Pity they didn't shoot him !
They did shoot him, but soon found he was a fiction character.
Well, this is the OT forum.
But EJ hasn't been without his prog moments - Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding, for example. And the clincher - Rick Wakeman (PBUH) has played on his albums.
Best track of the album IMO'Blues For My Baby And Me',
plus his appearence in the movie "Tommy"
Big fan of Elton John up until and including Captain Fantastic. After that it gets really spotty, but I do dig a lot of 'Rock of the Westies'.
Madman is a great album that I somehow wound up with a cassette of as a kid. This one I've not heard and thought was a Billy Joel album when I read the subject line. Was Elton already dressing as Donald Duck at this point?
"Crocodile Rock" is the one I never could stand. Well, ok, it was funny when he performed it on the Muppet Show. Otherwise I just never went for the whole 50s pop pastiche. (Yes, I know that was exactly the point of the song - talking only about my taste here.)
Otherwise, though, there's a lot here that's too overlooked. As a whole I'd rank the album a step below EJ self-titled and Tumbleweed Connection, but that still makes it a fine piece of pop. Most of the other tunes are at least as solid as "Daniel," which really does deserve the exposure it's gotten (cheezy synth and all, it's simply a lovely song).
IIRC Elton said somewhere that Bernie originally wrote a third verse for "Daniel" that basically cleared up what it was all about, but was left out for some reason (time?). Not having read it, I still think the thing probably works better without.
Last edited by Spiral; 01-28-2013 at 03:41 PM.
I am pretty sure I have read that somewhere too. The song is about a soldier being shipped off to Vietnam.
Steve Sly
I'm young enough that particular TV appearance was my first exposure to Elton John. Crocodile Rock is the first song of the show, he performs it in a swamp, with singing crocodiles doing the vocal riffs between the verses. Then at the end he falls over into the water. Cut to backstage where Kermit is admonishing the crocodiles. I think it was something like "NEVER eat the guest at the beginning of the show!".
Great album, as you said, JIF, and indeed it is the "deep cuts": Blues for Baby and Me, High Flying Bird<two of Taupin's/John's FINEST moments if you ask me, Have Mercy on the Criminal<no sloch either on the brilliance scale if you ask me & Midnight Creeper, I'm going To Be A Teenage Idol and Texan Love Song. How can you go wrong with all that plus the obvious hits. A great album. Or did I say that already...
!
Peace,
Alex
and you're in this thread just to say that? cool
actually, Elton has some (god help me for using the term) "Prog cred" and has recorded some very progressive tracks. at least, at the time they came out, they struck me and plenty others as such. that said, who cares if it's Prog or not, eh? i suspect you're kidding but thought that should be pointed out anyway...
Madman Across The Water was a very unique recording for it's time, for one example. of course, there's the usual one which gets referenced, "Love Lies Bleeding" which is very much in the vein. however, he's had plenty of others. "Belfast" and other later things even show a level of sophistication that i associate with progressive music (not particularly Prog though). i think he has lots of good, progressive aspects to chew on in his discography.
first and foremost though, he's just a brilliant songwriter who has written numerous classics, like them or not. i personally do, being, at one time, a very big fan.
this album was one of his best, imho.
K
And the code is a play, a play is a song, a song is a film, a film is a dance...
As a means of tying this to another off topic thread here, last night I dug out a book I bought when I was a teenager, called The Concerts. This is basically a coffee table book, with a grab bag of concert photos of everyone ranging from Chuck Berry to Pink Floyd to The Runaways to The Clash, all taken during the mid 70's. One of the photos shows The Beach Boys performing, with Elton John sitting on piano.
The capes alone should qualify him, don'tcha think? Plus, he made a - [insert fanfare here] - Concept Album, complete with detailed cartoon artwork.
Did this book have pics of Styx in boxing uniforms? If so, I rented that book from the library once.
No, no pictures of Styx in the book at all. It's a weird book, because there's all manners of music genres represented. You've got photos of Bob Dylan, photos of Nick Lowe, photos of Hawkwind (from what appears to be the Space Ritual tour), photos of The Runaways (Lita Ford looks totally hot in black leather and playing a Hamer Explorer), photos of The Everly Brothers, there's a picture of Leon Russell and Freddie King jamming onstage, pictures of Clapton, pictures of Zappa (specifically a double page photo montage that was partially used on the back of the one and only Zappa bootleg I own on vinyl), there's a bunch of photos of The Tubes in their crazed mid 70's stage costumes (including a series photos that appear to depict Fee Waybill wrestling with a woman onstage), there's a couple pictures of Hatfield And The North...shit, about the only people who aren't in this book are Genesis, ELP, and Elvis. And Styx.
Supposedly the pictures are from 74 to 78 (according to the foreward, written by some guy named Robert Christgau...yes, I know who he is, that's why I refer to him as "some guy"), but there's at least one photo that has to be from outside that time frame, a photo of Yes, onstage, with the Fragile lineup (ie Bruford on drums, Wakeman on keyboards).
Actually playing this one again, it does have quite a few 'filler' tracks IMHO- 'Midnight Creeper', '...Teenage Idol'...Not surprising given the amount of product he was releasing then. Overall it's a good album, but not one of his best IMHO- the right album for the right time, I guess, but he did better, as proved by the next album he did.
His most underrated work for me is 'Blue Moves', a lovely record full of interesting, downbeat tunes...and with a prog/jazz-rock excursion in 'Out Of The Blue', a totally instrumental track.
Don't Shoot Me is 40! Getting old. I can remember my older brother playing this endlessly. Kind of killed it for me for a long time. There are some great tracks here,with Have Mercy... and Elderberry Wine being my two faves. Big Elton fan and if you dig deep into his catalog, he plays a bit of everything. Too many just know his hits, for a long time he was an album artist who didn't just give you a hit or two and a bunch of filler. Have to agree with JJ88, Blue Moves is an underrated gem. This is the album of his that I play the most.
I love this album, and I agree with those who've said that it's the non-hits on this record (Have Mercy, Elderberry Wine, Teacher, etc...) that I love the most. If memory serves me, this was the first proper Elton album I got after a Greatest Hits package.
I love most of his 70s material.
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