Elton John: The Nick Drake Demos 7/70

My affection for Elton John is specific to two albums, his first two releases for the UNI label. The self-titled debut from April 1970, and Tumbleweed Connection, released in October of the same year. Both albums feature some great songwriting, and Tumbleweed Connection has that unique quality that British musicians achieve when they attempt to make US country music (also see The Kinks' Muswell Hillbillies and Mighty Baby's A Jug Of Love) .

Let me also add Elton's live-in-a-radio-studio LP, 11-17-70, which is a pretty phenomenal re-imagining of the "power trio" with an acoustic piano replacing the electric guitar and Marshall stack.

My affection for Nick Drake dates back to discovering him through a track on an Island Records sampler LP which led me to the three equally brilliant LPs, Five Leaves Left (1969), Bryter Layter (1970) and Pink Moon (1972) he released in his all-too-short life.

The great blog, Aquarium Drunkard, posted back in June a collection of unreleased studio recordings of Elton John playing covers of Nick Drake. If you're familiar with both artists there is a 77% probability that milk just shot out your nose. Here's how they're described:

The past couple of weeks have found me spinning a disc comprised of the following Elton John session (from July 1970) in which the artist lays out, among other tracks, a selection of Nick Drake covers. Yes, you read that correctly. Let’s first address the 800 lb gorilla in the room: on paper the often gregarious bombast of Elton John coupled with the work of the introspective Drake looks rough. But it actually works. As a fan of both artists, the session provides a not only interesting but equally entertaining look at the Drake material. This was just prior to John’s mega-stardom, and prior to his parading around on stage dressed as Donald Duck. Below are some notes a friend gave me along with the tracks (note: they may have been culled from elsewhere).

“Apparently Joe Boyd arranged a recording date to showcase some new songs, including some other material from Mike Heron and John Martyn (among others). The future Linda Thompson,then known as Linda Peters, handled backing vox and then sang lead on a few more songs. Possibly some people from Fairport Convention and/or Traffic were in the band.”

Personnel: Elton John– Piano/vocals, Linda Peters– vocals, Jim Capaldi or Gerry Conway - Drums, Pat Donaldson- Bass, Simon Nicol or Caleb Quaye - Guitar

There are eleven tracks set up to simply click and play (very nice) and you can do that by clicking on this link.

You should visit Aquarium Drunkard every week to see what new treasures have been put up for your enjoyment.