“A huge influence”: the classic rock group that changed Elton John for life
Every single piece of music Elton John ever touched almost felt like it was touched by some divine musical God. Although he was one of the few artists around that time who knew the ins and outs of music theory, some aspects of his piano pieces could go toe-to-toe with the best work by Beethoven if they had been converted into solo inventions instead of pop songs. Although John has always had a stellar track record for musical ingenuity, his heart was always in the world of songwriting.
He had first been turned on to music by listening to people like Elvis Presley, and that kind of excitement could only come from people who had great songs behind them. While John never hoped to be the kind of sex object that Presley claimed to be every time he shook his ass on television, The Beatles were the first people to help make his dream of being a musician a bit more plausible.
Rather than the different scales that he had to learn at school, John saw four people writing music simply for the joy of it, whether that was throwing together chords or adding in new jazz harmonies that no one else might have thought of. He was completely transfixed in the midst of the Summer of Love, but when the Flower Power generation began to wane, it took many people with acoustic guitars to bring us back down to Earth.
Bob Dylan had started to go through one of the first significant dips in his career, moving towards country music, so the next phase of music had to do with artists who had a different take on rock and roll. James Taylor was one of the first major people to get his foot in the door, and John himself was partial to what Laura Nyro was doing out of California, but it turned out that the next best thing for Dylan was to get the backing musicians who stood behind him all those years.
“He played all the great new music, and Bernie and I freaked out.”
Elton John
Although The Band never intended to be one of the biggest acts in the world, Music From Big Pink gave rock fans a whole new approach to rock and roll. Years before the world of country-rock was brought to the forefront, this was the kind of rustic mix of folk and rock that helped people see the beauty in traditional music, especially with those achingly beautiful harmonies whenever they sang ‘The Weight’.
John may have come from a different world at the time, but he knew that what he was listening to had the power to change the world, saying, “John Peel played the Music from Big Pink on his show, and I was a religious follower of John Peel in those days. He played all the great new music, and Bernie [Taupin] and I freaked out. This music changed my life because of the way the songs were written, the lyrics, the musicianship, was a huge influence on things like Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water.”
And while John is the last person that most people thought of who would look great in spurs in his lavish costumes, there was always a side of him that leaned slightly towards folksy music. ‘Country Comfort’ is practically a long-lost country tune from the days of George Jones, and ‘Roy Rogers’ is the kind of love letter to Westerns that would make even the most disinterested people shed tears.
Because before anything else, John knew that The Band was teaching him about the power of emotion. Most people can latch onto a key lyric in a song or maybe the first few guitar riffs that they hear, but the real power comes when you can get a message across to someone using the bare minimum of emotion.
