When Elton John was nervous around Ray Charles: “I was playing with one of my idols”
Not many people get into the music industry to make friends. Even if someone has colleagues that they can grab a drink with outside of being onstage or in the studio, those are happy accidents compared to the volatile relationships that happen in every other group. While Elton John has been able to keep things professional in everything he does, he did manage to build some true friendships throughout his career.
Then again, it’s hard to find any other pair of collaborators who respect each other to the extent that John and Bernie Taupin have. Even though they have lived two very different lives throughout their decades together, they are still joined at the hip musically, with John usually able to come up with a brilliant melody no matter what kind of perverse lyrical idea comes across his music stand.
And in terms of rock and roll history, John has won the musical lottery when it comes to meeting his idols. Not many people could claim to crack the rough exterior of John Lennon, but the fact that John was able to get the former Beatle out of performing retirement during his show at Madison Square Garden is something that every Fab Four fan should be forever grateful for.
When putting together his first melodies, though, John was always thinking about much more than rock and roll. He had studied some of the greatest composers in classical music, and even before the British Invasion, people like Little Richard were already setting the stage for what a rock and roll singer could look like when pounding things out from behind a piano.
That was all part of the spectacle, but what Ray Charles did always came from the heart. Aside from being one of the leading voices in soul music, Charles was the one responsible for making everything seem so easy when he played, turning songs like ‘George On My Mind’ into a gospel hymn when he got ahold of it or laying the groundwork for R&B with the rhythm behind ‘What’d I Say’.
So when John was asked to work with him, he was more than happy to lend a hand to one of the most accommodating people he had ever met, saying, “The first television show I ever did in America when I first came over in 1970 was the Andy Williams Show with Mama Cass and Ray Charles. And I had to do a duet of a Stevie Wonder song with Ray. He was playing a white piano, and I was playing a black piano. And I was so nervous because I was playing with one of my idols, one of my all-time favourite people – artist, and he was very sweet to me.”
However, a lot of the beauty behind Charles’s music came from the fact that he communicated with music first. It was one thing for someone to become a diva once they reached a certain level of stardom, but the common language for Charles was always music, and if he could find a way to connect with someone in a few notes, that was enough for him to keep going, eventually recording John’s song ‘Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word’ shortly before his death.
While John might count himself lucky to have someone like Charles to learn from, let this be a lesson for anyone who has tried to make friends in the music industry. It’s a hard life in that kind of business, but if there’s anyone who treats you with an ounce of respect and appreciates what you’re doing, that’s something to treasure.
