Sir Elton Lives
One Night Only by Elton John
A veteran athlete who attempts a comeback often finds an unrelenting base of fans and critics who yearn for the days when their hero defied long odds to become great. Some like hockey player Mario Lemieux and boxer Sugar Ray Leonard are able to adapt their styles and perform at above average levels. Others fail miserably.
Like an athlete who continues playing beyond his prime, critics apparently keep waiting for Sir Elton John to fail.
His voice is shot, accurately write some. No longer relevant, say others, and one cannot disagree that Sir Elton stopped making groundbreaking music more than a decade ago. Stopped being relevant after 1974, write the particularly vicious critics who cherish innovation above all else.
But of all the artists in the rock era, Sir Elton John remains the only one who continues to create hit music after three decades. The 54 year old troubadour who lived a tabloid-friendly life may seem as exciting to contemporary music fans as a Perry Como box set of polkas, but he remains an active musical force more than thirty years after he became the darling singer-songwriter of the Me Generation. And like the athletes who continue playing the game they love, John refuses to back away from his standard repertoire, instead altering his game by using key changes, rearrangements and a superb band to cover a limited vocal range.
How Many Nights?
One Night Only is a non sequitur; the album is comprised of the best of two nights at New York's Madison Square Garden on October 20-21, 2000. Backed by long time guitarist Davey Johnstone and drummer Nigel Olsson, John and a variety of guest voices plow through 17 of the artist's hits. Think about that number for a moment. Seventeen. There's not an album cut or B side among the tunes. Seventeen.
According to Billboard chart guru Joel Whitburn, Sir Elton reached the Top 40 with 59 separate songs between 1970's Your Song and 1999's duet with Leann Rimes, Written In The Stars. So fans, even with an extra long 17 song CD only get 28% of the hits Sir Elton has released in his career.
Whitburn and Billboard use a ranking system to rank singles artists since 1955. Sir Elton stands behind Elvis and The Beatles, but remains only a single hit from overtaking them. As a side note, Madonna is only 3 to 4 hits from overtaking everyone but Elvis, but she's an entirely different story.
Whitburn's rankings by decades also seem to settle the issue of musical relevancy. Sir Elton is rated the number one singles artist during the 1970s, #8 in the 1980s and #11 in the 1990s. That's all based on Billboard Hot 100 chart action, which since 1991 has been based on actual sales rather than previously subjective rankings.
With the deaths of Elvis and John Lennon, Sir Elton John remains the only recording artist who has remained fundamentally unchanged yet still commercially and popularly successful since rock's early days.
Dropping The Needle - Cut by Cut
Throughout the album, Sir Elton craftily mixes his backup singers and octave changes. Opening the album with Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Philadelphia Freedom, John dips into a lower register and at times sounds like a young McCartney in Hamburg trying to conjure visions of Little Richard. The shifts are all subtle, but taken together freshen the songs from their overexposure on classic rock stations the world over.
The first of the featured guest artists is Kiki Dee, who unfortunately started with far less talent than Sir Elton and lost just as much. The indomitable Kiki, who never quite made it but never quite failed, somehow managed to release 11 albums in a career that featured two hits, including the duet with John, Don't Go Breaking My Heart, that topped the charts the world over.
Rocket Man and Daniel are given perfunctory, though pleasant performances, but the audience comes justifiably erupts at John's barn-burning Crocodile Rock. The song's setting is twisted back even further into the 1950s with a souped up organ and John's take on the song, which evokes the spirit of Jerry Lee Lewis. Showing a sense of humor, the band chimes in on the chorus and trills a "la la la" section through the former falsetto sections.
John's haunting ballad Sacrifice shows that the experienced artist can still put a song over with vocalese and a sense of biting wistfulness, which strangely enough makes Can You Feel The Love Tonight sound like a grown-up song for a change. Taken out of its Disney context, John's music against Tim Rice's lyrics becomes a complex love song. Rolling understated arpeggios and a whisper-smooth backing vocal make this song a delight.
Touring with Billy Joel apparently brought Sir Elton an appreciation for the other piano man's love of Ray Charles. Listening to the thumping bridge on Bennie and the Jets give way to Elton John doing Billy Joel doing Ray Charles is a special treat. So too is the album's later duet with Anastacia, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting. Davey Johnstone has always owned this song's riff, and he does not disappoint here. The Latin vocalist is a strange choice to duet with John on this rocker, and one gets the impression Tina Tuner was simply busy.
Another strange choice is Boyzone's Ronan Keating dueting on Your Song, Sir Elton's signature song, and Bryan Adams on Sad Songs. Only Mary J. Blige's gut-wrenching vocal on I Guess That's Why They Call It The Blues saves the second half of the CD from being too much ear candy, although one can hear John's exuberance in his personal anthem I'm Still Standing.
The Bottom Line, Skips and All
If you do not have an Elton John collection on CD, this is a great choice. Chances are that you know the songs, but these versions are not the ones getting airplay. Likewise, if you remember the bespectacled Elton in a sequin Dodgers uniform as the top artist in the world, you need to catch up to how the grown-up Elton sounds.
The RIAA certified this album gold in July, one year after release, making of John's slowest sellers ever. Perhaps there have been too many live albums, too many greatest hits packages for the faithful, but the reworking of virtually every song makes this a must buy album. You know these songs, but you do not know them like this. We are all a little older, a little slower, but like champion athletes and world class musicians, some of us can change our approach and still contribute at a time when others have reached the sidelines.
