Concert #114

Styx/R.E.O. Speedwagon/Ted Nugent (Friday, May 10, 2013—Starlight Theater) Ticket price: $24.75

I wasn’t initially planning to attend this concert featuring three of Kansas City’s all-time favorite ‘70s Rock acts (which I’ve seen numerous times in the past), but a friend invited me tag along with the group he had assembled to go, and since I hadn’t set foot in Starlight Theater in about a decade, I thought "What the hey," and decided to go. Turned out to be a good move, as it wasn’t a bad show.

  
Given my anti-Nugent manifesto that I posted just last month, I was really in no mood to see my ex-idol perform again at this point in my life. This was my 10th Nugent show since 1979 (his 7th as an opening act), and in a totally unintentional yet fairly symbolic gesture on my part, I happened to be in the men’s room taking a leak when Nugent’s set began—first time I’ve ever not seen him hit the stage in his 10 performances I’ve witnessed, gosh darn it! I sooooooo wanted to rip him to shreds here, but guess what—that’s not going to happen. Instead, even jaded ol’ me has to admit that this was easily the best set I’ve seen Ted Nugent play in person since 1982—musically, that is. He opened with "Wango Tango", minus the stupid rap about the Mazerati, but with a few bars from "Cool Jerk" (Ted Nugent sings the Go-Go’s!), then gave way to his rhythm guitarist for the vocal on the next song. I didn’t recognize the guy at first, but his voice sounded an awful lot like that of longtime on-and-off Nugent sideman Derek St. Holmes, and as it turned out, it WAS Derek St. Holmes! DSH was indeed "Just What The Doctor Ordered" to upgrade Nugent’s live act—it’s sorta like in baseball where you need a good #5 hitter to back up your clean-up batter, and Nugent has never understood this. He always has to hog the spotlight for himself, thus he can’t handle sharing it with a much more talented singer, and I never expected these two to ever work together again in light of Holmes’ commentary on the VH-1 "Behind The Music" segment on Nugent. Derek’s return led to an even more unexpected (and most welcome) surprise for me, as after 34 years, I finally got to hear one of my all-time Nugent favorites performed live, "Turn It Up" from Free-For-All, and it kicked ass. Could it be that Ted Nugent might actually find his way back into my good graces? Well, this was a step in the right direction, but not nearly enough.

I don’t know if this really made a big difference or not, but in another throwback to the ‘70s, I noticed Ted was once again playing his trademark Gibson Byrdland guitars instead of the Les Pauls he’d employed in recent years. The mighty Les Paul guitar looks just right on the likes of Pete Townshend and Ace Frehley, but on Nugent they always looked out of place. Meantime, Rev. Theodocious Atrocious goes through more drummers than Spinal Tap, but his current rhythm section is the best he’s had since the ‘70s, with "Wild" Mick Brown (formerly of Dokken) on drums and bassist Greg Smith, who looked like he wasn’t even born yet when Weekend Warriors came out in '78. The set list was rounded out by usual suspects like "Cat Scratch Fever", "Stranglehold", "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang" and since Holmes was back, the hit "Hey Baby", which received a good reaction from the crowd, which I would estimate at about 7,000 or so. I was a bit surprised at the omission of "Free-For-All" and 1995’s "Kiss My Ass", and Ted fell flat on his face with his misguided tribute to black musicians in the form of a medley of "My Girl" (yes, the Temptations’ "My Girl") and a half-assed rendition of Chuck Berry’s "Johnny B. Goode". Soul Brotha #1, you ain’t, Ted. At least he spared us the firing of the flaming arrow into the fake guitar from ten paces this time.

And of course, it was only a matter of time before the other shoe dropped. For the first half of his 45-minute set, Nugent checked his tongue and focused more or less on the music and working the crowd. If I had a dollar for every time Nugent uttered the phrase "I love this shit!" (referring to being on stage playing to HIS people), the cost of my ticket would’ve been covered. "You fuckers deserve me, Kansas City!" he declared. Yeah, like whooping cough or inverted nipples. That wasn’t so bad, but like a junkie with a crack pipe, it wasn’t long before Ted stopped resisting temptation and spewed forth his usual right-wing Wookiee excrement. There was the usual paranoia about someone threatening to take his guns away, and statements like "The President is the enemy!...The Attorney General is the enemy!", as well as this classic: "If you’re not out there pissing off the assholes, then YOU are an asshole!" I guess I’m not an asshole, though, because if Ted reads this review, it’ll piss HIM off, so I’m covered, right? When Ted implored everyone to "Stand up for what you believe in", I promptly sat back down—I don’t believe in nandofucks. Ted’s coup de grace was when he stated, "I salute those who defend the Constitution that the President wipes his ass with!" Coming from an admitted draft dodger, I think this is a total insult to every combat veteran in America. I’d pay good money to see one of them shove their prosthetic leg or arm up Ted’s ass. I’ve said this before, and I’ll say it again: I attend a Rock show to be Rocked and entertained, not to be preached at and fed a load of political buffalo bagels. Why does Nugent insist on pissing all over an otherwise fine performance with all this bullshit that doesn’t have a damn thing to do with the music he’s performing? He’s like the jagoff who farts at the dinner table at Thanksgiving. Do us all a big favor, Ted—just shut the fuck up, take a tip from Aerosmith and "Let the music do the talking…"

SET LIST: Wango Tango; Just What The Doctor Ordered; Wang Dang Sweet Poontang; Turn It Up; Medley: My Girl/Johnny B. Goode; Hey Baby; Cat Scratch Fever; Stranglehold; Great White Buffalo

R.E.O. was up next. This was my third time around with the Speedwagon, and second time with the current lineup of Bryan Hitt on drums, guitarist Dave Amato (who once worked with Nugent), bassist Bruce Hall, stalwart keyboardist Neal Doughty and singer Kevin Cronin. A brief video montage of Bo Diddley-beat songs from the past led into their opener, "Don’t Let Him Go". Cronin sported almost Phil Spector-ish poofy blonde hair, and as I feared, his voice has all the depth of a shot glass now, as the years have taken a toll on his vocal chords. He sounded really weak on the Arch Allies live CD, which came out over a decade ago, and sadly, not much has changed. But KC is a trouper and worked the crowd with Springsteen-like prowess throughout R.E.O.’s set, which was fairly predictable, featuring "Take It On The Run", "Time For Me To Fly" and "Back On The Road Again", as well as "Keep On Lovin’ You" and "Ridin’ The Storm Out" for the encore. I was also hoping to hear "157 Riverside Avenue" (with Cronin’s infamous yodeling) and perhaps some more obscure stuff like "Say You Love Me Or Say Goodnight" and "Good Trouble", but they could only cram so much into their 70-minute set. Which begs the question, did we really need Nugent at this show at all? I would much rather have skipped him altogether if it meant getting full 90-minute sets from Speedwagon and Styx. Anyway, the two surprises for me were "Golden Country", which was omitted in my previous two R.E.O. shows, and "That Ain’t Love", one of the last hits they had with long-estranged lead guitarist Gary Richrath in 1987. It seems almost like an indictment that this was the most recent song played by any of the three acts at this show. Have we really been this devoid of good classic Rock over the last 26 years?

SET LIST: Don’t Let Him Go; Take It On The Run; Keep Pushin’; Golden Country; Can’t Fight This Feeling; That Ain’t Love; Time For Me To Fly; Back On The Road Again; Roll With The Changes ENCORE: Keep On Lovin’ You; Ridin’ The Storm Out

All three acts employed the nice big video screen in back, but there were no live cameras at this gig, so it was basically all graphics, band logos and lame visuals all night—kinda worthless, I thought. The sound mix was a major issue for me too—it was way too trebly. I realize my ears are almost 49 years old now and can’t always take the pounding like they used to, but volume wasn’t the problem so much as the high-end shrieky-ness, even during R.E.O. and Styx, which left my ears ringing for quite some time afterward. But I have to say, Starlight Theater (pictured here from back in the '60s) is still the best concert venue Kansas City has to offer by far. It’s been around over 60 years now, but they’ve maintained and updated the place quite well over the years. My very first Rock concert happened here—Paul Revere And The Raiders in 1971—and I thought back to the other great shows I’ve seen at Starlight, like Pat Benatar in 2002, Robin Williams in 1983, and especially Elton John in 1982—not to mention nearly drowning in a thunderstorm at Weird Al Yankovic in 2000—and wondered why I don’t go there more often. Ironically, of all the major KC concert venues, apart from Arrowhead Stadium, Starlight is closest to where I live.

This was my fourth concert sojourn with the Stygians, but my first time without keyboardist/co-founder Dennis DeYoung, and I didn’t miss him as much as I expected to. Surprisingly, Styx doesn’t lose all that much without DDY, as his kinda-sorta sound-alike replacement Lawrence Gowan is quite the showman himself, and was very animated throughout the set, particularly on his little spin-o-rama keyboard platform at stage right, which almost looks like something you’d find on a galactic playground. Apart from his goatee, guitarist Tommy Shaw doesn’t appear to have aged a bit since 1977, and he bounded about the stage like a 12-year-old all night. Former Baby Ricky Phillips is now the full-time bassist for Styx (aren’t we all former babies?), but three songs in, original bassist Chuck Panozzo made a cameo appearance on "Fooling Yourself" and returned later for "Come Sail Away" and the encore. Chuck’s a nice guy, not to mention courageous in campaigning for gay rights and all, but honestly, he’s not that big a draw with the fans, so I guess trotting him out for a few songs is merely Styx’s way of throwing him a bone by keeping him on the payroll. And no offense intended to Chuck’s dearly-departed brother John, but his replacement, Todd Sucherman, is a monster on the drums. I always considered John Panozzo to be a bit pedestrian, while Sucherman is a far more dynamic player, and his drum kit rivals that of Rush’s Neil Peart in size.

Like R.E.O., the Styx set list was predictable with a couple minor surprises like "Light Up" from Equinox and Shaw’s underrated and overlooked "Man In The Wilderness" from The Grand Illusion. Gowan did a solo bit where he played bits from classic Rock numbers before leading into "Come Sail Away". I was hoping we might hear "Suite: Madame Blue" or "Lorelei", but again they could only do so many songs in the short time allotted. And I was absolutely stunned that they didn’t perform "Babe"! "Mr. Roboto", either! How could this be?!? Okay, I’m being facetious, but I was a bit disappointed they didn’t do an encore with the guys from R.E.O. as they’ve done on previous R.E.O. Styx-wagon joint tours, or perhaps even a Damn Yankees reunion between Shaw and Nugent. Still and all, this wasn’t a bad concert for the money. Nothing I hadn’t seen before, mind you, but if nothing else, it reignited my "concert mojo" a bit, which now has me interested in doing more than a few gigs this summer and fall, like Rush, the Eagles, Black Sabbath, Kiss, Heart, etc.

SET LIST: Blue Collar Man; The Grand Illusion; Fooling Yourself; Lady; Light Up; Man In The Wilderness; Miss America; Too Much Time On My Hands; Medley: Space Oddity/Layla (the piano part)/You Can’t Always Get What You Want; Come Sail Away ENCORE: Rockin’ The Paradise; Renegade

Fly Like The Egos ("Fly Like The Eagles?" remastered)

A couple or three years ago, I paid a very brief blog tribute to The Eagles, a band I was never a gi-normous fan of, but who was/is still worthy of a tribute all-the-same, given their lofty stature as one of the most renowned and popular American bands of all-time. Having recently viewed the three-hour documentary "History Of The Eagles" on Showtime, I find myself much more educated about the band, and a couple years back I read ousted lead guitarist Don Felder’s tell-all book, Heaven and Hell: My Life in the Eagles (1974-2001) and thoroughly enjoyed it. At that time, I found myself siding with Felder more than I did with Eagles co-founders Glenn Frey and Don Henley (whom he referred to as "The Gods" in the book), but after viewing the documentary, I no longer have a "frail grasp" on the band’s history, yet I find myself a bit conflicted about certain issues regarding them, so I thought I’d take a page from VH-1 Classic and offer an expanded "Remastered" version of my original Eagles post.

I've always had a love/hate (more accurately "like/hate") relationship with the Eagles ever since the '70s.  I absolutely hated them—hated them—at times. I perceived them to be rather snobbish and uppity, with a "we're better than everybody else" attitude, and I always thought they got played way too much on the radio, both on Top 40 and Album Rock stations. However, they did have a few songs I liked, especially "Witchy Woman", "Already Gone" and "One Of These Nights", so I tried to tolerate them best I could. As I got older I learned to appreciate the band a lot more, although there are still some Eagles songs that I never need to hear again as long as I live (namely "Hotel California", "New Kid In Town" and "Life In The Fast Lane") because they've been played to death so much on radio. In recent years, I managed to obtain all of their original albums on CD, and have been pleasantly surprised at how good some of their "B-stuff" is. Songs like "Outlaw Man", "Good Day In Hell", "My Man", "Journey Of The Sorcerer", "Out Of Control", "Chug All Night", etc., have all caught my ear—why can’t some of these tracks get a spin or two on the radio instead of "Seven Bridges Road", "The Long Run" and "Take It Easy" all the time?

Although I have often viewed Glenn Frey and especially Don Henley as real hard-asses over the years, Henley comes off way better in the documentary than Frey does. While Frey just seems like a pompous prick at times, Henley is a lot more laid-back and calculated in his demeanor, and actually appears to have a heart after all, plus his friendly Texan drawl is rather endearing to listen to. Henley’s a natural iconoclast, though—a lot like me in some ways—which is why I still like and respect him, in spite of his often prickly personality. He has a wry and often wicked sense of humor, and like one of his best songs goes, he can truly "get down to the heart of the matter" on most any subject like TV news ("Dirty Laundry"), TV talk shows ("Get Over It"), general phoniness ("Busy Being Fabulous"), the impermanence and fragility of life ("New York Minute") and blind faith ("Frail Grasp On The Big Picture").

As for Frey, I really want to like the guy, but his arrogance makes that very difficult. While he’s a fine singer/songwriter, always treats his concert audience with courtesy and certainly possesses a good Rock ‘N’ Roll attitude in general, he just appears so confrontational and is always spoiling for a fight with someone (particularly Felder), and his ego often seems to get the best of him. I thought he handled the departures of original bassist Randy Meisner and original guitarist Bernie Leadon rather poorly with his "my way or the highway" ultimatums and his relationship with Felder was/is especially messy. Things reached a boiling point in 1980 at a concert in Long Beach in which the band played to benefit Senator Alan Cranston. The apolitical Felder was none too crazy about this venture, while Frey stroked his own ego by hob-knobbing with the politicos, and when Cranston went down the line to shake hands with the band to thank them for their participation, Felder infamously responded, "You’re welcome…I guess," which totally incensed Frey. Instead of talking things out like gentlemen, Billy Bad-Ass was livid, and totally ready to punch Felder out right on stage that night, and Frey subsequently chased him down afterward before Felder escaped in a limo—pretty immature, Glenn. Dude, I woulda said the EXACT SAME THING Felder did because I’m very cynical about Rock bands schmoozing with politicians—you think just because you have a microphone and/or a guitar and some money, you can change the fucking world? Sorry, bud, you’re just a Rock band…

I also still can’t shake this image I have of Frey and Henley as greedy bastards who can only get motivated to make a new album or go on tour when there’s a super-sized paycheck involved. I still recall how dumbfounded I was when tickets for the Eagles’ "Hell Freezes Over" tour topped out at over a hundred bucks—quite commonplace now, but unheard-of in 1994. Then again, I’m still a fan of two of the champion Rock money-grubbers of all-time, Gene Simmons and Paul Stanley, so maybe I’m the idiot here, I dunno, but at least Kiss manages to keep their ticket prices fairly reasonable for working-class fans, and if the hoity-toity ones want to pay more for the deluxe package crap, that’s their problem. Anyway, even after watching "History…", it’s still hard to get a read on what these guys (Henley and Frey) are like personally, and it would certainly be interesting to sit down and have a few beers with them. A friend of mine on Facebook who has been in radio for over 30 years told a story recently that he heard from a friend who worked at Fox Theater in St. Louis where Don Henley was doing a solo performance in the early ‘90s, and they were told to not make eye contact with Henley or even acknowledge his presence in any way or he’d cancel the show. Okay, I’m finding it a bit difficult to believe that he would be that full of himself, but if he is, that’s disappointing—yer shit stinks too, Don.

I also learned quite a bit about Joe Walsh in this documentary that I was previously unaware of. I didn’t realize he had so many issues with drugs and alcohol—I just assumed he was naturally goofy and weird, but evidently he had a little help. Being a member of the Eagles has literally been a life-saver for Joe, because he might not have gotten sober had it not been for the urging of Frey, Felder and group manager Irving Azoff before the ’94 band reunion, and he seems like a much happier, more lucid and wiser individual today. Ironically, Walsh’s commentary in the documentary was the most poignant and compelling of all, and he was even able to cut through some of the Frey/Henley B.S. at times.

I also didn’t know a lot about bassist Timothy B. Schmit beforehand. He always came off as a bit of a lightweight to me, in part because of his soft-spoken demeanor and the rather wimpy songs he contributes to the band, but I have to admit he’s a pretty thumpin’ good bass player, and Frey and Henley obviously respect him a lot, letting him have a hit song right away with his "I Can’t Tell You Why" from The Long Run. Oddly enough, Schmit replaced Randy Meisner in the band Poco when Randy joined the Eagles and Schmit replaced him yet again when Meisner departed the Eagles. Meisner had a great voice, with 1975’s "Take It To The Limit" being his high-water mark with the band, but he had some other tracks I liked, including "Tryin’", "Certain Kind Of Fool" and "Try And Love Again". Frey and Henley tried to encourage him to sing more, but he seemed inhibited (especially on-stage), and didn’t handle all the fame and such very well, thus he left the group in 1977 after Hotel California. I realize these guys are all 40 years older now, but of all the members of the Eagles, Meisner appears to have aged the most rapidly, going from a youthful boyish-looking guy to an old man rather stunningly—I wouldn’t have even recognized him now. I wouldn’t have recognized original lead guitarist Bernie Leadon either, being’s how he gave up on his hair since the ‘70s and shaved it all off, along with his bushy Jim Croce-esque mustache. Bernie was more partial to the twangy Country-Rock style the band played, which clashed with Frey’s straight-ahead Rock leanings, so he left after One Of These Nights and was replaced by Walsh. Rumor has it Leadon may be rejoining the Eagles for portions of their upcoming tour.

As for Don Felder, I have mixed feelings about him now. When I read his book, he seemed very likeable (still does), and I could understand where he was coming from regarding his ouster from the Eagles. He’s a damn fine player too, but on the documentary, he comes across as a bit of a whiner. Felder was miffed that he didn’t get to sing lead on his song "Victim Of Love" (which Henley kinda stole from him), and when the band reunited in 1994, he was under the assumption that all five band members would be paid equally, but this wasn’t the case, as Frey insisted that he and Henley be compensated more, mostly because they were the co-founders and principal songwriters of the band. Valid points, I suppose, but this didn’t sit well with Felder, who tends to forget that he joined the band in mid-stream, thus he suffers a bit from Vinnie Vincent Syndrome, and wasn’t really in any position to be all that demanding. DF also feels that since he contributed one of the band’s biggest hits, "Hotel California", that he’s owed a bigger slice of the pie than he got, but as Peter Criss proved with "Beth" in Kiss, one home run doth not a Hall of Fame career make. Felder didn’t aid his cause with me with his final bit on the documentary, where he talks about how hurt he was and that he missed the camaraderie of the band, then abruptly gets up and says, "Okay…" and walks off, thus rendering everything he’d just said to be rather insincere.

Seems to me like Frey and Henley do more talking through lawyers now than anyone else, and I’m sure that’s what inspired them to put out their 2007 double CD The Long Road Out Of Eden exclusively via Walmart, so it seemed only fitting that one song on it was called "Business As Usual". A former co-worker of mine is a big Eagles fan, but being the hard-ass that he is, he valiantly refused to knuckle under to Frey/Henley Inc. by buying the CD so he took the circuitous route and borrowed it from his local library instead. He in turn loaned it to me and I pirated my own copy—sorry Don, Glenn and Wally-World! A better by-product of their various reunions is the double-DVD "Farewell Tour I" concert video they came out with a couple years prior to Long Road (which I actually DID purchase), that features phenomenal audio quality and a pretty good concert performance too. Frey even makes a humorous legal reference on that show, "This next song goes out to my first wife, Plaintiff". In the documentary, Henley himself noted that the band were often accused of "loitering on stage", but the "Farewell" video holds your attention throughout. While I tend to agree with many hardcore Eagles fans who would prefer to hear an all-Eagles set list instead of the inclusion of Henley, Frey and Walsh solo stuff, I have to say Henley’s "Dirty Laundry", "New York Minute" and "Sunset Grill", as well as Frey’s "You Belong To The City" do sound awfully tasty here, and Joe’s "Life's Been Good" was a high point of the show.

In lieu of my usual countdown, I’m just going to dole out a few random thoughts about my Eagles favorites (in no particular order):

"Lyin' Eyes" (1975)  I was 11 when this came out, and absolutely couldn't stand this song back then. It was too damn long for one thing, and too twangy for my liking at the time. But when I started hearing it with adult ears and could actually understand the juicy storyline in the song, I grew to love it.
"Witchy Woman" (1972)  Or as my older brother and I used to lampoon it when I was eight, "Itchy Woman"! For the longest time, I didn't even know this was The Eagles—for some reason, I thought it was some Native American band when I was a kid.
"James Dean" (1974)  "Too fast to live, too young to die, bye-bye..."
"Heartache Tonight" (1979)  I imagine more than a few bar brawls have been set to (or set-off by) this song.
"Take It To The Limit" (1975)  Ever notice how this song's intro is eerily similar to that of Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes' "If You Don't Know Me By Now"?  I use to lampoon Randy Meisner’s  falsetto "weeeeee"s at the end quite a bit, too. Randy went on to have a minor hit in 1981 with "Hearts On Fire", which wasn’t a bad song, and toured briefly with Rick Nelson, but thankfully was no longer in his band when Nelson’s plane crashed in 1985.
"One Of These Nights" (1975)  Every time I hear this song, I think back to the summer of '75 with this one playing on the jukebox at Fun House Pizza while I spent all those quarters on pinball and playing those prehistoric video games. This one comes off surprisingly well live in concert too, even with all its falsetto vocals.
"Those Shoes" (1979)  Don Henley gets down and dirty, and Joe Walsh gets to play with his squawk-box contraption.
"Take It Easy" (1972)  Another one that gets played to death on the radio, but I'm sure the good folks in Winslow, Arizona don't mind. If I'm ever down that way, I plan to go stand on one of their corners...
"Already Gone" (1974)  This was the second song I cranked up the day I accepted my current job back in 2001  (The Who's "I'm Free" was the first), thus freeing me from the miserable one I was stuck in. "I will sing this victory song..."
"Get Over It" (1994) My all-time favorite Eagles tune.  I love songs with rapid-fire lyrics, mostly because they're usually funny too, and this one's a killer. Full of attitude, Don Henley scores a direct hit on the daytime talk-show circuit, or "White Trash Theater", as I prefer to call it. Love the line, "You're makin' the most of your losing streak—some call it sick, well, I call it weak..."　

"Frail Grasp Of The Big Picture" (2007) One of two Henley gems off Eden, I just love his little mid-song invocation: "And we pray to our Lord/Who we know is American/He reigns from on high/He speaks to us through middlemen/And He shepherds His flock/We sing out and we praise His name/He supports us in war/He presides over football games/And the right will prevail/All our troubles shall be resolved/We hold faith above all/Unless there's money or sex involved" Amen, brother, amen!
"Busy Being Fabulous" (2007) Henley’s other gem from that album, which I dedicate to Kardashian-types (and those who give a shit about them) everywhere…

Dear Ted...

Back in 1974 during his "Lost Weekend" period, John Lennon was thrown out of the famed Troubadour club in LA for being drunk and belligerent during a Smothers Brothers performance, as well as for throwing punches at anyone in his path, including a cocktail waitress, whom he clocked right in the face.  This quote from his inadvertent victim has always stuck with me:  "It’s not the pain that hurts—what hurts is finding out one of your idols is a real asshole!"  I’d like to think John was man enough to make things right with this woman (whom I believe filed a lawsuit) after he sobered up, but I’ve never confirmed this.

Anyway, I’ve never met Ted Nugent in person, let alone ever been physically assaulted by him, but his constant assaults on my intelligence over the past few years have led me to the same conclusion that waitress came to:  One of my (former) idols is a total dickhead. I’ve written about this once or twice before on this blog, but after reading about Nugent’s latest inane TV interview on CNN this week, I couldn’t take it anymore.  So I’ve decided to author an open letter to His Humbleness…

Dearest Ted,
How are you, man?  I thought you'd be dead by now.  And you're not even in jail, either—congratulations!  We’ve never met before, but I’ve been listening to your music for over 35 years now.  I saw you on the tube again this week blathering away like you so often do.  You declared, "If you don’t enjoy my interviews, then you’re an idiot!"  I guess that makes me a complete and total dumbass then, eh, Teddy?  You know, there are times when I wish you had or would indulge in drugs and alcohol—it might chill you out a bit and make you more tolerable.

I gotta tell you, man, when I was 14, I really thought you were the shit. I idolized you. Hell, I fucking wanted to BE you!  There was a point at which you were on the verge of replacing Kiss at the top of my Rock ‘N’ Roll mountain around 1978-79.  You won me over on Double Live Gonzo! when you hollered, "Anybody wants to get mellow, you can turn around and get the fuck outta here!"  Your music was kick-ass, testosterony and perfectly-suited for adolescents like yours truly and your stage raps were classic:  "This guitar can blow the balls of a charging rhino at 60 paces…";  "This is a love song—I wanna dedicate this to all that Nashville pussy…"  You even made a big clunky old-school guitar like the Gibson Byrdland look cool to play.  I even remember hearing about the time you played Kemper Arena and some knucklehead knocked one of your teeth out shooting BBs at you, yet you insisted on making sure each and every member of your road crew received their Christmas bonus before seeking medical attention—most honorable of you.  Sure, you ran your mouth a lot back then too, but in those days it was humorous—rather endearing even—and fairly harmless.

I saw you in concert at Arrowhead in ’79, and you played your ass off, even with a badly sprained ankle—most admirable.  The next year, you rocked Kemper again and withstood the challenge of your upstart opening acts Def Leppard and Scorpions.  I coulda done without you in the loin cloth, but that’s another issue.  Opening for R.E.O. Speedwagon at Arrowhead in ’82, you got everybody united with "Bound And Gagged", which even won over a guy I worked with at the time who couldn’t stand you up to that point.  You had a pretty good band backing you in the mid ‘70s, too, but I guess you couldn’t bear to share the spotlight with a good-looking and talented singer/guitarist like Derek St. Holmes—you had to have all that backstage pussy for yourself, right, Nuge?  Did you ever notice that your best records were the ones DSH sang and played on? Nah, didn’t think so.

Then you got stupid. "Terminus Eldorado"?  Dude, please.  And what the fuck was that Intensities In 10 Cities tripe?  "My Love (code for Dick) Is Like A Tire Iron"?  "The Flying Lip-Lock"?  We got it, Ted—you’re an alpha-male—you didn’t have to keep shoving all your macho-bravado bullshit histrionics down our throats.  And "Jailbait"?  You had one helluva nerve writing and singing a song like that when you own daughter was approaching her teens at the time.  It went from bad to worse after that when you got desperate and borrowed Billy Squier’s band for an album (Penetrator) that had fucking synthesizers on it—you, Ted?!?  Then you needed Bon Jovi and Sambora just to help you reach mediocrity on If You Can’t Lick ‘Em, Lick ‘Em in 1988.  ‘Dull’ was never a term one could readily use to describe a Ted Nugent album until then.  Since your own musical career was in the crapper, you found a lifeline of sorts with Damn Yankees for a few years.  Two pretty decent albums resulted, but let’s be honest, your contributions to them were fairly minimal—Tommy Shaw and Jack Blades did all the heavy-lifting there—and seriously, you fit in with them about like David Lee Roth would with Toto or Survivor.  Still, you surprised the shit out of me in ’95 with Spirit Of The Wild, and I was so pleased to hear you taking your music seriously again, not to mention having Mr. St. Holmes back on board.  I even liked that "Fred Bear" tune, even though I don’t give a monkey’s spleen about hunting.  I might have known the good stuff wouldn’t last long, tho…

The next time I caught up with you in concert was in ’99, and by then you'd gone over to the Dark Side.  You got on this kick about "Get out of America if you can’t speak English," which didn't have a fucking thing to do with the songs you were playing. These diatribes continued unabated when I saw you open for Kiss several times on their "Farewell" Tour in 2000.  And you kept going on and on about how "Janet Reno is an ugly whore."  I'll agree, the woman gives Quasimodo and Joan Rivers (and her ugly-ass daughter) a run for their money, but why even bring it up?  Dude, when I attend a concert, I’m there to be entertained and rocked, not to be fed a bunch of radical right-wing political bullshit, let alone out-and-out racism and bigotry, and you unrepentantly crossed the line repeatedly.  I also found it highly hypocritical that you continually maligned Hispanic people when your own bass player's last name at the time was Mendoza, yet you constantly referred to him as a "blood brother" anyway!  Mendoza had every right to slam your nuts in a car door.  Numerous times.  Are you forgetting that your ancestors probably couldn’t speak English worth a damn when they landed on these shores either? 

Oh, but you didn’t stop there.  As the Dubya Administration wore on, you sucked up to the Republican Party so you and your paranoid NRA buds could keep your precious guns, and your radical rants became more vitriolic and hateful as you added liberals, gays, welfare recipients, et al, as targets for your verbal Uzi as you talked out of your ass.  You’re entitled to your opinions, Ted, absolutely, but why does it always have to be about YOU? Why do you continue to trash your own musical legacy?   I have yet to reach the point where I’m ready to burn your albums and CDs in my collection, and I still enjoy your music from back in the day, but it’s becoming more difficult to listen to now, knowing what a low-life you’ve devolved into.  You’ve always been a mouth, but back in the day you could back it up.  Now, you sound like a bigger whack-job than Glenn Beck (and THAT takes some doing!).

Just as an aside, you looked like a total fool wearing that Indian headdress on stage during "Great White Buffalo" during that period—it looked as if you were doing a bad Boy Scout campfire skit.  And I gotta tell ya, shooting a flaming arrow at a defenseless decoy guitar from ten feet away (you think I didn’t notice the roadie switch it out with the real one?) don’t impress me much.  Even I could’ve nailed it from that distance, and my aim sucks like a Hoover upright most of the time.

While I have your attention, I have to say that you are full of shit about numerous topics.  You once ripped on Paul McCartney for firing people from his road crew for eating meat—even though their contracts stipulated that to be on his crew, you had to be a vegan.  Yet, you once boasted that you would ax anyone on your road crew that you even SUSPECTED of doing drugs or drinking alcohol.  And tell me this, Mr. Conservative Christian Family Values—what’s up with doinking that underage girl?  I believe they call that pedophilia.  Three out-of-wedlock children over a 30-year stretch?  Shit, you’ve been slapped with more paternity suits than Hugh Grant—some family man you are!  And you couldn’t even be bothered to attend your own mother’s funeral—what the fuck?!?  And then there was your first wife, Sandra, who you basically drove to drink with all your infidelity and you referred to her death in a drunk-driving incident as a "human tragedy".  Did you bother to get the woman some professional help to get sober?  I can’t believe what a sucker I was when I fell for your song "Alone" in ’79 about your divorce from her and how broken-up you were—all the while, still craving "all that English pussy out there" (or Nashville, or whichever locale you preferred).  Seems to me that Sandra's the one who was alone, Mr. Cock-Rocker.  And I hate to bring this up again, but you got a lotta balls going around saluting our military these days when you were a draft dodger during Vietnam.  Don’t get me wrong here—if I was 18 years old in the late ‘60s, I may well have done the same thing you did, but don’t be sucking up to the troops now with your hollow pseudo-patriotism.  I once bought into your patriotism back when you did "Bound And Gagged" in ’82—you actually seemed sincere at the time.  Now, not so much.  I also think it’s an insult to the troops that you wear those damn camouflage fatigues on stage.

As for your hunting and outdoorsy ventures, I couldn’t care less.  If you’re into bloodlust and that’s your hobby, knock yourself out, but it’s not my scene, sorry, Dude.  And I don’t give a flying fuck about guns.  Have no use for them in my life. None. Zero. Nada. And don't try to tell me that I'm any less of a man just because I don't care to own firearms. Apart from maybe a "Star Trek" phaser or a light sabre from Star Wars, I have no desire for weaponry.

Other than your outrageousness that draws in ignorant viewers, I fail to see why the TV networks need to interview you in the first place.  You’re no longer relevant musically, haven’t put out a decent record in nearly 20 years, and now you’re just an obnoxious big-mouth redneck bully who damns his own cause more than he aids it.  Whenever you appear on Faux News Channel or CNN, etc., you know what I see, Ted?  I see an insufferable, ignorant, inconsequential has-been who’s so desperate to keep his name in the papers that he’ll say anything inflammatory, regardless of who it hurts.  There was a time when I would've walked the proverbial "mile for a Camel" to see you perform in concert. Today, I wouldn’t even walk to my back porch to see you play (and I’d have your bigoted ass thrown off my property too).  You’re a real douche-bag, Ted.  You aren’t quite in the same league with Rev. Fred Phelps and his merry band of Neolithic dipshits from Topeka, but you’re getting damn close.  Does the phrase "Shut up, and play yer guitar" mean anything to you?  Guess not…

One of the coolest things about Rock ‘N’ Roll music is it has the power to overcome the bullshit that even its own creators sometimes put forth and it makes you forget all about their pettiness, stupidity, arrogance, politics, etc., and you remember what drew you to those people in the first place.  Gene Simmons pushes his luck constantly with me with his crass money-grubbing, but at least he's not near the bigoted jagoff you've become, Ted.  I guess it’s a sign of my own personal growth that I’m able to sort through your B.S. and see you for who you really are now.  There are/were plenty of assholes on the Rock music scene—Eddie Van Halen, Glenn Frey, Axl Rose, Jim Morrison, Kid Rock, John Mellencamp, Phil Spector—but none of them have ever worked quite so hard to be an asshole the way you do.  I can't think of any other person I've ever been a major fan of who I've completely turned on like I have with you, Nugent.  Dude, if you're not going to take your music seriously anymore, the do us all a big favor and shut the hell up and return to the has-been celebrity scrap heap and rejoin the likes of Super Dave Osborn, Macaulay Culkin, Michael Richards, Downtown Julie Brown, Jane Fonda, Danny Bonaduce, Alan Thicke (oh wait—he's a never-was), Jenny McCarthy, Screech from "Saved By The Bell" (oops, another never-was!) and Wynonna Judd, et al.  The world will be a better place...

Yours truly,
Brian

P.S.: I found this old photo in a magazine a while back.  What's up with all the gay-bashing when you appear to be gazing longingly at Andy Warhol while you have your arm around Truman Capote?  Is there something you'd like to get "out" of your system, Ted?  Too bad Andy and Tru are no longer around, but there's always Janet Reno...

That Cat Named Hercules, Part II

And now the conclusion of my countdown of Elton John longplayers...

17) REG STRIKES BACK (1988) C+   Following EJ’s mid-‘80s Ice On Fire/Leather Jackets malaise and subsequent throat surgery, he re-emerged with Reg Strikes Back, sounding like his old self again on the hit single "I Don’t Wanna Go On With You Like That".  The album also featured the minor hit "A Word In Spanish" and the sequel "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters, Part II" as well as two fun cuts, the name-dropping "Goodbye Marlon Brando" ("Goodbye to Rocky V, VI, VII and VIII!" Elton sings) and a tribute to Brian Wilson, "Since God Invented Girls", which oddly coincided with the Beach Boys’ resurgence on the charts in the form of "Kokomo" in the fall of ’88. Hardly Elton’s greatest album ever, but not too shabby, either, and way better than his previous two.

16) ELTON JOHN (1970) B-   The biggest difference between Elton's debut LP Empty Sky and sophomore effort Elton John is the songs were a bit more memorable, and most of them were backed by conductor Paul Buckmaster’s orchestral arrangements. Elton and Bernie placed themselves on the map for good here with their stellar signature composition, the enduring (and endearing) "Your Song". "Take Me To The Pilot" is another landmark Elton track, in spite of Bernie’s obtuse lyrics. "Through the glass eye of your throne is the one danger zone" fits in the same vein as Kiss’ "Get up and get your grandma outta here…" (from "Deuce"): i.e., lyrics that SOUND really cool when you sing them, but don’t make a lick of sense!  "Sixty Years On" is dark and depressing, all about a lonely old man, "Border Song" takes on racism, and Elton takes a crack at Country music in "No Shoestrings On Louise" (or "Lou-WAYS" as he "sangs" it here). While not Elton’s true debut album, this is the snowball that started the avalanche…

15) CARIBOU (1974) B-   This record was the unfortunate victim of overly-high expectations and had the unenviable task of following one of the more mammoth and iconic albums in Rock history, thus it was unmercifully slagged by critics and fans alike. Honestly, anything Elton would’ve put out on the heels of Yellow Brick Road would’ve been viewed as a letdown (even say, Don’t Shoot Me or Honky Chateau), thus I have a soft spot for Caribou, and have always thought it got short-shrifted. It probably also didn’t help the perception of Caribou that the album’s cover photo and inside sleeve art/photography were extremely bland and Spartan compared to its elaborate above-and-beyond-the-call predecessor. But you certainly can’t fault its lead-off cut, "The Bitch Is Back", one of my all-time favorite songs by anyone, period (not just Elton), as I’ve always been keen on songs with profanity in them! The next track, a love song named "Pinky", is way more romantic than the overrated (in my opinion) "Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me", which yielded Caribou its biggest hit. Other tracks I liked include the rollicking "You’re So Static", which closed out Side 1 (back when albums had sides, remember, kids?) and "I’ve Seen The Saucers"—sort of "Rocket Man—Episode II", as well as the goofy "Solar Prestige A Gammon", a silly attempt at nonsense Italian-sounding lyrics (a la The Beatles’ "Sun King") that could pass as the backing track on some European TV deodorant commercial. Granted, there were clunkers on Caribou, namely "Stinker", (which lives up to its title while Elton tries to sing Da Blooz) and the hap-hazard "Grimsby", which could’ve stood a bit more fleshing out. Two other tracks from Caribou have resurfaced on Elton’s concert set list over the years, "Dixie Lily", a fun and twangy salute to the Mississippi Delta, and the poignant, chilling (and TOTALLY underrated) "Ticking", which closes the record. Featuring Elton soloing on piano, and a hint of Dave Hentschel’s synthesizer underneath, "Ticking" vividly captures the sad tale of a tortured soul who goes on a shooting spree that presages Columbine, Virginia Tech and the more recent Aurora and Sandy Hook tragedies. I still defend Caribou to this day—it could’ve been better, sure, but it isn’t nearly as bad as everyone thinks.

14) HERE AND THERE (1976) B- for the original (A for the 1995 re-issue)   Viewed by critics at the time as strictly a contractual obligation release in ‘76, Here And There was Elton’s first live concert album to feature his entire backing band, drummer Nigel Olsson, bassist Dee Murray, guitarist Davey Johnstone and percussionist Ray Cooper. And it’s pretty good stuff, for the most part. Side 1 (Here) features cuts from a May, 1974 London concert in front of the Royal Family and Side 2 (There) was recorded on Thanksgiving of ’74 in front of the Royal Crazies at Madison Square Garden in Gotham City. Although the recording is a bit flat-sounding (esp. on the MSG side), we get a fair taste of what Captain Fantastic sounded like performing his big hits in concert during his heyday. Too bad it was ONLY a taste. Imagine if they had fleshed things out and released a state-of-the-art double-live album in 1976 instead. I think it would’ve given Kiss Alive!, Bob Seger's Live Bullet and Frampton Comes Alive! a run for their money. Well, that wrong was partially righted 19 years later when Polygram re-issued H&T as an expanded double-CD with more tracks from both concerts, including the monumental three-song mini-set EJ played with John Lennon at The Garden ("Whatever Gets You Through The Night", "Lucy In The Sky" and "I Saw Her Standing There"), forever documenting what turned out to be the JL’s final performance on a concert stage. Other gems on the expanded version include "Grey Seal" from Yellow Brick Road, "Country Comfort" and "Burn Down The Mission" from Tumbleweed Connection and "You’re So Static" from Caribou (backed by the Muscle Shoals Horns) as well as classics which were omitted from the original vinyl release like "The Bitch Is Back", "Daniel" and "Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting". Hearing these makes me wish I’d been old enough to attended concerts (I was only ten at the time) so I could’ve seen and heard Elton in his prime.

13) TOO LOW FOR ZERO (1983) B-  Elton John completed the major comeback he embarked on in 1980 with 1983’s Too Low For Zero, which featured his biggest hits in over five years, the defiant declaration "I’m Still Standing" and the whimsical "I Guess That’s Why They Call It The Blues" (the videos for both of which turned out to be among his the best he’s ever done). The title track was also a minor hit, as was the rocking "Kiss The Bride", which even garnered some well-deserved airplay on Album Rock radio. Another cut I really liked is "Religion", which takes a little jab at the hypocrisy of people who are religious only when it’s convenient for them—"She’s a working girl who loves the Lord", "He still drinks, but he does believe…", etc. TLFZ also features a guest cameo appearance by Stevie Wonder on harmonica on "Cold As Christmas (In The Middle Of The Year)". Welcome back, Reg, we missed you!

12) JUMP UP! (1982) B-   Before that big comeback was complete, Elton took a major leap forward on 1982’s Jump Up!, which I remember slightly more fondly than Too Low, mostly because ’82 was the year I first saw EJ in concert, and he played numerous cuts from this one at Starlight Theater that night.  Jump Up! was also significant in that Elton righted a very egregious wrong by reuniting on record with his old rhythm section of Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, whom he inexplicably jettisoned from the band in 1976—the biggest brain fart of E. John’s career this side of Victim Of Love, in my opinion. Guitarist Davey Johnstone returned as well for the subsequent tour ("after a little while playing with other biggies—like Meat Loaf," as Elton quipped onstage) and for the first time over six years, EJ put out a very focused and consistent effort here. Which is why I find Bernie Taupin’s 2010 comments on it rather baffling, as he called Jump Up! "one of our worst albums…it's a terrible, awful, disposable album, but it had 'Empty Garden' on it, so it's worth it for that one song." Then again, Taupin only co-wrote about half of this album with Elton, and apart from "Garden" and "Where Have All The Good Times Gone?", the weaker tracks were Bernie’s, while Gary Osborne co-authored the snappy opening cut "Dear John", the upbeat "Ball And Chain" (featuring one Peter Dennis Blandford Townshend guesting on acoustic guitar) and the sultry "Blue Eyes", a fine make-out song if there ever was one. "Empty Garden" was the centerpiece of the record, and was far and away the best and most poignant of all the John Lennon tribute songs, blowing away George Harrison’s "All Those Years Ago", Queen’s "Life Is Real (Song For Lennon)" and Paul McCartney’s "Here Today". Sorry Bernie, you’re full of shit—this was a damn good album.

[While I’m on the subject, I have a pet peeve about how on every Elton album since the mid-‘80s, their work is credited as "Music by Elton John/Lyrics by Taupin". That one-name crap sounds so damn snobby! Beethoven and Chopin might've gotten away with this, but you're still plain ol’ Bernie to me, Bud.  But I digress…]

11) TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION (1971) B-   Elton and Bernie continued with the highly-orchestral sound they utilized on the Elton John album, but made things a bit more up-tempo and even added some Country twang to create one of the more unconventional (and underrated) Rock albums of the early ‘70s. Olsson and Murray were now the official rhythm section on Tumbleweed, although session musicians were used throughout once again like on its predecessor, as was Paul Buckmaster’s string arrangements. Backing vocals on some songs were provided by my girl Dusty Springfield, as well as prolific utility man Tony Burrows, whose lead voice appeared on hit singles throughout the early ‘70s by Edison Lighthouse, First Class, the Pipkins, White Plains and Brotherhood Of Man. The songs on TC are a bit more interesting than that the ones on Elton John, which is why I rated it higher, especially Side 2, which leads off with the underrated gem "Where To Now, St. Peter?", featuring one of my favorite Bernie lyrics "I may not be a Christian, but I’ve done all one man can…". Next up is a cult favorite amongst longtime EJ fans, "Love Song", written (and harmonized) by Lesley Duncan, and I’ve always wondered why this wasn’t a hit single—it would’ve been the logical follow-up to "Your Song". The somewhat trippy "Amoreena" follows, and then we’re treated to the pseudo sequel to "Sixty Years On" with "Talking Old Soldiers", where Elton half-sings/half-speaks both parts of a bar room conversation about not growing old gracefully and being forgotten. An early EJ classic, "Burn Down The Mission", climaxes the album with some rollicking piano-pounding following its mid-tempo verses and choruses. Oh, and Side 1 didn’t suck either, featuring songs about fathers and guns (one at the same time, "My Father’s Gun") as it explored Bernie’s infatuation with the American old West and the Confederacy. It was clear by this time that EJ and BT were well on their way…

10) MADE IN ENGLAND (1995) B   To date, this is the last really solid album from start-to-finish that Elton has put out (in my opinion), and it built upon the momentum created by his 1992 drug-free return to form, The One. Still stone-cold sober, our good Captain opens the proceedings with "Believe", a dramatic, epic-sounding song that harkens back to the days of "Levon" with its powerful orchestral arrangement. Next up, the title track is both proud and defiant, and more or less a sequel to 1983’s "I’m Still Standing", and I loved the positive attitude, not to mention Davey Johnstone’s guitar, which we hear quite a bit of throughout the album. While I could’ve done without Elton and Bernie’s rather pointless (and contrived) gambit of single-word titles on all the songs except "Made In England", there’s plenty of good stuff here, particularly "Pain", which sonically resembles the Stones’ "Happy", and features Elton conducting a musical interview with Pain itself ("What’s your name?"/"My name is Pain"…"How old are you?"/"Nineteen-hundred and 94 years…"). "Lies" takes inventory of who doesn’t tell the truth and why—"I’ve lied for a drug or two…"—and "Please" is one of EJ’s more underrated love songs. There are a couple of clunkers here, like "House" ("This is my house/This is my floor", etc.)—come on, Bernie, you’re better than this! Thankfully, he didn’t get to "This is my toilet." The closing cut, "Blessed" turned out to be a minor hit, but it served as an omen that Elton was about to slip back into comfortable rut territory again, and sure enough, he did so on his next album The Big Picture.

9) BREAKING HEARTS (1984) B   Elton’s ‘80s comeback continued with yet another solid effort in 1984, Breaking Hearts, which features the classic Elton John Band of Johnstone/Olsson/Murray one last time. "Restless" leads off and got a fair amount of airplay on Album Rock stations, and I can easily identify with the line, "Everybody’s searching for something that just…ain't…there" in terms of my personal life. "Who Wears These Shoes?" was a catchy single, and "Slow Down Georgie (She’s Poison)" could’ve been one too. The silliest track on BH was "Passengers" with its call-and-response mob vocals, but I always liked it. I especially liked two others that were opposite ends of the spectrum—"Li’l Frigerator", a punchy rocker that sounded even better live in concert in ’84, and "In Neon", a slow and dramatic ballad that should’ve been a hit. The song that WAS a big hit, "Sad Songs (Say So Much)" didn’t really honk my hooter that much, and really lost its luster with me when the Sasson jeans people commandeered the song for their TV commercials ("Sasson says so much"—oy!). Overall, though, Breaking Hearts is good stuff.

8) 11-17-70 (1971) B   Another EJ release the critics bashed (but since when do I care what they think?), this one makes my Top 10 on pure chutzpah alone. When Elton first hit this side of the Big Pond in late 1970, he toured only with Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray, almost two years before Davey Johnstone rounded out the classic Elton John Band. Piano, bass and drums made for an odd musical combo indeed, but this unlikely power trio somehow made it work (and STILL rocked out, no less) throughout that tour, including a stop at New York’s A&R Studios to play a live radio concert that went out nationwide on November 17, 1970. The Dynamic Trio almost brought the house down for the hundred or so assembled, playing nearly 90 minutes, half of which was included on this album that originally was never intended for release. Elton himself was loathe to put it out at the time (although he has since praised it in retrospect), but MCA/Uni Records was getting paranoid about bootlegs of the show reaching the market, so they released 11-17-70 (or 17-11-70, for those of you who drive on the wrong side of the road) in the spring of ’71, almost literally on the heels of Tumbleweed Connection and the Friends soundtrack and while "Your Song" was still hanging around the Top 40, creating a sudden glut of E. John product. Surprisingly, "Your Song" wasn’t included in 11-17-70, but the obscure "Bad Side Of The Moon" made up for that, as did "Can I Put You On?" (from Friends), and it blows its studio version away. So does "Sixty Years On", which I thought actually sounded more dramatic without the strings on the studio version. Humor was evident in EJ’s cover of the Stones’ "Honky Tonk Women" on Side 1, as well as Arthur Crudup’s "My Baby Left Me" sandwiched inside the medley on Side 2 that begins with a killer rendition of "Burn Down The Mission" and ends with The Beatles’ "Get Back". "Amoreena" was added as a bonus track to a CD re-issue in the mid-‘90s, but the rest of show has not been made available (to my knowledge). I’d love to hear the rest of it someday. It’s a fun show to listen to, and a crucial document of Mr. John’s early days—if he went down that well with an audience then, just imagine what adding a guitar player would do. Oh, wait, we don’t have to!

7) ROCK OF THE WESTIES (1975) B   According to the His Song book by Elizabeth Rosenthal, it seems that Elton and the boys were a little drunky-wunky and/or high on various substances at Colorado’s Caribou Ranch during the making of Westies, thus leading the author to declare it to be a substandard EJ album. I would beg to differ—not unlike Caribou, I think this one gets dissed far too much and I always liked it. If it’s true that the record was made under a cloud of drugs and booze, then it turned out amazingly well. Elton expressed a desire to work with other musicians at that point, hence his dim-witted (in my opinion) decision to dismiss Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray from the band. Nigel was looking to build a solo career at the time anyway, so it was no biggie for him, but Murray was understandably none too pleased at being kicked to the curb for no good reason. To replace them, Elton brought in drummer Roger Pope (who worked previously on Empty Sky, Elton John and Tumbleweed), and bassist Kenny Passarelli (who suddenly found himself unemployed when Joe Walsh joined The Eagles in late ’75) as his new rhythm section. Guitarist Caleb Quaye (also a previous contributor to Elton’s early records) and keyboardist James Newton Howard came aboard as well, joining holdovers Davey Johnstone and Ray Cooper, and this lineup would return for Blue Moves before Elton again "split the band", as a certain song goes.

As for the album itself, like Captain Fantastic before it, Westies wasn’t chuck-full of hit singles, but I thought it had some fun stuff on it anyway. "Island Girl" actually did hit #1, but that had more to do with the inertia of Elton’s career than the merits of the song. It’s not a bad song at all, mind you, but hasn’t aged very well, and you don’t even hear it on Oldies stations anymore. The opening track, "Medley: Yell Help/Wednesday Night/Ugly", was rather oddball, but has its moments, as does "Dan Dare (Pilot Of The Future)" with its double-entendre lyric, "Holy Cow—my stars never saw a rocket that quite that size…" (silly Elton!). The next two tracks that finish out Side 1 are my favorites from ROTW, despite being polar opposites. "Grow Some Funk Of Your Own" features a snarly guitar riff and Ray Cooper on vibes and marimba throughout the end of this tale about a night of misadventure south of the border. Meanwhile perhaps the most underrated John-Taupin song ever, "I Feel Like A Bullet (In The Gun Of Robert Ford)", finds Elton wailing away in falsetto mode on some of Bernie’s most poignant and sad lyrics about a relationship turned sour ("Like a child when his toys have been stepped on/That’s how it all seems to me…"), while Davey’s beautifully weepy guitar solo further emphasizes the despair. Robert Ford, btw, is the man who shot legendary outlaw Jesse James, hence the title. Side 2 opens when one of Elton’s heavier tunes, "Street Kids", featuring his skittering keyboard flashes laid over Johnstone and Quaye’s guitar chords. "Hard Luck Story" is all about a frustrated working stiff and features backing vocals from Kiki Dee and company. "Feed Me" continues the general theme of desperation found on ‘Westies’ that "Robert Ford" initiates, and the album closes with the spirited (if not non-sensical) "Billy Bones And The White Bird". Critics were generally not keen to ‘Westies’, but it’s one of my favorites from Elton, thus it makes my Top 10.

6) THE ONE (1992) B+   After several years of inconsistent albums, drug abuse and throat issues, Elton Hercules John was born-again hard for easily his best studio album since his mid-’70s heyday, The One. Gone were any hints of a comfortable rut—each song sounded different from the others, as EJ rediscovered his musical scrotum and put out something truly memorable for a change. The sultry "Simple Life" kicks things off with a slinky bass groove (provided by future Who bassist Pino Palladino), and some fine harmonica as clean-and-sober, fit-and-trim Elton brings us up to speed on where his life was headed at that point. It’s not a bad make-out song, btw, and one almost wishes EJ had stretched this one out a bit longer than five minutes. The title track immediately follows, and is one of his best love songs ever. Eric Clapton makes a guest appearance on another of the album’s highlights, duetting on "Runaway Train", giving one of his better vocal efforts that I can recall. The twangy "Whitewash County" would’ve fit right in on Tumbleweed Connection (or maybe even the My Cousin Vinny soundtrack), as it takes a pot shot at redneck authority figure hypocrisy in that part of the U.S. where it’s "sticky as a chili-dog". The title subject of "Emily" is sort of a ’90s "Eleanor Rigby" (minus the cellos) and "The North" is a bit of an overlooked gem, all about how most everyone has vices they need to overcome. The album closes, appropriately, with the touching and poignant "The Last Song", all about a gay man dying of AIDS and reconciling with his estranged dad, and Bernie Taupin drives the point home with the line "I guess I misjudged love between a father and his son." Well done, indeed.

4) [Tie] HONKY CHATEAU (1972) A-   Elton John’s unprecedented mid-‘70s chart dominance truly began with Honky Chateau in the spring of ’72. This was also the first album on which the nucleus of Johnstone, Olsson and Murray played predominately, and HC of course includes the big hits "Honky Cat" and "Rocket Man". Both great songs and among Elton’s most-beloved, but as good as those were, I’m even more partial to the "B-stuff" found on Honky, like "I Think I’m Gonna Kill Myself", the funniest song I’ve ever heard about suicide (right up there with John Entwistle’s "Thinkin’ It Over" and Cheap Trick's "Auf Wiedersehen"), and the equally-funny and more-romping "Hercules", which closes the album ("Rich man, sweatin’ in a sauna bath/Poor boy, scrubbin’ in a tub…"). Elton continued to express his love for Country twang on "Slave", and followed it with the rocking "Amy", which features a guest appearance by Jean-Luc Ponty and his electric violin (I never knew there was such an animal), as does the mellow "Mellow" on Side One. The slower songs on this album actually work just as well as the rockers, with "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters" painting a rather bleak portrait of Gotham City as viewed through the eyes of a first-time visitor (B. Taupin, in this case) and the Gospel-tinged "Salvation" features some outstanding backing vocals. The avalanche had begun…

4) [Tie] MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER (1971) A-  Before Honky, there was Madman, which is every bit as good, but just didn’t sell quite as much. I couldn’t choose which one I like better, so it’s a flat-footed tie. MATW was the last time Elton relied heavily on Paul Buckmaster’s orchestral arrangements for a while, and this album wouldn’t have been as good without them. Elton also continued the new trend he initiated on Tumbleweed by including an elaborate lyric and photo booklet. As with Honky, you had the two big and well-loved Elton hits ("Levon" and "Tiny Dancer"), both of which I like as much as anyone, but it’s the B-stuff again that I like even more here. "Holiday Inn" may well be the penultimate Rock ‘N’ Roll road song ("Boston, at last, and the plane’s touchin’ down/From a terminal gate, to a black limousine …You ain’t seen nothin’, ‘till you been in a motel, baby, like a Holiday Inn…"). "HI" marked Davey Johnstone’s debut on an E. John record, playing mandolin on the track, and I love the way after the choruses how Buckmaster’s strings and Elton’s piano sound almost like on-coming semi-trucks passing by on the highway. The dramatic "Indian Sunet" opens Side Two with an epic tale of tragedy and further exploration of the American Old West, which fascinated Bernie Taupin no end. "Rotten Peaches" almost has you picturing Reg Dwight as some sort of fugitive from justice, and the haunting "All The Nasties" takes dead aim at music critics and journalists "But I know the way they want me in the way they publicize/If they could turn their focus off/To the image in their eyes/Maybe it would help them, help them understand…" And then of course, there's the brooding and spooky title track.  About the only track that didn’t work for me here was the brief postscript "Goodbye", which seemed like a throwaway afterthought a la The Beatles' "Her Majesty" on Abbey Road.

3) DON’T SHOOT ME, I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER (1973) A   Possessing one of my favorite album titles and covers ever, this one rated high with me before I ever heard a note from it. Just as with Madman and Honky before it, the "B-stuff" is every bit as good as the "A-stuff" ("Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel"), and so much of this album is underrated, especially "Teacher, I Need You", "Elderberry Wine", "Midnight Creeper", "Have Mercy On The Criminal" and the closer "High-Flying Bird". Elton thought highly enough of these cuts to dust some of them off and play them in concert over the years, like "Teacher" in 1982, "Criminal" in 1986 and "High-Flying" in 2007—that shows how DEEP this man’s catalog goes. "Teacher" is the upbeat tale of a schoolboy crush on a hot teacher (I think we all had those at least once), while "Elderberry" is a fun salute to alcohol—the cause of (and solution to) all of life’s problems. In "Creeper", EJ does a little name-dropping ("Tina Turner gave me the highway blues…") and keeps his mind in the gutter throughout the track, which is one of the hornier Elton songs (musically, I mean) of all-time. "Criminal" begins with a dramatic orchestral flourish featuring some call-and-response between the strings and Elton’s piano before settling down to become a mid-tempo sequel to "Rotten Peaches", all about another convict on the lam. One of the prettiest and most moving songs Elton has ever done is "High-Flying Bird", all about grief and loss ("My high-flying bird has flown from out my arms…"), and it features some of the finest backing vocals ever from Davey, Dee and Nigel—I’m not sure why this song isn’t held in higher regard. The sitar-laden "Blues For Baby And Me" has actually grown on me over the years (even though I loathe sitars), as has "I’ll Be A Teenage Idol". About the only cut that didn’t work for me on Don’t Shoot Me is "Texan Love Song", which is anything but a love song. DSMIOTPP was released 40 years ago last month—amazing how fresh it still sounds today. But as good as it is, Elton’s next release was even better…

2) CAPTAIN FANTASTIC & THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY (1975) A   Not so long ago on MSNBC’s website, they had a feature called "The Worst Album By Great Artists" (or something like that), and Captain Fantastic was Elton’s entry for it. Then some fool writes three paragraphs of excrement about how bad it was. Surely, you jest. I have no doubt that person was born after the record came out and probably never even took the time to listen to it. True, CF&TBDC wasn’t chuck-full of hits like Mr. John’s previous efforts—only "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" charted—but it’s one of the most consistent albums Elton ever made, and is more enjoyable when listened to from start to finish, and it’s always been one of my favorites. Because it was an autobiographical concept album, for the first time, Elton and Bernie created songs together instead of their usual process of Taupin writing the lyrics first before handing them over to EJ to compose the music. It was also the final time we got to hear the Johnstone/Olsson/Murray/Cooper backing band at work prior to EJ’s super-mega brain-fart of splitting this prolific unit up. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, dummy! Anyway, the album opens with the title track, which is alternately optimistic and foreboding at the same time ("We’ve thrown in the towel too many times/Out for the count, and then we’re down"..."From now on sonny, sonny, son—it’s a long and lonely climb…"). My favorite tracks from Captain include "Bitter Fingers", "(Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket", "Writing" and the poignant finale "Curtains", but honestly, there's not a bad one to be found here. Extra credit also goes for the elaborate cover painting (front and back) as well as the not one, but two full-color booklets that were enclosed in the package.

1) GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD (1973) A+++  Anti-climactic, I know, since I gave this away in the intro, but this is the greatest Rock album I've ever heard, the reasons for which I cite here in a post I wrote in 2007.  Overall, a salute to Sir Elton from the middle-aged man in the 22nd row...