Elton John Has Arrived

Fifty years ago, in the summer of 1970, Elton John made his successful American debut with a six-night residency at the Troubadour in Los Angeles to promote his self-tilted second album, which was his first U.S. release.  He was quickly recognized as the obvious successor to the Beatles, who had broken up in April 1970, for the enthusiastic response he generated from record buyers and audiences.  It was quite a turnaround from where Elton and his songwriting partner, lyricist Bernie Taupin (below, right, with Elton) had been at the start of the year.

Elton signed a record contract with Beatles song publisher Dick James' record company in 1968, and James was convinced that the young Reginald Dwight, as our hero was then known, was going to go places.  But Elton went nowhere fast.  After three failed singles and the underwhelming reaction from the press and the public to his debut album, 1969's Empty Sky, Elton found himself in January 1970 recording faked versions of original hit songs of the time for a compilation record.  You may remember such records - in both Britain and America, anonymous performers would copy the instruments and the vocals of hit songs and then the recordings would be compiled into an album called "Greatest Hits of 1970" or something like that, and sold in either five-and-dime stores or on TV.  The performances would be credited to a studio group, but the credit would appear in small print; it was a deceptive way to get people to buy compilations of hit songs that they thought were recordings from the original artists.  Elton's contributions to such a ripoff record included covers of Robin Gibb's U.K. solo hit "Saved By the Bell" and Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Up Around the Bend," among other tracks, in which he tried to sound exactly, or at least virtually, like the original artists.  Elton John pretending to be John Fogerty?  It happened.  Elton needed the money, and so pretending to be someone else was a way to pay the bills while a career at being himself was foundering. Ironically, his efforts at mimicking others revealed what ultimately made him so successful - his ability to play any kind of song in any pop genre.

Soon after, James put Elton on notice.  He told him that the record company couldn't afford to fund Elton's recording career unless his records started selling.  Therefore, his second album had to be a commercial success, otherwise his contract would be terminated, because James couldn't afford to keep spending money on him if it wasn't yielding results.  Steve Brown, whose job at Dick James Music involved working as a coordinator for Elton, decided to throw everything he could at having Elton making a top-notch, high-quality pop record; if this was to be Elton's last chance, he was going to make the most of it.

Not only did Brown enlist a crack session band, he sought out the best producer and the best arranger possible. He approached Beatles producer George Martin to produce the LP, but Martin wanted to arrange the songs as well as produce the recording sessions, and Brown wanted to keep those duties separate.  He eventually settled on Gus Dudgeon to produce the record.  Dudgeon had been a sound engineer for the Zombies and for John Mayall and co-produced Ten Years After's debut album.  He also produced David Bowie's "Space Oddity," which was arranged by conductor Paul Buckmaster; it was likely that record that got Buckmaster the job for arranging Elton's second album.  With that team in place, Elton went to work on what became his second album - self-titled but known as the Black Album for its black backdrop, which I reviewed in May 2016.

The Black Album did get on the British charts when it was released in the U.K. in the early spring of 1970 and "Border Song," one of its cuts - and one of the few songs Elton ever wrote a lyric for (the third verse) - got airplay on the BBC.  But it was a very qualified success at best, and it only gave Elton and Bernie a temporary reprieve.  They were still living very much on the knife's edge, and James was ready to drop Elton if the record didn't start showing real dividends.  And the best hope for that was to introduce Elton in America, which had been turning more toward homegrown talent at the time.

It took Russ Regan (above), the president of UNI Records in Los Angeles, to get pop-music fans on both sides of the Atlantic to turn Elton John into the star Dick James knew Elton could become. As Regan recalled, Lenny Hodes, a representative from from Dick James Music, came to his office one day and told him he had an LP and a couple of singles from this new artist who had already been rejected by five American labels. As soon as Regan, who loved music as much as the pop fans who bought records, had the chance to hear them, he thought, "This guy is really good. I wonder what the problem is?" When he telephoned Hodes, Hodes told Regan he could have Elton for no money.

In stories like this, the hotshot offered a deal for no money usually turns down the offer - because there must be something wrong with it if it's for free - and realizes too late after that he threw away a golden opportunity.  Regan did nothing of the sort; he jumped at the chance to sign this Elton John kid to UNI and accepted Hodes' offer.

The Black Album was released in the U.S. in July 1970. Now all Regan and UNI publicist Norm Winter had to do was get Elton to come over and promote it.  Elton was quickly booked for the Troubadour club in Los Angeles to play a six-night engagement, beginning on Tuesday, August 25, 1970.  He and Bernie Taupin set out for LA a few days in advance with two of the three musicians that would form the Elton John Band - bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson.  Session guitarist Caleb Quaye joined them for the trip; Davey Johnstone hadn't come into the picture yet.

The first sight that greeted Elton and Bernie (at left in the picture above) on American soil was not an auspicious one.  A bunch of British double-decker buses were waiting for them and their entourage at Los Angeles International Airport with placards plastered on both sides of the buses.  The placards, using typeface borrowed from the artwork on the Black Album, bore the legend "Elton John has arrived."  To UNI, this was a clever way of promoting its new British discovery; to Elton, it was a humiliation, having to ride the same double-decker buses he'd ridden when he was a struggling musician without a penny to his name.  But he did take to Los Angeles, taking in the sights before the Troubadour shows and buying records at the local record stores. For Elton, getting one of the first copies of Neil Young's After the Gold Rush was as big a highlight as his own Troubadour gig.

But this was a business trip, not a leisure trip. Elton had a lot riding on the Troubadour gig.  As Caleb Quaye later said, "Sending him over there was actually the last desperate attempt by Dick James Music to get him across to the public."

To be continued . . .