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An unreleased version of a track from the album Tumbleweed Connection (one of my favourites).
Of interest as it has a long Piano solo at the end, which is unusual for Elton John, and presumably why it never made to the album, even in an edited form.

Cheers

This is one of my all time favorites by Elton. I always refer to this period of his music as "when Elton John was Elton John." Not the pop song Elton. Nothing wrong with his pop songs at all, but for me, this was his strong writing. This is gorgeous. Sol glad you [posted it. Thank you.

Hi Barbara

I agree up to a point. His early output in the 1970s was certainly his peak artistically.
For me everything up to Blue Moves (1976) is worth owning.
Then sadly the drugs and drink, and the need to continue being a pop star in 1980s influenced his artistic decisions - badly!

The albums still had some good, occasionally great songs, though notably fewer in my view. And worse still they are all horribly over-produced with hideous layers of keyboards and synth drums etc.

However, after he got sober and cleaned himself up, there are quite a few really good albums, which a lot of people don't know about. "Songs From the West Coast" (2001) and "The Diving Board" (2013) are both terrific albums IMHO, which to a degree hark back to that early period of his career.

Sadly the flexibility in his voice that he had as a younger man is missing, but they are still well worth checking out.

Cheers

Simon I am not familiar with the two albums you mentioned but will most certainly listen to them. Like everyone who ages, his voice is not the same but that's ok. Its still Elton. The last album of his I got was the one he did with Leon Russell. It is timeless.

Hi Barbara

I agree, the album with Leon Russell is great. Again a post sober album from 2010.
Some great songs:
Eight Hundred Dollar Shoes
Gone To Shiloh (echoes of Tumbleweed Connection)
I should Have sent Roses

Two tracks I'd recommend from the albums I mentioned earlier:
This Train Don't Stop There Anymore
My Quicksand

Cheers

Although it's safe to say his voice is gone now, I did love his voice in the 90s. Here's my favourite version of 'Come Down in Time'. Lots of resonance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hjnKibxI2PA&ab_channel=EltonJohnGigs

So I'm guessing you just consider these 5 songs below to be silly pop songs? I usually like to listen to his live solo piano versions of songs where you don't hear the synths... if they're so bad. 'The One' is a fantastic song, and the piano solos for his solo live version of that song are far better than the piano solo in the original post above. It's pretty just background jazz!

The One
Sacrifice
Nikita
I Want Love
You Can Make History Young Again

These are just to name a few that are fantastic songs, that were written after Blue Moves, most people don't know about:

Sweat it Out
The Man who Never Died
If the River Can Bend
Blessed
The End Will Come
Blue Eyes
Original Sin
Elton's Song

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YNx4P4ei5zg&ab_channel=EltonJohnGigs

As I clearly indicated in my reply to Barbara, I said that Elton continued to write good songs after Blue Moves. But the quality declined significantly in the 1980s, and I think he acknowledges this. I never said anything about silly pop songs, though he's certainly written some.

Which Piano solo you prefer is highly subjective. If you prefer a particular solo, that's great, but that doesn't definitively mean the one you like is better than another one. That's an opinion, not a fact.

Elton John was the first Piano player who inspired me, and I still love a lot of his albums to this day, including as I mentioned in my 2nd reply to Barbara, quite a few made after he got sober.

However he's not beyond criticism, nobody's perfect.

But you'll notice that in a lot of his solo piano concerts, that it is harder to tell which songs are pop and which ones are rock. I was first introduced to a lot of Elton songs in his 1999 solo tour. As such I didn't know which songs were considered the 'cool' ones to like, and which ones weren't. As it happened I found that I liked a lot of his later stuff too.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XTmUVItmnpA

Okay. Fair point.

It's just I've heard far too many people say things like "he hasn't written a good song in 30 years" and then realise that they can't even name some of his recent albums.

It's the same with any artist really. They're always remembered for their early stuff. If say, U2 were to write their best song ever tomorrow, no one would really ever hear it. But if Bono tripped and fell it would be head line news.

+1

Thanks for posting this great Elton tune which I hadn't heard in many years. Can't say I found much of interest in the long piano solo, so I think they made the right decision on the album!

My Elton John story: I was a kid studying classical music, but l listening to rock and pop on the side. One day in a book store I saw the sheet music to Elton's first album and thought 'You mean I could play the pop and rock tunes I love to listen to? I bought the book (still have it over 50 years later) and began voraciously buying pop and rock sheet music books and having a blast with them.

jjo, I did the same!

Hi

Likewise I was the same, and bought the sheet music to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, Blue Moves, Captain Fantastic and Rock of the Westies in a very short period of time, which I still have to this day.

However, if like me at the time you could only read the dots on the page, I quickly found that the sheet music had very little to do with the way Elton John played the Piano. And in some cases even the cobbled together arrangements were wrong. An example being "Funeral for a Friend" in the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road songbook.

Still it did set me off on a path that ultimately led to me getting away from needing everything written down in front of me.

I still play Bennie and the Jets with the guys I jam with now. A lot better than my attempts back then, but still not as good as Elton!

Cheers

The first Elton John concert that I went to was in the 1970's, at the Anaheim convention center.
What I remember distinctively about it was the the entire first half of the concert was Just Elton, singling and playing the piano. No other accompaniment, no separate tracks playing.
It was incredible.

Then he took a break, a short intermission, and the stage went dark. After about 15 minutes, with the stage still dark, he began playing a classical piece on the piano. I wish I could remember which one it was. As the lights came up, he got a huge round of applause, and then the lights went on the band as well, and they started in on more "rockin" songs, finishing up with a LONG version of Saturday Nights Alright.

Hi

I suspect the classical piece was probably the long instrumental introduction to the song "Tonight", which was originally recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra.

Cheers

it's a little strange, I was thinking about that concert last night. I was about 20 or 21 years old, so it was 46 years ago. Time flies!
Anyway, the song might have actually not been a classical piece, but could have been Nola. My brain is having a hard time reaching that far back...

I know it's a thread vere, but i knew an old crusty Marine. He so wanted to play violin/fiddle, but his hearing was toast. He settled for banjo. He was great! He had as spinet in the living room. I assumed it was for his wife. Knew him for several years. Jammed at his house every Tues. night. Don't know what prompted him, but he went to the piano. Played this tune like water off a duck's back. Nola. He had barrels for fingers. My jaw was on the floor. He said, "There was always a piano around on the Base. Always handy to play piano for beer money." Nola. I'll never forget it.

Hi

If you have the year correct (1974), then I'm wrong as the song "Tonight" came out on Blue Moves in 1976. Nola is a possibility, though I've never heard Elton John play it.

Love the Liberace clip!

Cheers

I had never heard either version, but this jazz version sounds great! Can't believe they never released the jazz version.

That's because you never heard 'Sweat it Out'!