Thanks YankeeDisc, for your compelling background story. As far as I remember Elton John was quite hip until 1974, around the time when his first Greatest Hits album came out, which was the only vinyl album of him that I have ever owned.
ReviewI only own this release as an original issue double play cassette, but....I used to go see Elton and the band at the Christmas gigs at Hammersmith Odeon (now the Carling Apollo), December 1973, and I was there in 1973, and at least one other year.
He did gigs all week, sell outs, if I recall, so the recordings could be edits from any of that weeks' shows. The cover of a bootleg CD from Dec. 22nd 1973, Hammersmith Odeon, together with a complete artwork, and lastly information and band line-up.
I was always very impressed by drummer Nigel Olsson, and guitarist Davey Johnstone, and I'm sure percussionist Ray Cooper was there, faffing about (I'm not his biggest fan), not forgetting bassist Dee Murray, and Hercules himself.
I know Kiki Dee Band was support at one of the gigs, and were also excellent.
I saw Elton a number of times in the 1970s, all in London. First time was at Royal Festival Hall, with an orchestra conducted by Paul Buckmaster........It was March 3, 1971, (just checked again and it was actually February 5, 1972)......it was just so fabulous, with the acoustics in that Hall.
(I also saw the Beach Boys there in 1972 I think, and the late Carl Wilson just stopped while introducing a song and said "these acoustics here are just soooo good........")
I was very near the front, in the stalls.
Saw Elton again in 1973, Xmas, and again in 1974 Xmas, both Hammersmith, and finally I was at the original Wembley Stadium for the Saturday June 21st, 1975 super gig where he and the band performed the whole of "Captain Fantastic....etc".
Beach Boys, Eagles (with Joe Walsh), Rufus (with Chaka Kahn), and others were support......
.....that was it, never seen him since, although I stood next to Elton, when he came into One Stop Records, South Molton Street, London Dec 1974. He was visiting the manager, John, and I was talking to a young svelte, Danny Baker, who worked in the record store, and was about 16 years old back then.
I was the United Artists rep. and had parked my UA van just along the road, around 5 p.m., and when I went back to it, my new wife of three months, who I was driving home from her workplace, John Lewis' Oxford Street said, "who got out of that maroon Rolls Royce, just now?"
When I told her who it was, she was gobsmacked, and said, "...go back in and get his autograph....", which of course I didn't. Elton was driven there in a maroon over black Rolls Royce Phantom VI, an almost identical model of Rolls Royce car that John Lennon had painted like a Gipsy caravan. I used to see that same vivid car sometimes parked outside 3 Savile Row, then the Apple headquarters, some years earlier.