Lesley Duncan
The best Elton John album is "Tumbleweed Connection". Released on the heels of "Elton John" and the huge success of "Your Song", "Tumbleweed Connection" had no singles and itself was soon followed by "Friends", "11/17/70" and at the end of the year, "Madman Across The Water". Casual listeners are unaware of the record, but fans hold it dear. It contains Elton’s original showstopper, "Burn Down The Mission", his take of "Country Comfort", which Rod Stewart had just done, "Son Of Your Father", which Spooky Tooth was placing its ultimately failed hopes in, and…
Where To Now St. Peter?
The first side ended with the laconic "My Father’s Gun". Well, it started out like a tale from a hayseed with a stick of straw emanating from his mouth, but eventually it devolved into the rhythm of a paddle-wheeler on the Mississippi, blend a margarita and listen on your back porch as the sun sets, as this epic unfolds.
But the second side opened with something we hadn’t heard from Elton previously, an intimate piano figure, an ethereal vocal…Â Listening to "Where To Now St. Peter?", you truly felt like you were floating down a river.
I took myself a blue canoe
And I floated like a leaf
Dazzling, dancing half enchanted
In my Merlin sleep
Floating is the operative word. "Tumbleweed Connection" arrived during Christmas vacation, when I returned to Middlebury for Winter Term I saw the Record Club of America box over the shoulder of the mail clerk. Also included in the box were "Gasoline Alley" and the very first Rod Stewart album, eponymous in the U.S., entitled "An Old Raincoat Won’t Ever Let You Down" in the U.K. And I loved them both. But when I dropped the needle on "Where To Now St. Peter?" I resonated, like this track was made just for me, it took me away from my studies, I felt like Elton lived next door and dropped by to play a tune long after dark.
And it being the winter of marijuana, and long days on the ski slopes, I’d drop the needle on the second side of "Tumbleweed Connection" to hear "Where To Now St. Peter?" and it would slide into "Love Song". This was long before CD players, long before remote controls, long before endless repeat.
There was a percussion element that sounded like a scratch, believe me, I checked. And a song unfolded which sounded like nothing else on the album. Because it wasn’t written by Elton, but one Lesley Duncan, who duetted on the track with him.
There’s a story here. I don’t know what it is. Aspiring stars don’t cede that real estate, they don’t give up those royalties. Yes, unable to move from my bed, I heard "Love Song" again and again, I broke open the gatefold cover and read the credits, I knew who was responsible.
This is the genesis of album rock. It wasn’t about the radio so much as the limited music we acquired and our inability to get up off our rear ends. The needle slipped into the next groove, and over time we became fans of what followed.
And what follows "Love Song" is "Amoreena", a song with such a swagger, you want to put on your guns and amble down a dusty Texas street.
Then there was the quiet "Talking Old Soldiers" and the tour de force of "Burn Down The Mission". Side two was my favorite. I’d put the play ratio of side two to one that month of January 1971 at ten or twelve to one. It took quite a while to sink in how great "Comes Down In Time" truly was…you see it was located on the first side.
"Love Song"’s key feature is its intimacy. As if it were playing in your head as you strolled through the park on a spring morning. It’s not the best song on "Tumbleweed Connection", nor is it my favorite. But I know it. Like I know a member of my family. Because, believe me, these records rode shotgun with me through my life, they were right there in my saddlebags.
Lesley Duncan just died.
