Elton John’s first studio album is his just one by no means to have made the UK charts. But it surely’s a vital a part of his story, and a document that to this present day stays considerably under-explored. Let’s look in some element at Empty Sky, launched on June 6, 1969.
Elton, then 22 years previous, was a way from his business breakthrough, and nonetheless moonlighting as a session pianist, ready for both successful of his personal or a key cowl model to come back in. However he had at the least secured his early document cope with DJM, and began recording this primary collection of songs (written with lyricist accomplice Bernie Taupin within the winter of 1968) with producer and DJM staffer Steve Brown.
The album begins with the percussion of Caleb Quaye, one among Elton’s common collaborators in his preliminary years, earlier than we hear the piano type that might quickly grow to be so acquainted. Drums by Roger Pope underpin a sturdy, rocky observe that modulates into gentler passages, together with Don Fay’s flute and organ work by Elton himself.
Robust clues abound
The 9 songs of the unique launch (augmented with 4 different contemporaneous items on the mid-Nineteen Nineties reissue) might not embody many Elton classics. However they supply robust clues concerning the combination of alluring melodies, imaginative preparations and superior, literary lyrics that helped him break by way of together with his self-titled second album of 1970.
By most reckoning, the perfect track on Empty Sky, and one which John performed dwell an excellent deal in his first decade and nonetheless returns to very often, was the affecting ballad “Skyline Pigeon.” He’s on the document as saying that this composition marked the primary time that he and Taupin felt they had been actually creating one thing substantial of their songwriting partnership. It was lined by Roger Prepare dinner and one other DJM artist, Man Darrell. Right here’s Elton performing the track at Allianz Parque in São Paulo, Brazil, on April 6, 2017.
Right here, and on different tracks like “Val-Hala,” Elton performed harpsichord, whereas “Western Ford Gateway” has hints of the country-rock sound that he would return to. “Hymn 2000” had a folkier flavour, once more that includes flute, and a very dense Taupin lyric.
The gorgeous, reflective “Lady What’s Tomorrow” has Elton supporting his vocals on piano, whereas “Sails” has a chugging rock really feel. “The Scaffold” is a quiet piece with Taupin’s phrases at their most poetic. The closing observe is an episodic, seven-minute quantity that includes “Gulliver,” the jazzy “Hay Chewed” (say it out loud and also you realise it’s a reference to The Beatles’ 1968 smash) after which, unusually, a mixture reprising of the entire album’s earlier tracks.
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“Making the Empty Sky album still holds the nicest memories for me, because it was the first, I suppose,” Elton later stated. “We used to walk back from the sessions at about four in the morning and stay at the Salvation Army headquarters in Oxford Street. Steve Brown’s dad used to run the place and he used to live above it.”
Purchase or stream the prolonged reissue of Empty Sky.
