Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy - Elton John

On June 17th 1967 Liberty Records placed an advert in the New Musical Express paper for talent; it wanted artists, composers or singer-musicians to form a new group. In a rural village called Owmby-by-Spital in Lincolnshire, a young teenager named Bernie Taupin had written some poems & with a little persuasion from his mother, he sent them to Liberty records. Meanwhile in Pinner, North London, another young lad called Reginald Kenneth Dwight (a.k.a. Elton John) submitted details of himself to Liberty & received a request to do an audition. Around this time Elton John had played keyboards for a band called Bluesology who amongst ...  Read the complete review

Elton John originally signed for DJM Records towards the end of the Sixties and committed unwisely to releasing a couple of albums a year for around six or seven years. That quickly became a major blight on his career and though he produced some wonderful stuff during his time with the label, he always seemed to be personally marking time until he could fly off on his own Rocket Records label, which he finally did in 1976. When Elton John released the 'Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy' album in 1975, he was doing much more than fulfil his contractual obligation to DJM Records. He used it to bring down the curtain on the first phase of his ...  Read the complete review