Nobody would argue that it was the American viewers he found – and that found him – that helped Elton John conquer the world. However there have been sure different areas in his early years of emergence that had been important in that victory. One among them was an 18th-century château within the French village of Hérouville the place John set about making the follow-up to Madman Throughout The Water, Honky Château.
Some 25 miles north of Paris, the château housed a recording studio the place Elton and his already well-established band arrived early in 1972. On this relaxed atmosphere, the place the studio clock ticked a lot extra quietly than at residence, he and his core workforce – bassist Dee Murray, drummer Nigel Olsson, new guitarist Davey Johnstone, ever-present co-writer Bernie Taupin, and producer Gus Dudgeon – created a brand new staging put up for an artist decided to maintain breaking new floor.
Expectations had been, by now, rising palpably greater, at the least throughout the Atlantic. Startlingly, Madman Throughout The Water didn’t chart on its preliminary UK launch (even though its predecessor, Tumbleweed Connection, spent 11 weeks within the Prime 10 there) and lots of critics sniffed on the density of its music constructions.
However the album turned gold in America even throughout that French sojourn, and went double platinum within the 90s. Elton had devoted a substantial amount of time to breaking America, and Honky Château would elevate his recreation to new ranges. He and the band liked the pastoral environment of the château a lot, it turned their artistic bolthole for 3 albums in a row.
Recording periods: ‘It will shock a few people’
The daybreak of 1972 had Elton making ever higher inroads into the American album rock market and the holy floor of FM radio. After the breakthrough of “Your Song,” the singles “Friends,” “Levon,” and “Tiny Dancer” had been extra modest crossovers to AM pop radio within the US, however they had been his pulse at a time when British acceptance of his typically introspective fashion was patchy at finest.
With the relocation to France got here a resolve to sidestep the already well-worn singer-songwriter syndrome and to create a “band” vibe. “It’s going to be a really funky album,” stated Taupin in an interview early that 12 months, as quoted in David Buckley’s Elton: The Biography. “It will shock a few people. I think we’ve gone as far as we can on the grand scale with string arrangements and that. We just want to get back to the roots.”
The appointment of 21-year-old Scot Davey Johnstone got here out of left discipline, nevertheless it proved to be impressed. His arrival expanded Elton’s trio to a way more versatile quartet format, and he proved eminently able to constructing from his folks music background right into a rock-oriented lead guitar position that turned the band’s bedrock for many years to return.
“Getting it together in the country” was already the imagery of rock cliché, however there was one thing solely agreeable concerning the working and residing circumstances on this residence from residence that proved joyously productive. Engineer Ken Scott informed Buckley: “The decision had been made that Madman Across The Water was the end of Chapter One and that it was about time to move on and do something completely different, and that something was Honky Château.”
Writing the songs: ‘It was like the Motown hit factory’
On many days, Bernie would come right down to breakfast with a sheaf of lyrics that Elton would then “visualize” and switch into what had been typically fully-formed melodies. He would then work the songs up with a band who intuitively knew the best way to comply with him because the compositions soared off the web page and onto tape. It was the dream state of affairs of John and Taupin’s fabled two rooms, however now in the identical citadel.
“I don’t think anyone realises the pressures artists go through when they record, putting their body and soul into it, and I can’t explain the incredible difference it made working in France,” John informed Sounds. “We turned up with the studio booked and hardly anything else, and for two weeks it was like the Motown hit factory. Bernie was upstairs writing and Maxine [his wife] rushing down correcting his spelling, throwing the lyrics onto the piano and then me working on them with the band sitting around waiting to play as soon as I’d finished.”
Ken Scott witnessed such prodigious innovation at shut quarters. John, he recalled to Buckley, would peruse the lyrics provided by Taupin. “[He] would look at them and say, ‘Oh, that one looks good,’ and he would put it to one side and he’d keep going through them until he’d come up with two or three that he really liked. Then he would go over to the piano and start working on them… where Bernie might have written something as a verse, Elton would take a couple of lines from it and turn it into the chorus. It was very impressive.”
Inside simply two weeks, that they had completed Honky Château. Elton conjured the musical illustration to Bernie’s radiant lyric for “Rocket Man” in ten minutes flat, and located the exact milieu for the poignant new music Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters’. Additional tracks, notably the playful “Honky Cat” and the slinky “Hercules” and “Mellow” delivered the funk flavour that the lyricist had promised, whereas songs comparable to “Salvation” and “Amy” had superb depth. “Slave” had a rustic vibe heightened by Johnstone’s metal guitar and “I Think I’m Going To Kill Myself” added darkish humor.
Launch and demanding reception: ‘It’s the turning level in his profession’
Journalists who had been handled to an early, tough combine had been excited at what they heard. Earlier than the tip of February, Penny Valentine was writing in Sounds: “The new album is going to do more for Elton John than anything he’s ever cut before. Likely to be the ‘win friends and influence people’ of all time, in the sense that it’s really the turning point in his career. A career that for the past 12 months has had an oddly bumpy road to travel in England and given him a rough passage in terms of criticism.”
As he ready for the discharge of Honky Château, on Might 19, 1972, the artist shared that feeling of accomplishment and anticipation. “You know The Beatles made five or six good standard albums and that was something new, something special that took them that one pace up,” he informed Valentine. “That’s what I feel that is going to do for me – particularly on this nation the place I really feel I’ve gone down in individuals’s estimation.
“The tour we did at the end of last year did prove to me that people still want to see me, but I think people got to the point where they felt I desperately needed an orchestra behind me, that I was weak and fabricated.”
“Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going To Be A Long, Long Time)” was the apparent contender for lead single, launched on March 3 and an on the spot success. It was a game-changer for Elton within the UK, the place it reached No.2 behind his buddy Marc Bolan’s T.Rex smash “Metal Guru.” Within the States, the house mission-inspired music hit No.6, adopted by one other Prime 10 residence run with “Honky Cat.”
On July 15, Honky Château achieved one thing that Elton had by no means achieved earlier than in America – and which he definitely hadn’t achieved in his personal nation but, both. On the US album chart for that week, the album toppled The Rolling Stones’ Exile On Fundamental St from the highest spot, giving the British singer-songwriter his first No.1 within the US. It stayed on high for 5 weeks and remained on the chart for a whopping 61. By July, it was gold.
Maybe much more importantly, the album remodeled his fortunes again residence. It crashed into the chart at No.2, staying there for 2 weeks and for seven within the Prime 10. For an artist who took his gross sales rankings very severely certainly, this was a major second. Elton was now, actually, on his manner.
Honky Château: the legacy
Producer Gus Dudgeon, remembering the Honky Château periods in a 1975 interview with the publication Circus Raves, stated: “We took so many gambles, and when it turned out the way it turned out I just could not believe it. It was the first album that the whole band played on…from then on Elton could go on stage and say, ‘This is my band, this is my album, this is what it’s about.’”
Hearken to the most effective of Elton John on Apple Music and Spotify.
“Really everyone rose to new heights in France – especially with Davey in the band,” stated Elton in that Sounds interview. “It was the primary time we’d actually bought along with him and he gave everybody such a lift. I don’t suppose even Dee realised he may play bass the best way he performed on these periods.
“I don’t think you can carry [that] rock’n’roll thing on your own, it doesn’t work,” he went on. “And emotionally I don’t think I could have coped. I need other people around and I believe in sharing success. If you keep it to yourself you end up going stark staring mad.”
Purchase or stream Honky Château.
