When did I decide I hated Elvis Costello?<\/p>\n
Probably about the time the johnny-come-latelies started telling me how good "Spike" and the other Warner titles were.\u00c2\u00a0 Where was the sharp incisiveness of the vicious dude who threatened an audience member at the Whisky back in ’77?\u00c2\u00a0 The guy mellowed out, kept getting married and divorced and started making music you didn’t need to hear once.<\/p>\n
So I wasn’t going to watch this show.<\/p>\n
But you should.\u00c2\u00a0 Not because of Declan McManus, but Reg Dwight.\u00c2\u00a0 Elton is positively SPECTACULAR!<\/p>\n
Oh, the show’s a bit stilted.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s got the feel of a demo.\u00c2\u00a0 But what Elton has to say…<\/p>\n
You see Elton’s a fan.\u00c2\u00a0 I remember reading in "Creem" that they opened Tower up early for him, and he’d buy 300-400 records at a clip.\u00c2\u00a0 Elton’s championed artists from Neil Sedaka to Ryan Adams.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like he’s one of us, but with a lot more talent.<\/p>\n
Actually, Elton said he just wanted to work in the music business.\u00c2\u00a0 He didn’t need to be a star.\u00c2\u00a0 He just loved music that much.\u00c2\u00a0 Do you love music that much?\u00c2\u00a0 We hear about all the entertainment options.\u00c2\u00a0 That just tells me the music sucks.\u00c2\u00a0 Because when music is done right, there’s nothing better, no more powerful art form.\u00c2\u00a0 Look at it this way, has sex declined since the introduction of video games?\u00c2\u00a0 HDTV?\u00c2\u00a0 Sex lives in its own rarefied atmosphere.\u00c2\u00a0 And so does music.<\/p>\n
If you were alive in the late sixties and early seventies you know this…<\/p>\n
Elton starts testifying about Laura Nyro.\u00c2\u00a0 Says she was the inspiration for the instrumental changes in "Burn Down The Mission".\u00c2\u00a0 I remember him playing this song at Carnegie Hall back in ’71, when he threw in the riff from "Jesus Christ Superstar"!<\/p>\n
Even better are his stories about the black touring musicians in the U.K.\u00c2\u00a0 Going to pick up Martha and the Vandellas at the airport in his Aston Martin. These were gods in his book, but they had to borrow money to get their clothes out of the cleaners.<\/p>\n
Then Elton sits down at the piano and plays in the style of Leon Russell.\u00c2\u00a0 A man who’s been forgotten, but was a king for a few years back then.<\/p>\n
The musical pieces suck.\u00c2\u00a0 I don’t want to hear Elvis cover someone else’s songs.\u00c2\u00a0 And, unfortunately, Elton’s voice is not what it once was.\u00c2\u00a0 The magic is Elton talking about music.\u00c2\u00a0 Unfortunately, talking down to the young, too often interspersed, audience.\u00c2\u00a0 It’s like a preacher explaining who God was.\u00c2\u00a0 We KNOW who God was.\u00c2\u00a0 All these musicians, whose records we bought, who we couldn’t get enough of.<\/p>\n
Fire up this show.\u00c2\u00a0 Watch it.<\/p>\n
And Sundance should make it immediately available online.\u00c2\u00a0 In its entirety.\u00c2\u00a0 Everyone’s invited to Bible class.\u00c2\u00a0 Sure, the church is supported by its main constituents, Sundance’s subscribers, but this information is too precious, too important to be limited to a small audience.<\/p>\n
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When did I decide I hated Elvis Costello? Probably about the time the johnny-come-latelies started telling me how good "Spike" and the other Warner titles were.\u00c2\u00a0 Where was the sharp incisiveness of the vicious dude who threatened an audience member at the Whisky back in ’77?\u00c2\u00a0 The guy mellowed out, kept getting married and divorced […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1513","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-music-business"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p96vPs-op","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1513"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1514,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1513\/revisions\/1514"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1513"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1513"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lefsetz.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1513"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}