Watch T. Rex play with Elton John and Ringo Starr
In the early 1970s, Britain was a hotbed of musical activity. The Beatles were officially done, and classic 1960s bands like The Rolling Stones, The Who, and The Kinks were starting to sprawl out and get more theatrical. After the peace and love movement, the next big sea change in British music was glam-rock. With a major focus on style, glam-rock also carried its own unique sound, centred on loud guitars and power-pop melodies.
Certain bands and figures hovered around glam rock without fully fitting into the form or transcending the more basic aspects of the genre. Elton John had already established himself as a singer-songwriter by the time glam rock officially took off. Even though he was ostensibly late to the party, John made up for it by integrating outlandish costumes into his live shows and public persona. John also began friendships with several of glam’s biggest figures, not least of which was T. Rex leader Marc Bolan.
Bolan was largely responsible for bringing glam rock to the masses. After a string of acoustic folk albums under the name Tyrannosaurus Rex, Bolan gave the band a makeover by embracing electric guitar rock instead. ‘Ride a White Swan’ would be the first major hit for the newly-christened T. Rex, but ‘Hot Love’ propelled the band into the forefront of British rock music. When Bolan appeared on Top of the Pops with glitter under his eyes, glam rock officially began its reign as the preeminent rock music genre.
When T. Rex returned to Top of the Pops with the Electric Warrior cut ‘Get It On (Bang a Gong)’ in 1971, John was invited to mime the song’s piano parts. John was one month removed from the release of Madman Across the Water and was a rising figure in rock music at the time. It wasn’t long before Bolan and John established a friendship. When Bolan wanted to record a new version of the song ‘Children of the Revolution’ for the 1972 concert film Born to Boogie, he invited John along to participate.
John wasn’t the only person to join in on the fun. Sitting at a second drum kit during the performance is none other than the director of the picture, Ringo Starr. “He was a good friend of mine, and he was the punk at the time, of course, because we were well established,” Starr recalled of their friendship back in 2011.
“We’d hang out, and I wrote ‘Back Off Boogaloo’ because he came to dinner, and that’s how he spoke. So I said to him one day, ‘Why don’t we do a movie?’ He was very proud of his poetry. Every time he came to say hi: ‘Oh, I’m the number one selling poet in Britain!’. And it was important to him as his music”.
“Anyway, I said, ‘Let’s make a movie. I’ll bring the cameras and everything else, you bring yourself, and that’s what we’ll do’. And we did”. Since it was Ringo behind the camera, it didn’t take long for Bolan to cajole Starr into playing the drums.
Check out the pairing of Bolan, John, and Starr playing ‘Children of the Revolution’ down below.
