Robert Hilburn's Review of Elton John at the Troubadour

Time capsule moment, boys and girls!  Here is the full review of  of Elton John's first American concert at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles, written by music critic Robert Hilburn of the Los Angles Times and published fifty years ago today, Wednesday, August 26, 1970.

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Rejoice. Rock music, which has been going through a rather uneventful period lately, has a new star. He’s Elton John, a 23-year-old Englishman whose United States debut Tuesday night at the Troubadour was, in almost every way, magnificent.

Because his new Uni album has been aired extensively on local FM radio and several of his songs have been recorded by other artists (from Rod Stewart to Three Dog Night), there was a large, enthusiastic audience on hand for the opening.

John, whose music is published by the same man (Dick James) who publishes the Beatles’ songs, proved to be a multidirectional talent of the highest order.

His music is so staggeringly original that it is obvious he is not merely operating within a given musical field (such as country or blues or rock) but, like Randy Newman and Laura Nyro among others, creating his own field.

He has, to be sure, borrowed from country, rock, blues, folk and other influences, but he has mixed them in his own way. The resulting songs are so varied in texture that his work defies classification.

In his opening set Tuesday, John did songs from his first album, from his still-to-be-released second album and from his planned third album.

While his voice most often resembles Jose Feliciano, there are also at times touches of Leon Russell and Mick Jagger.

Since he was backed Tuesday only by his own piano, Nigel Olsson on drums and Dee Murray on bass, his sound was much earthier in general than the sweet, heavily orchestrated music of the first album.

John’s songs are co-written by lyricist Bernie Taupin, whose lyrics often capture the same timeless, objective spirit of the Band’s Robbie Robertson.

In fact, John’s intense vocals, coupled with Taupin’s biting lyrics, on “Burn Down the Mission,” would be right at home alongside Levon Helm on stage with the Band.

Beyond his vocals, melodies and arrangements, there is a certain sense of the absurd about John as a performer that is reminiscent of the American rock stars of the mid-1950s.

Only someone with that wild, uninhibited view of his music would dare ask the audience to sing along — something that is almost never done anymore — or drop to his knees, like Jerry Lee Lewis used to do, in a rousing piano finale on “Burn Down the Mission.” It worked wonderfully well.

The audience, which included one of the largest local gatherings of rock writers in months, roared its approval, bringing John back for an encore.

By the end of the evening, there was no question about John’s talent and potential. Tuesday night at the Troubadour was just the beginnning. He’s going to be one of rock’s biggest and most important stars. He’ll be at the Troubadour with Elektra’s David Ackles through Sunday.

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A star was born. :-)

Elton John At the Troubadour - Fifty Years On

It was fifty years ago today, Tuesday, August 25, 1970, that Elton John played his first American concert - the first show of a six-night engagement at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles.  UNI Records president Russ Regan, eager to promote his newest discovery from England, was able to get the club packed for Elton's debut.  Among the celebrities who attended Elton's show that first night were Quincy Jones and his wife Peggy Lipton, Linda Ronstadt, Brian Wilson and Mike Love of the Beach Boys, Van Dyke Parks, Randy Newman, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash, as well as a then-unknown drummer/singer named Don Henley.  (As fate would have it, Elton had already attended a show by the Dillards at the Troubadour shortly before his own, and the opening act was Longbranch Pennywhistle, a duo comprised of Glenn Frey and J.D. Souther.)   But Regan outdid himself by getting Neil Diamond, then the biggest singer-songwriter in America and another UNI artist, to introduce Elton at the beginning of the show.  Part of the reason the club, which had a maximum seating capacity of 300 people, was so packed that night, was because people were under the mistaken impression that Diamond was going to perform there that night. 

Elton, backed by guitaist Caleb Quaye, bassist Dee Murray and drummer Nigel Olsson, didn't exactly get people up on their feet the way the Beatles had in their American debut on Ed Sullivan's variety show six years earlier.  He opened the show with "Your Song," and the response was more polite and respectful than raving.  After a couple of songs on the piano, the guests started talking to each other over drinks, and Elton suddenly found himself reliving the many times he played at local pubs in England, where the clientele would converse over a pint or two and pay little attention to the music.  Frustrated that he wasn't breaking through, Elton kicked his piano stool out from under him, declaring, "Right!  If you won't listen to that, you'll bloody well listen to this!"  Then he started banging on the piano keys like Jerry Lee Lewis.  The fire in him had been lit, and Reginald Dwight became Elton John at that moment.

The crowd responded ecstatically.  Applause and cheers replaced the low din.  With a set that included "Bad Side of the Moon," "Sixty Years On, "Country Comfort" (which would be released in America in January 1971 on Tumbleweed Connection), the explosive "Take Me to the Pilot," and a cover of the Rolling Stones' "Honky Tonk Women" (already performed live by Joe Cocker on his own tour from earlier in the year), Elton had the audience eating out of his hand.  (Sadly, singer-songwriter David Ackles, with whom Elton shared the bill in his six-night residency at the Troubadour, didn't get similar attention.  Ackles, a favorite of Elton's, was destined for obscurity despite his cult status in Britain.) In a review of the show in the Los Angeles Times the following day, music critic Robert Hilburn declared, "Rejoice. Rock music, which has been going through a rather uneventful period lately, has a new star. He’s Elton John, a 23-year-old Englishman whose United States debut Tuesday night at the Troubadour was, in almost every way, magnificent . . ..  His music is so staggeringly original that it is obvious he is not merely operating within a given musical field (such as country or blues or rock) but, like Randy Newman and Laura Nyro among others, creating his own field."

Over the next five nights, other celebrities attended Elton's Troubadour shows, including teen model Kathy Davis and singer-songwriter Leon Russell.  Russell (below), a revered LA session musician who had recently begun his career as a solo artist and who had already amassed a wealth of production, session, and songwriting credits in such a short period that he was called the Master of Space and Time, was at his peak in the rock music world in the early seventies.  When Elton saw Russell in the audience, he almost froze, because he, like everyone else then, was heavily into Russell's music.  But Russell looked back at him from the audience, using eye language to assure him that he was doing fine and to keep going. The two met backstage afterwards, beginning a friendship that would last until Russell's death in 2016.

The Troubadour engagement was just the beginning.  A six-night residency at the Troubadour North in San Francisco immediately followed in early September, and that engagement was followed up by shows in clubs in New York and Philadelphia.  In late October, Elton would return to the States for more shows on a full-fledged tour, which turned him into a bona fide star.  I'll talk about that later.

It should be noted, though, that Elton's Troubadour debut showed how much had changed in pop at the beginning of the seventies.   Pop stars were no longer made in America by a New York-based variety TV show like "The Ed Sullivan Show," which in 1970 was less than a year away from its final airing.  Now they were made by the tastemakers and the movers and shakers in Los Angeles.  In America, as well as in Britain, rock was becoming not only a cultural force but also big business, and Elton John would become a big star . . . ready to give his fans the business.         

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 . . .