Captain Fantastic

From the time I was 13 until around the time I turned 16, my favorite singer was Elton John. The very first record I bought with my own money was “Honky Chateau,” and during the summer of 1974 I nearly wore out a copy of “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.” A couple of friends and I used to talk about his music all the time, arguing about which album was his best, whether he would ever come out with a Greatest Hits set (why it mattered, since all of us owned nearly everything he owned, isn’t really clear today), even arguing one day about whether drummer Nigel Olsson was a man or a woman (thank God I was on the right side of that one).

In this day of the eternally fragmented audience, it’s probably hard for folks today to appreciate what a huge star Elton was at the time. For about 4 years, there was never a time when a song of his wasn’t in heavy rotation on the radio, and his albums weren’t in the Top 5. His shows all sold out; he made the cover of Rolling Stone; his outrageous outfits made him a natural for a new magazine called People.

Elton John fever, so to speak, peaked in 1975. The year began with a single release of his remake of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which went to #1. John and Yoko reunited at his Madison Square Garden Concert. In the spring, he released another single, “Philadelphia Freedom,” which also went straight to #1. And by that time, word was out about a new album to be released in late May, an autobiographical effort with the odd title, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. When it came out, it did what no album before it had ever done – it debuted at #1 on the Billboard Hot 100.

I wasn’t there on the day it was released, but my dad drove me over to the Record Factory that Saturday, and the album rarely left the turntable for that entire summer. I played every song non-stop, to the point where I’d play a song five or six times in a row. It wasn’t a hit machine like some his previous efforts (in fact, it was one of his few of that era that didn’t include a #1 single); in many instances the lyrics didn’t make a heck of a lot of sense; but there was something about it that clicked with me.

Later that summer, Elton released another album, Rock of the Westies, which became the second album in history to hit #1 on the Billboard Hot 100 the week that it was released. It was much different than Captain Fantastic; his hardest-rocking album, one which critic Robert Christgau called “the best Rolling Stones album in years.” He ended the year with a brief but triumphant tour of America, selling out venues like Dodger Stadium while performing in a sequin-studded Dodgers uniform.

After that, the white hot flame went out. He released a string of lousy albums, broke up for a time with his long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin, and began a slow fade from view. In the 1980s he again began to release some good work, but nothing that came close to that incredible period of the mid-1970s, when he released a string of 6 albums in less than three years – Honky Chateau, Don’t Shoot Me (I’m Only The Piano Player), Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Caribou, Captain Fantastic, and Rock of the Westies – that represented a creative peak that can stand without shame alongside just about any artist in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On the strength of his wit, good cheer, and substantial catalogue, he became a mega-star, hosting Oscar parties, becoming a confidant of Princess Diana, getting knighted, writing film scores and Broadway shows, the works…I didn’t begrudge him a moment of his glory – he deserved it – but at the same time I never felt compelled to go out and buy the new one.

A year or so ago, I saw that Elton’s old classics had been released in specially-priced, remastered CD versions, so I bought Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. Hadn’t listened to it for quite a while; hadn’t bought an Elton John album for over 20 years. And it still sounded great: the band was terrific, and Elton sang and performed with a confidence that made you think, here’s a guy who knows that he’s on top of the world, and is just going to keep going for as long as he can. Songs like Captain Fantastic, Bitter Fingers, Someone Saved My Life Tonight, and We All Fall In Love Sometimes are unquestionably among his best. Simply put, it’s a great album one that one can mention in the same breath as other 1975 classics such as Born to Run, Blood on the Tracks, Tonight’s the Night, Siren, Horses, and Physical Graffiti.

So now, 31 long years later, Elton has released The Captain & The Kid, a sequel (!), 31 years after the fact, to Captain Fantastic. I resisted it for a few days, but knew in the end that I would buy this album, for curiosity’s sake if nothing else. Today I succumbed, and here I sit, listening to it while I write this. How is it? Well, it probably won’t go down in history as one of the best albums of all time, but it’s Elton, and hey, it sounds good. I’ve already begun to play one of the tracks again and again, which if nothing else proves that what goes around, comes around. Rock on, Sir Elton.