ARTICLE ABOUT Rick Wakeman (Yes) FROM SOUNDS, January 27, 1973

The story of Wakeman`s first solo album and a little bit about Yes. Worth a read! 🙂
Enjoy!

The six wives of a Yes man

Penny Valentine talks to Rick Wakeman

Rick Wakeman was on a plane when the idea came to him. Now you may not think being 25,000 feet in the air between Richmond, Virginia, and Chicago a very good place for inspiration to strike – but stranger things have happened on vast musical treks across the USA, and that`s a fact.
Anyway there was Wakeman with a choice before him. As he has a healthy terror of flying he was either going to get drunk or read. And as he didn`t feel much like arriving at Chicago to be thrown head-first into a ton of black coffee, he somewhat surprisingly chose the latter.
With his reading choice at Richmond airport slightly nullified to yet another book on 49 positions, he embarked clutching “The Private Lives Of Henry VIII” – why, he`ll never know, as he`s always hated history.

EXTENSION

But he did and it`s just as well for – like all good stories – this has a happy ending in that it brought our keyboard man extraordinaire to a decision that materialises next week in the release of his first ever solo album, suitably titled “The Six Wives Of Henry VIII”.
The album – on which Wakeman plays everything from moog to harpsichord – brings to life a musical tapestry of the individual personalities of the six tormented and colourful ladies of the court. And it`s timing and content is healthily aimed at yet another extension of Yes and all Wakeman has brought to that band since he joined two years ago.

TRACKS

The idea for a solo album started way back in the latter part of 1971 – just after Rick had put down the tracks for his first Yes album “Fragile”. Contracted as he was to A & M through his time with the Strawbs, Wakeman was to come up with so many albums over a period of five years.
Recording separately for Atlantic with Yes, his position became comparable to that of Rod Stewart`s arrangement with the Faces. The only problem was the increasing difficulty Wakeman had in setting down any tracks he liked:
“I wanted to do an album without vocals because I can`t sing. Well,” he says, screwing up his face, “I can sing but there`s more to it than simply singing in tune. I can`t write lyrics either. Dirty poems yes, lyrics no. So I wanted to take pieces of music and build them up.
“We came back from the first American tour and I was very depressed. It was a good tour for them, but I`d played badly and I was pretty miserable. I thought the best thing was to go into the studios and do some tracks and cheer myself up.”

GLOOM

The result, it transpired, was anything but cheering. Rick took the tapes home, listened to them, and sunk in gloom that one would certainly never associate him with:
“The numbers just weren`t going anywhere, they could have been for a detergent commercial. I really began to panic. I thought `I can`t do an album of any consequence`. What I`d done would have detracted from Yes and wouldn`t have helped me at all. And it was very important for me that this album would be the best I could contribute, and done to the best of my ability.
“But when I opened that book on the second tour I started reading about Katerine of Aragon, and this first theme I`d laid down earlier came into my head. It sounds daft but it really was a surge of excitement, because suddenly I`d found a concept which was what I`d always needed but hadn`t realised. After that it all seemed much easier.”
In February 1972 Wakeman was back in the studios. That year was a heavy one for Yes, full of touring – eight months in the States to start with – and Wakeman`s recording schedule dragged on.
Finally he gave himself a solid two weeks, and last October with musician mates like Dave Cousins and Dave Lambert from the Strawbs; Squires, Bruford and Howe from Yes; and Alan White, he finally completed the work.

DISTORT

“The real advantage of having laid down those first early tracks was that I could see exactly what musicians I needed – people that would enjoy just playing one piece each. I think of all the `wives` Jane Seymour present me with the worst problems because she was so different to all the others.
“In the end I decided to use the church organ at St. Giles, Cripplegate. I`d used it for some parts of `Close To The Edge` and I wanted to go back to record just one chord for Anne of Cleeves – she goes a bit bonkers and I wanted to distort the organ chord. It was lovely when I cut the Jane Seymour track there, the rain pattering on the roof, nice atmosphere.”
In the end result Wakeman, not wanting to make Seymour too ethereal or religious, has broken up the track by putting unexpected flashes of drum, moog and harpsichord where you least expect it. Now the two-year suffering is over, Wakeman is obviously very proud of his album – the only sad note being that it`s unlikely any of its content will be included in Yes`s stage act. An odd fact when you consider how closely much of it is aligned to what the band do.
However, Mr. Wakeman can be seen with his silver cloak flashing in the lights on various TV programmes, and the pressure of time on the band is such that it`s doubtful anyone would have much time to rehearse the new material – especially with a new Yes album about to be cut this summer.

Meanwhile what plans for Yes? Well, they`re currently mixing the live triple album and then they scoot off on their “world tour” of – as Wakeman puts it – “Neasden, Grimsby and Cleethorpes,” although, in fact, it takes in such places as Japan and Australia, both new concert markets for the band:
“That`s one of the reasons for the live album – certainly not because `Close To The Edge` was a difficult one to follow, no, no,” Wakeman shakes that long mane emphatically. “Although `Fragile` and `Edge` both did very well in Australia and Japan, they`re both places we`ve never done concerts in before and we felt it was important for people to really hear what we did on stage. I think we`ll be doing some British dates towards the autumn.
“You know, I had this great idea about renting the Rainbow for a week and laying on special trains from all the other cities, to bring people down and take them back. We have a lot of technical problems touring in England, getting the equipment set up at the right place in time. I thought it was a great idea because it would mean we were assured of a good sound system for one thing, which is very important for the band. But it got blown out – shame really.”

I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Pink Floyd, Tony McPhee, Alice Cooper, John Martyn, Graeme Edge, Jimmy Karstein, Stevie Wonder, Roxy Music, Colin Blunstone, Jerry Lee Lewis, Todd Rundgren, Gerry Lockran, Stomu Yamash`ta, Alan White, Bob Henrit.

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!

1. Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
2. The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
3. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.

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ARTICLE ABOUT Uriah Heep FROM SOUNDS, January 13, 1973

Another useful review for people to dissect. I am now looking forward to a month of football, but I will try to keep this blog running as usual in between games, household chores and work.

Live concert review

By Tim McKenna

Three thousand fans arrived at London`s Rainbow Theatre on Sunday to see Uriah Heep, which was almost a shame for Silverhead, the opening support act. However, despite antagonising an already unsympathetic crowd by being late, they managed to slowly swing the atmosphere into their favour with their direct brand of soul-based rock and roll.
With the audience still warm, Uriah had little to do but whip them to near hysteria by the end of the evening, which they did comfortably. Until then we had heard them play, not particularly spectacularly, tracks from three of their albums, the new one “Magician`s Birthday,” “Demons and Wizards”, and “Look At Yourself”.
They chose a heavy set opening with a piece from “Magician`s Birthday” and also included “July Morning”, “Gypsy” and “Tears In My Eyes”. At times the choice was too heavy and it was a relief to hear the uptempo “Sweet Lorraine”, “Look At Yourself”, and “Love Machine”.
“Gypsy” in fact was leavened by a devious solo from Ken Hensley, incorporating a three part organ and mini moog solo which began with a moog interval sounding at times like the scraping of steel on porcelain. He continued the solo with a Bach-type organ recital and ended it with a “Caravan” trip on the moog, along with Lee Kerslake`s drums.
Ken also took lead guitar on “Tears In My Eyes”, but after a promising start, it tailed off into a dismal undirected mass of sound, plodding along without mystery, interest or precision. Nevertheless, Heep freaks were jiving in the shadows like plants from another galaxy and were no doubt encouraged by seeing bassist Gary Thain riding on singer David Byron`s back as he knelt on the floor.
Earlier, “July Morning” from “Look At Yourself” had trodden much the same path though David Byron`s humorous inflections saved it from disaster.
Yet, for Heep, it was a spectacularly successful evening. Perhaps it was because they were on home territory for the first time for some while. But whatever it was, when Byron asked everyone to stand up and clap along to their closer, “Look At Yourself”, they did – and they didn`t sit down again, just stood yelling and screaming for more.

 

I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Fairport Convention, Ronnie Wood, Jon Hiseman, Pentangle, Claire Hamill, Ray Davies, Al Kooper, Procol Harum, Hemlock, Graham Bell, Elton John, Brinsley Schwarz, Martyn Wyndham-Read, John Peel, Uriah Heep.

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!

1. Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
2. The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
3. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.

 

ARTICLE ABOUT Status Quo FROM SOUNDS, January 13, 1973

Just a short one today as I know some people use these concert reviews in many ways. Some may read them doing research for books on the touring history of a band, and others use them to check if their bootleg is complete or just to discuss certain episodes happening at a certain concert. There may be other reasons that I can`t think of right now, but imagine this could be sort of useful for some people. So more of these will be coming.

Live concert review

By Jerry Gilbert / Ray Telford

Status Quo and the JSD Band did well to fill the Rainbow on Saturday, and it was highly encouraging to see diametrically opposed factions whacking out their own steamy rock and roll to a full house who were perpetually off their seats dancing.
For the JSD Band the concert was an enormous success and signified their enormous popularity since coming down from Scotland last year. When it comes down to it, even London audiences will react with body and soul to good medleys of jigs and reels, and on the night front men Des Coffield, Sean O`Rourke and young fiddler Lindsay Scott, were brilliantly fast and in perfect harmony.
Status Quo`s performance finally installed them as this year`s most likely contenders for the quick trip to the big time in the same way as Slade did last year.
This, however, was precisely what Status Quo fans had come to hear – a hard faced rock band who played to them on their own level with no glittery showbiz pretentions. In fact, the group represents exactly the opposite for their dress evokes strong memories of those halcyon days of a million dusty blues bands, and their audience communication is summed up neatly in the way Mike Rossi delivers his energy laden rough talk between numbers.

The same goes for their music, too, for it comprises a powerful barrage of rugged riffs pumped out onto two guitars in the handling of Rossi and Ricky Parfitt above an aggressive sounding rhythm section. Alan Lancaster on bass and John Coughlan, drums, do a fairly solid job, but they lack a certain crispness in their tempos which lessens the overall effect of the music.
One of the most popular numbers in the set was “Railroad” which Rossi sang with amazing verve above the surging waves of instrumental power. It`s music that you simply can`t knock because its effectiveness portrayed itself in the stomping, jeering audience who refused to let the group leave the stage until three encores had been played.

 

I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Fairport Convention, Ronnie Wood, Jon Hiseman, Pentangle, Claire Hamill, Ray Davies, Al Kooper, Procol Harum, Hemlock, Graham Bell, Elton John, Brinsley Schwarz, Martyn Wyndham-Read, John Peel, Uriah Heep.

 

 

ARTICLE ABOUT Uriah Heep FROM SOUNDS, January 13, 1973

Yes, I know, I published an article about this band only a couple of weeks ago, but I just feel that I need to give this band a little more room on the internet. Why? Because they are one of the great bands arriving from England in the late 60s/early 70s, and they should be mentioned in the same breath along bands like Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath. Alongside Purple they are the only band of these from that era that still play their music on the road all over the world. Respect!

What a Heep

Rex Anderson talking to that very `umble band Uriah Heep

This is the band they call the Heep. Heep of laughs, heep of money, heep of trouble. Hang ups? Listen! The word was invented by these guys.
Businesswise – fine. Well managed… well organised… went down a storm in the States… great new album… off on a British tour – fantastic. On stage they rock like the Empire State in a high wind – and that`s really rocking babe.

SMASHED

Come and spend a day with them. Mad looking aren`t they? They are. Mick Box is the worst. He smashed two Gibsons on the American tour. “I threw them up and forgot to catch them.” He told the same joke three times – about the nine-year-old gynaecologist (he wanted to be a heart surgeon but he couldn`t reach that high) – we all laughed politely the third time. Lee Kerslake is insane. “I`m only the drummer. I`m not expected to have brains as well.” And David Byron actually encourages him: feeding bits of sausage to him as Lee bounds round the floor barking like an overgrown Spaniel. “I put too much mustard on that bit. That should shut him up.”
Mick is bouncing about on the sofa examining his repaired Gibson and working his way round to telling the gynaecologist joke again. Gary Thain, the bass player, is being unbelievably quiet and Ken Hensley, their keyboards man, is worrying about what he just told the News of the World, in between Monty Python impersonations.
Lee: “Christ Dave. What did you put on that sausage.” Yelps and pads off towards the drinks trolley. In between the interviews, most of the conversation is taken up with planning a set for their next gig and discussing their health.
The band is dying on its feet. You can see that. That`s not to say they are splitting or anything boring like that. In fact they are very happy with each other. The wise cracks bounce back and forth and Lee`s occasional fits are almost ignored.
But they are all so ill. Gary Thain`s voice sounds like a kiwi in a gravel pit. He`s also having trouble with his back. Dave has got back pains as well and Ken says he can`t eat and wakes up with a headache every morning. Lee says he`s the same. “I just want to sleep all day and stay awake all night.”

Dave says he feels fine. How does he know? His doctor told him he felt fine. “It wouldn`t matter if he was a charlatan. As long as he said you were 100 per cent fit you`re on stage feeling great.” Ken has to slip off to see the band`s doctor.
“He`s a wonderful doctor,” says Lee. “He`s got these new pills that completely cleared my sinuses.” Gary has got to break rehearsals the next day to see the same doctor. Dave says he`s sick. “Sick of that Demons and Wizards angle. We`re going to get right away from that on the next album. It`s going to be recorded live on the tour. A double.”
Mick says he likes all that Demons and Magicians bit. Ken has been getting letters from a cat who calls himself a wizard and is designing a space station. “I`ve got all the blue prints.” He also has mail from a witch in Japan who tells him everything he has done the night before. “It`s nothing like.”
There`s a bit of a hustle over rumours that someone has been circulating about the group`s behaviour abroad. They decide to hold a board meeting in camera and drift off into an adjacent bedroom. Ken and Lee get locked in. A flunky has to get a pass key to get them out.
Ken: “We ought to cancel all our tours and take the year off. I need more practice in taking holidays. I get so bored sitting at home looking at the floor boards. I play all me records and the piano and all me guitars one by one. That takes care of about three hours and then I`m back staring at the boards again.”

Fact is, the group enjoy being together and out on the road. Dave admits they are all nervous before a tour, but they love being out on stage triggering things off and playing up to each other.
Lee is making a list of numbers for the Rainbow concert. There`s “Magician`s Birthday” and then, “Sunrise”, “Traveller In Time”, “Sweet Loraine”. From Dave: “No. `Traveller In Time` comes after `Sweet Loraine` and then `Easy Living`.” Lee: “`Easy Living`, `July Morning`, `Gypsy`. How do you spell `Gypsy`?”
Dave: “We can`t really work it out till we`re down there. We`ve got to work out `Magician`s Birthday`. You could try `Blind Eye`.”
Lee: “What`s that one that goes voom pa-da-da?”
Dave: “That`s `Blind Eye`. (to Ken) I`ve suggested that if we have a good piano and it`s miked up we could do `Rain`. I`ve worked out how to do that `Happy Birthday To You` vocal thing.”
Lee: “I can get a kazoo. That`s easy. I can play drums and kazoo.”
Dave: “Ken, I don`t know whether you can do it. That high voice I try to get on `Sweet Loraine`. It sounds like a Moog note.”
Mick: “How can you get that da-da-da?”
Ken: “We can do it two ways. Either with electric guitar, or I can try it on the organ. I can get that rhythm.”

CONSCIOUS

Dave: “Only one thing about it. That `Musician`s Birthday` on stage. We`d have to be very volume conscious.”
Incredible isn`t it. And they can all understand every word they are saying. They are really very bright boys. It`s just the music that`s loud and violent. Perhaps it`s because of that that they have had so many hang-ups. “The authorities think we are violent,” says Mick.
There was the time that Ken`s life was threatened in Detroit and someone fired a bullet through Lee`s hotel window. Then there was the occasion they were all held at gun-point in Rome and the time they were all stranded in a snow-drift in the middle of Canada.
The group seems to spend their whole time trying to avoid death – either natural or accidental. They seem to upset people too. What is it? Do they go round the world smashing up hotels or something. “No. We don`t believe in that sort of thing. After all we have got to go back there,” says Mick.
What an incredibly sane thing to say, we all think.
“Did you hear about the nine-year-old gynaecologist…”.

I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Fairport Convention, Ronnie Wood, Jon Hiseman, Pentangle, Claire Hamill, Ray Davies, Al Kooper, Procol Harum, Hemlock, Graham Bell, Elton John, Brinsley Schwarz, Martyn Wyndham-Read, John Peel.

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!

1. Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
2. The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
3. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.

ARTICLE ABOUT Elton John FROM SOUNDS, January 13, 1973

Several other artists are mentioned in this article, besides the piano playing rocker that is the 70s Elton that we love a bit more than the later version of Elton on this blog. But whatever your preference, whether it is the 70s, 80s, 90s, 00s or 10s version of this man – he has made music that will be played in one version or the other for a whole lot of years to come. Legend.

Mr. Spaceman And The Egg Plant

Elton John talking to Jerry Gilbert

The piano player hobbled up atop four-tier boots – outrageous dress for wearing around the house at mid-day when the last of your party guests from the previous night had only recently tiptoed off into the morning.
Elton`s New Year knees up had closed at dawn; today he was holding court within the portals of Hercules, his spacious home in Virginia Water on the crest of Surrey`s stockbroker belt.
Everything was now beautifully serene – only the props were the same – the giant egg-plant Elton had bought as a young vegetable at the Chelsea Flower Show, which now completely obscured his grand piano and appeared to be growing and twitching by the second. “I`m afraid it`s going to eat me one day”, contemplated Elton as he picked his way tentatively towards the hi-fi.
At strategic points around the house Elton keeps unlikely species of stuffed animals which aside from being eminent focal points, are also highly functional for they provide instant guide lines to the house.
For example the lavatory is situated in the pink fluorescent bathroom and to locate the above you make a left turn at the bison and it`s first on the right after the warthog.
Elton betrayed little that had happened the night before as he sank into the sofa and began to answer questions in his usual assiduous fashion. But every once in a while the phone would ring and he would find himself answering the usual spate of inquisitive aftermath questions that follow such veritable affairs.
“No… no, Marc didn`t come… just wait `til I see the little twerp… he doesn`t really like a knees up you see… not galactic enough for him…”
Suddenly we were on the surface on the moon; Mr. Spaceman in heavy checks and giant platform boots – his new cosmic remedy for weightlessness. The egg plant continued to grow, observing our every move.
The room swelled with the latest album from the gang – a splendid concept called “Don`t Shoot Me I`m Only The Piano Player”, and right now it could be an apt summary of the disputes in which Elton is involved with manager Dick James over the release of the new single “Daniel”.

THREATENED

It`s not quite certain how many times Mr. James tried to contact Elton during the course of our interview but Elton successfully managed to avert, divert, revert, subvert and generally ignore the stream of calls that threatened his telephone.
But what of the album? “We did it at the Chateu d`Herouville again, but the next one we`re doing in Jamaica because there`s a battle to see who owns it at the moment, so it`s being shut down temporarily… and I don`t record in this country”, he steamed.
“Well I can`t go back to doing sessions at Trident”, he qualified after a short pause. “I used to do sessions with session musicians before I made “Honky Chateau” but after the “Madman” album and we added Davey I went through a radical change and I wanted the group to play on the albums instead of using session musicians; so we decided to go over to France last January and do the “Honky” album because Davey hadn`t played with us before.
“It was so nice to get away out of it – I wrote all the numbers out there and the band rehearsed while I was writing them and I`d just never got that involved with a band before. Now I just can`t visualise going back to the normal routine session – it`d just drive me mad.
“In Jamaica people have said that the music will come out sounding a bit dirtier and looser, and quite honestly I`m trying to work towards that now: I`m not unproud of my records but I`m trying to get a bit more balls into it now, I mean we`re quite a heavy band onstage now and gone are the days where I used to sit down and sing half an hour of unaccompanied numbers.”

Elton supports his theory of environmental music by illustrating his alternative homeland – Los Angeles. “You can always tell an LA record – the Eagles, for instance, sum up LA and they sound better in LA than they do anywhere else. Bread and Loggins and Messina are other pure examples of music that sounds great on your car radio while you`re driving along.
“For example in England, no other country in the world apart from Germany could produce a group like King Crimson who are really strange and weird because I don`t think they are capable of doing that in the States. Those new German bands that are coming along are very German for instance… goose step music, y`know”.
Which bands did Elton feel represented typical indigenous English music? “Emerson, Lake and Palmer, Soft Machine… groups like Yes, you could never get a group like that in the States, or Genesis who are so typically English. But in America there are a lot of good bands who don`t seem to believe in themselves. Loggins and Messina are very nice – that guy sounds like me a bit, he sounds like Jose Feliciano.”
Elton has now found a tempo which enables him to commute between London and LA. “We`ve got down to one tour a year here now. We did a three-week tour at the beginning of the year, almost unannounced, to break Davey and now the band has been given a tremendous boost by Davey joining, because it really was on the verge of stalemate before that. We`ll be doing a big tour of England in March and April I hope, but I think one tour is enough.
“I can never work up any enthusiasm for British tours – it`s something I know I have to do. I never look forward to it after America, although once I`m on it, I`m all right. The terrible thing is there`s nowhere to play – you don`t need a 25,000 seater stadium in every town but you haven`t even got 5,000 seaters over here. I don`t even dig the Rainbow too much because there`s such a lack of atmosphere and you just can`t buy atmosphere.

“If it was in Manchester or Glasgow it would probably be incredible but London`s like San Francisco, everyone`s so sophisticated because they`ve seen everything.”
Elton John is a man who always has plenty of surprises under his belt. At the Royal Variety Show he appeared in outrageous red, white and blue and produced a delightful photograph taken with Liberace, in whom he found moral support and by whom he was gloriously outdazzled.
Simultaneously he was undertaking an American tour throughout which he featured the inimitable Legs Larry Smith. “It really went down a storm; we did it to try and get a little English humour over to America, because they really don`t have our sense of humour at all and even the Monty Python film I don`t think has been too much of a success. We just wanted to get a bit of outrage going and the kids really appreciated doing “Singing In The Rain” – it was just English insanity and a nice break instead of presenting the kids with a normal two-hour rock show.
“It seems that not enough people are going out of the way to give people a show, but it`s very hard to plan things – like the Larry thing was planned on the spur of the moment, it was just a one off thing and we won`t do it again, but the nice thing about it is that as a result Larry will probably be able to get his own band together and go out there, which he wants to do. But he cheered me up no end – we both held hands when we were flying because we were both petrified.”
During the course of 1972 more and more bands have gone in for theatricals although Elton was one of the genuine forerunners of camp rock and general stage antics. “It got to the point before Davey joined where I was getting p—– off with everything – playing the piano and the whole jumping up and down bit but now I realise I`m stuck with it and I really do enjoy it.
“When I first started dressing up, everyone said `What a c–t` but then all of a sudden everyone`s dressing up like crazy. I don`t think I was responsible. I think it just had to come. The syndrome of going on stage with a pair of levis… I mean the singer-songwriter syndrome fell flat on its face in 1972, it finally did its last swan song.

“The glitter thing got a bit of a drag actually, so I toned down – it really became awful with all these groups lurexing their way onto `Top Of The Pops` – I really couldn`t take that because they do it seriously – they really think they look good, but I`ve always done it with a sense of stupidness like `Here I am, don`t I look a c–t`. But here I am singing `Rocket Man` with a pair of Z-O-O-M glasses on and I`ve always gone out to send myself up”.
So had 1972 been a good year for rock in general? Elton felt that it had. “It began to get rid of the singer-songwriter and also so many good things happened like Roxy Music, Genesis and Rod Stewart came out with an album that was every bit as good as `Every Picture` which is no mean feat.
“Then there was David Bowie, who I think is amazing, and Roxy Music, which is a perfect example of what we were talking about earlier. In America you had Loggins and Messina, and there you had a 1972 version of Crosby, Stills and Nash; there was the John McLaughlin album which was amazing, but I don`t think there was anything that came out of America in the form of a major force, apart from black music; it became a power again. Black people are beginning to do their own thing and it`s not just five men in a row in satin suits again.
“Glitter rock was a bit predictable and rock and roll came back for its annual visit and that p—-d me off.
Aside from his many TV screen appearances Elton is also featured in Marc Bolan`s film “Born To Boogie”. It was something in which he enjoyed partaking, although he was fairly critical of the way the screen had been used generally to exploit rock music. “I was only in it for a minute – Ringo and Marc just said come down for an afternoon… but I enjoyed it.
“But I do feel television is more interesting for rock music because by the time a film comes out it`s a year and a half old.

HIDEOUS

“If you saw `Woodstock` now you`d think what a dated film it was, and I think films are more or less a record of what actually happened – I mean the Monterey Film is so embarrassing, it`s hideous. `Born To Boogie` is just a film about Marc Bolan, it isn`t anything else.
“But television is much more interesting and if you had a live show I am convinced that people would watch it if you had it on at 6 or 7 o`clock like `Ready Steady Go` – it would be amazing. `The Old Grey Whistle Test` is OK but it`s on at a ridiculous time and it`s a bit like the BBC 2`s progressive rock show. `Top Of The Pops` is one of the most boring things in the world, sitting around in that studio all day, but I do it because I want my record to sell. I hate the programme but what else is there… I could do so many shows like the `Cilla Black Show` but I turn them down. I still get offers to do `Basil Brush` and `The Val Doonican Show`.

APPEAL

“I think we appeal to all sorts of different people – it`s the same sort of audience that the Moody Blues appeal to which I don`t particularly did because… I`d like to go out there in front of a Greatful Dead audience but that sort of audience have got a prejudice built up against you before you start. I`m sure I could go out on stage and out-rock anybody in the world because when I`ve been second on the bill to anyone I`ve thought `Right you bastards`… I don`t really mean it but you have to go on with that attitude.

DERIVATIVE

“I mean I`ve just got stuck with that string image and being a bit of a plastic person because I write derivative songs… but everyone writes derivative songs. John Prine sounds like Bob Dylan and I`m a John Prine fan. I really love his album but there`s no way he`s a superstar.”
Elton is finding progressively that there aren`t sufficient hours in the day to accomplish all the things he would like. And the fact that he has now formed his own record company – Rocket Records – threatens to occupy a further chunk of his time in 1973.
“It was formed largely because I wanted to get away from the syndrome of the big record company – for example Warner Bros. Columbia and EMI release X amount of records a week and if you`re a newcomer you`re a dead duck.”

POTENTIAL

“What I really want to find is younger musicians – get a 16-year-old band, they needn`t be that good but at least if they`ve got potential… everybody around has been around for years and you just need a bit of fresh air. There must be young bands somewhere but unfortunately the semi-professional scene in this country has gone down the drain and that`s where all the talents came from originally.”

I have personally transcribed this from the original paper. Any errors in the text from the original magazine may not have been corrected for the sake of accuracy. If you have a music-related web-page where this fits – please make a link to the article. With credits to the original writer of the article from all of us music fans!

This number of Sounds also contains articles/interviews with these people: Fairport Convention, Ronnie Wood, Jon Hiseman, Pentangle, Claire Hamill, Ray Davies, Al Kooper, Procol Harum, Hemlock, Graham Bell, Uriah Heep, Brinsley Schwarz, Martyn Wyndham-Read, John Peel.

The original music paper this article came from (pictured at the top) is for sale!

1. Send me an e-mail if you are interested. Send it to: geirmykl@gmail.com
2. The offer should be 20 $ (US Dollars) to be considered. (This includes postage).
3. We conduct the transaction through my verified Paypal account for the safety of both parties.