Various Artists - The Hitmakers Sing Elton John (2018)

In 1967 Reginald Dwight (as he then was) answered an advertisement in the British music paper New Musical Express, placed by the A&R manager for Liberty Records Ray Williams, looking for prospective song-writers. At their first meeting, Williams gave him an unopened envelope of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad, and so he wrote music for the lyrics and then sent them to Taupin, beginning a partnership that still continues. When the two first met in 1967, they recorded the first John/Taupin song, 'Scarecrow', and six months later, Dwight began going by the name Elton John, in homage to two members of his old band Bluesology: saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry. The team of John and Taupin joined Dick James's DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, among them Roger Cook and Lulu. Taupin would write a batch of lyrics in under an hour and give it to John, who would write music for them in half an hour, disposing of the lyrics if he could not come up with anything quickly. For two years they wrote easy-listening tunes for James to peddle to singers, and their early output included a song for Lulu's entry for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest 1969, called 'I Can't Go On (Living Without You)', but it came sixth of the six songs up for consideration. 

On the advice of music publisher Steve Brown, John and Taupin began writing more complex songs for John to record for DJM, with the first being the single 'I've Been Loving You', produced by Caleb Quaye, Bluesology's former guitarist. In 1969, with Quaye, drummer Roger Pope, and bassist Tony Murray, John recorded another single, 'Lady Samantha', and his debut album, 'Empty Sky'. For their follow-up album, 'Elton John', John and Taupin enlisted Gus Dudgeon as producer and Paul Buckmaster as musical arranger, and the record was released in April 1970 on DJM Records/Pye Records in the UK and Uni Records in the US. It established the formula for subsequent albums: gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads, and the album's first single, 'Border Song', peaked at 92 on the Billboard Hot 100. The second, 'Your Song', reached the top ten in both the UK and US, becoming John's first hit single as a singer, while the album soon became his first long-playing success, reaching number four on the US Billboard 200 and number five on the UK Albums Chart. With the success of the singles and album, it wasn't long before other artists began to take notice of this new talent, and wanted to cover his songs, with big names like Three Dog Night, The Lettermen and The 5th Dimension giving us their versions. Before long nearly every track on the album had a cover version out there, even rare singles and obscure b-sides, and so here are the best of those artists re-interpreting Elton John's classic 1970 album, with just The Band Perry post-1975, covering the flip to Elton's 1970 stand-alone single 'Rock And Roll Madonna'.   

Track listing

01 Your Song (Three Dog Night 1970)

02 I Need You To Turn To (Euson 1971)

03 Take Me To The Pilot (The Orange Bicycle 1970)

04 Mijn Eerste Kiefde (First Episode At Hienton) (Connie Vandenbos 1975)

05 Sixty Years On (Hayden Wood 1970)

06 Border Song (The 5th Dimension 1972)

07 The Greatest Discovery (The Lettermen 1971)

08 The Cage (Brainchild 1970)

09 Bad Side Of The Moon (Toe Fat 1970)

10 Friends (The Square Set 1972)

11 Grey Seal (The Band Perry 2014)

Peter Green - ...and on guitar (1971)

Just heard the sad news that the day after I posted this, Peter Green passed away aged 73. I hope that this post will serve as a fitting tribute to one of the greatest guitarists and songwriters of all time . R.I.P.

Peter Allen Greenbaum (aka Peter Green) was born on 29 October 1946, and by the age of eleven he was teaching himself guitar, playing professionally by the age of fifteen. He first played bass guitar in a band called Bobby Dennis and the Dominoes, which performed pop chart covers and rock 'n' roll standards, after which he went on to join a rhythm and blues outfit, the Muskrats, then a band called The Tridents in which he played bass. By Christmas 1965 he was playing lead guitar in Peter Bardens' band Peter B's Looners, where he met drummer Mick Fleetwood, and it was with Peter B's Looners that he made his recording debut with the single 'If You Wanna Be Happy'/'Jodrell Blues'. In October 1965, before joining Bardens' group, Green had the opportunity to fill in for Eric Clapton in John Mayall & the Bluesbreakers for four gigs, and so when Clapton left the Bluesbreakers he became a full-time member of Mayall's band. Green made his recording debut with the Bluesbreakers in 1966 on the album 'A Hard Road', which featured two of his own compositions, 'The Same Way' and 'The Supernatural', but by 1967 he wanted to form his own band, and so left the Bluesbreakers to found Peter Green's Fleetwood Mac. The original line-up, alongside Green, was former Bluesbreaker Mick Fleetwood on drums, Jeremy Spencer on guitar, and Bob Brunning on bass, and they were quickly signed to Mike Vernon's Blue Horizon label, with their eponymous debut album making a significant impression on the British blues boom, and actually remained in the UK charts for over a year. 
By September 1967, John McVie had replaced Brunning on bass, and although classic blues covers and blues-styled originals remained prominent in the band's repertoire, Green rapidly blossomed as a songwriter and from 1968 contributed many successful original compositions which moved away from the group's blues roots, such as 'Black Magic Woman', 'Oh Well', 'Man Of The World', 'The Green Manalishi', and the classic guitar instrumental 'Albatross', which reached number one in the British singles charts in 1969. By this time Danny Kirwan had joined the band as a third guitarist, and the band recorded their 'Then Play On' album, which reportedly had virtually no contribution from Spencer, who refused to play on any of Green's original material. Around this time Green's band-mates began to notice changes in his state of mind, with him growing a beard and beginning to wear robes and a crucifix, and also taking large doses of LSD. While touring Europe in late March 1970, Green took LSD at a party at a commune in Munich, and later refused to leave to rejoin the tour until Mick Fleetwood traveled there to fetch him. After a final performance on 20 May 1970, Green left Fleetwood Mac, but a few months later he appeared at the Bath Festival of Blues and Progressive Music with John Mayall, Rod Mayall on organ, Ric Grech on bass and Aynsley Dunbar on drums. That same year he recorded a jam session with drummer Godfrey Maclean, keyboardists Zoot Money and Nick Buck, and bassist Alex Dmochowski of The Aynsley Dunbar Retaliation, which Reprise Records later released as 'The End Of The Game', Green's first post-Fleetwood Mac solo album. While still with Fleetwood Mac, Green played with some of his blues heroes, Eddie Boyd and Otis Spann (and later also with Memphis Slim), as well as with label-mate Duster Bennett, and in 1969 Fleetwood Mac's manager Clifford Davies decided to record a single, and invited Green to help him out. Former Mac bassist Bob Brunning had by now formed his own band, and asked Green to play on their 'Trackside Blues' album, and in 1970 his old Peter B's Looners' band-mate Peter Bardens invited him to play lead guitar on several tracks of his solo album 'The Answer'. Also in 1970 he recorded two tracks with Bobby Tench's band Gass for their 'Juju' record, and contributed to Toe Fat's second album 'Toe Fat 2'. 
In 1971 he added guitar to Dave Kelly's second, eponymous album , but after recording sessions with B. B. King in London in 1972, and having an uncredited appearance on Fleetwood Mac's 'Penguin' album in 1973, Green's mental illness and drug use had become entrenched and he faded into professional obscurity. He was eventually diagnosed with schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric hospitals undergoing electro-convulsive therapy during the mid-1970's, but by 1979 he began to re-emerge professionally, signing a record deal with Peter Vernon-Kell's PVK label, and producing a string of solo albums, starting with 1979's 'In the Skies', and later with his Splinter Group, recording nine albums up to 2004. If there's one thing that you can pick up from the selection of tracks on here, it's Green's loyalty to his friends, as nearly all the tracks that he played on were from former band-mates (Brunning, Bardens, and he added banjo to Jeremy Spencer's solo album), label-mates (Boyd, Bennett, Spann, and he played harmonica for Gordon Smith in 1968), associates (manager Davies, Gass drummer Godfrey Maclean played on 'The End Of The Game', and Bob Brunning was Dave Kelly's bassist for the 'Dave Kelly' album), or friends, such as Toe Fat leader Cliff Bennett, and in every case his playing undoubtedly enhanced their music.

Track listing

01 The Big Boat (from '7936 South Rhodes' re-issue by Eddie Boyd 1968) 
02 Trying To Paint It In The Sky (from 'Smiling Like I'm Happy' by Duster Bennett 1968)
03 My Love Depends On You (from 'The Biggest Thing Since Colossus' by Otis Spann 1969)
04 Before The Beginning (single by Clifford Davis 1969) 
05 If You Let Me Love You (from 'Trackside Blues' by The Brunning Sunflower Band 1969)
06 The Answer (from 'The Answer' by Peter Bardens 1970)
07 Wind Gonna Rise (from 'Blue Memphis' by Memphis Slim 1970)
08 A New Way (from 'Toe Fat 2' by Toe Fat 1971)
09 Juju (from 'Juju' by Gass 1970) 
10 Green Winter (from 'Dave Kelly' by Dave Kelly 1971)