"Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me," Elton John
One golden record release anniversary I didn't get to last year was the fiftieth anniversary of the release of Elton John's Caribou, which came out in June 1974. Caribou is regarded as the runt of the litter that is Elton's studio output form his DJM Records years (1969 to 1975), a record Elton's producer Gus Dudgeon later called "a piece of crap . . . the sound is the worst, the songs are nowhere, the sleeve came out wrong, the lyrics weren't that good, the singing wasn't all there, the playing wasn't great and the production is just plain lousy." It still topped the Billboard album chart on the strength of Elton's name alone.
Caribou's two singles, however, still stand out - "The Bitch Is Back," a Rolling Stones-inspired rocker, and the brass-laden ballad "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me," with introspective lyrics from Bernie Taupin looking at a failed relationship. Elton perhaps sensing that Caribou - named after pop impresario and musician James William Guercio's Colorado recording studio, where the LP was the first of three consecutive albums Elton John recorded there - was substandard, did the master vocal take on "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" in a snitty mood, and once it was done, he stormed out and said, "Right, Gus, if you don't like it, you can bloody give it to Lulu." Lulu, of course, is the British pop singer who starred in and recorded the theme song for the 1967 movie To Sir, With Love.
Dudgeon liked it enough to mix it for the album, and he mixed the track with both Bruce Johnston of the Beach Boys and Toni Tennille, whose husband Daryl "The Captain" Dragon was a Beach Boys sideman, looking on. Johnston and Tennille had provided backing vocals to "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me." But Dudgeon was unhappy with Elton's vocal phrasing of the lyric "Don't discard me," in which he tried to assume a Western American accent and ended up singing it to sound like "Don't dizgard me." he was ready to bury it in the music, but Toni Tennille urged him not to. "Leave it, she said, "it sounds good." She was right; it proved to be the hook that propelled "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" to number two on the Billboard singles chart.
This clip - my Music Video Of the Week - is a clip of Elton performing "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" at the Hammersmith Odeon in London on Christmas Eve 1974, just one month after his Thanksgiving concert triumph with John Lennon at Madison Square Garden in New York. This live version of "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" is faithful to the original record, including his band - Davey Johnstone on guitar, Dee Murray on bass and Nigel Olsson on drums - backing him.
Why am I featuring this song this week? Because it's all to appropriate for the foreboding sunset we can expect in Washington on January 20. Enjoy . . . if you can.
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