The album that made Elton John feel “shortchanged”
Born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, Elton John emerged from the obscurity of suburbia as an extraordinarily gifted pianist. With a zeal for rock ‘n’ roll, John infiltrated London with lyricist Bernie Taupin in the late 1960s to bring piano-driven pop to the masses. John opened his now-expansive oeuvre in 1969 with Empty Sky, an album that introduced his style, promising greatness to come.
John’s eponymous LP of 1970 played a bigger role in establishing his musical identity with timeless highlights like ‘Your Song’ and ‘Border Song’. The release marked the beginning of John’s entry into mainstream consciousness, paving the way to Tumbleweed Connection later that year and Madman Across the Water thereafter.
Madman Across the Water sported two of Elton John’s most prominent early hits in the powerfully cinematic ‘Tiny Dancer’ and the haunting ‘Levon’. The record showcased the true scope of John and Taupin’s creative and compositional talents, receiving due critical acclaim. However, when compared with the likes of Honky Château and Goodbye Yellowbrick Road, Madman Across the Water was initially only a moderate success commercially.
“The Madman Across the Water album was the end of an era, the last record I made with session musicians,” John said in a 2013 conversation with Rolling Stone. “It was not commercial at all. I always think that we got shortchanged in my career. We took a chance on every album. We were making and writing serious fucking songs. ‘Levon’ and ‘Tiny Dancer’ were the singles from the album – they didn’t do very well chart-wise.
“‘Tiny Dancer’ is a complex song – it’s not easy to sing – but the album did brilliantly. This was the end of the three-piece era on the road, because we’d reached as far as we could go, and I decided to get a guitarist into the band. Davey Johnstone brought a new essence. The three of those voices were so symbolic of my records from that point onward. I was personally most connected to the title song.”
With Johnstone on board, John’s sound became bolder and more permeable, especially across the Atlantic. Over the next two years, John would welcome such classics as ‘Rocketman’, ‘Crocodile Rock’, ‘Daniel’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’, ‘Bennie and the Jets’ and ‘Candle in the Wind’ to his towering repertoire.
