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Elton John: Songs from the West Coast

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: DJM Records
Released: 2001.10.01
Time:
 54:06
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): Patrick Leonard
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.eltonjohn.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2012
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] The Emperor's New Clothes (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:28
[2] Dark Diamond (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:26
[3] Look Ma, No Hands (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:22
[4] American Triangle (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:49
[5] Original Sin (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:49
[6] Birds (E.John/B.Taupin) - 3:51
[7] I Want Love (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:35
[8] The Wasteland (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:21
[9] Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:52
[10] Love Her Like Me (E.John/B.Taupin) - 3:58
[11] Mansfield (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:56
[12] This Train Don't Stop There Anymore (E.John/B.Taupin) - 4:39

 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Elton John - Piano, Harmonium, Vocals

Davey Johnstone - Acoustic & Electric Guitars, Mandolin, Backing Vocals
Rusty Anderson - Guitars, Electric Guitars, Bozouki
Gary Barlow - Backing Vocals
Jay Bellerose - Percussion
Paul Buckmaster - Horn & String Arrangements, Conductor
Paul Bushnell - Bass Guitar, Backing Vocals
Matt Chamberlain - Drums, Percussion
David Channing - Acoustic Guitar, Dobro
Bruce Gaitsch - Acoustic Guitar
Kudisan Kai - Backing Vocals
Patrick Leonard - Hammond B3 Organ, Mellotron, Keyboards
Nigel Olsson - Drums, Backing Vocals
Billy Preston - Electric & Hammond B3 Organs
Tata Vega - Backing Vocals
Rufus Wainwright - Harmony Vocals on [4]
Stevie Wonder - Clavinet & Harmonica on [2]

Joe Chiccarelli - Engineer, Mixing, Vocal Engineer
Ralph Sutton - Engineer
Brian Scheuble - Engineer
Todd Shoemaker - Engineer
Andy Green - Assistant, Assistant Vocal Engineer
Jennifer Hilliard - Assistant, Assistant Engineer
Steve Jones - Assistant Engineer
Alan Sanderson - Assistant, Assistant Engineer, Mixing
Tom Stanley - Assistant, Assistant Vocal Engineer
Darrell Thorp - Assistant, Assistant Engineer
Bill Bottrell - Mixing
Stephen Marcussen - Mastering
Stewart Whitmore - Digital Editing
Peacock - Design
Alan Edwards - Publicity
Todd Interland - A&R
Derek MacKillop - A&R
Adrian Collee - Project Coordinator
Suzanne Ybarra - Project Coordinator

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Throughout his songs for The Road to El Dorado, Elton John hinted at his classic sound of the early '70s, but it's still a refreshing surprise to find him largely returning to that sound on his 2001 album, Songs From the West Coast. It was easy to think that John wasn't interested in writing like this anymore, given not just his continued success, but the ease with which he was crafting pleasant adult contemporary records. There are still elements of that on Songs From the West Coast - a few of the ballads are a little too even-handed, and since this is a modern recording, it lacks the resonant warmth of such classics as Honky Chateau and Tumbleweed Connection. Still, this is the richest, best record he's released in a long time, an album where it feels like a hit single is secondary to the sheer pleasure of craft, whether it's crafting a song or an album. And this is an album that flows easily and naturally, setting the mood with the story sketch "The Emperor's New Clothes" and then heading in a number of scenic directions. Of these, "American Triangle," his elegy for Matthew Shepard, will likely receive the most attention, but the most interesting are songs like the bluesy "The Wasteland," "Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes," which recalls the Tumbleweed epics, the neo-Captain Fantastic tune "Dark Diamond," the soulful closer "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore," and "Birds," a terrific, spare, rolling country-rocker. His songwriting hasn't been this diverse or consistent since the early '80s, and he hasn't made a record better than this in years. No, Songs From the West Coast won't make you forget Tumbleweed Connection, but it often recalls those peaks, which, frankly, is enough.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



The appearance of "Rocket Man"-era cohorts Nigel Olsson and Davey Johnstone as backing vocalists touches this CD with one of the trademark sounds of Elton John's 1969-75 LPs. John has acknowledged those records - his most typically singer-songwriterish - occasionally, if mostly to revisit audience favorites in concert (1987's Live in Australia, a late-'90s VH1 show). But on Songs from the West Coast, his admiration of Ryan Adams and Rufus Wainwright (a guest here) inspires him to recall the stripped-down, lyric-driven sensibility of his early days. The tone of the words Bernie Taupin feeds this notorious diva is elegiac, rooted in a wearier version of the romanticism that fueled oldies as diverse as "Your Song," "Love Lies Bleeding," and "Burn Down the Mission." West Coast sidesteps bombast with a couple of exceptions; only "The Wasteland," with its invocation of Robert Johnson, is enough to provoke a dismayed "oy." The standout track is "I Want Love," a Lennonesque rumination that's their most impressive writing, separately or together, in more than a decade.

Rickey Wright - Amazon.com



It don't always work when veteran rockers try to conjure their classic albums' old black magic. Going back to your roots and whatnot sounds good on paper, but your voice and reflexes change, recording techniques evolve and fashions shift. Maybe you've actually grown up, even if your audience hasn't.

With its backward-looking cameos by Stevie Wonder, Billy Preston and kindred soul Rufus Wainwright, Songs From the West Coast attempts to reinstate Elton John as an album artist. It aims to recapture the expansive sounds and sensibility of Madman Across the Water, Honky Chateau and other early vehicles that blasted pop's rocket man into the AM-FM stratosphere, before mega-celebrity, a nonstop work ethic and a whole lotta drugs dissipated his gargantuan gifts. Maybe breaking with John Reid, his longtime manager and onetime partner, allowed John the clarity to hear what he'd lost. Or maybe seeing the way Almost Famous viewers re-embraced "Tiny Dancer" motivated the spectacled one to reach for that soul-deep melodrama again.

For a moment, he grasps it. With its pensive George Harrison-esque guitar, Ringo-y drum thud and authentic Preston organ, "I Want Love" showcases John's hookiest chord progression in years, and the toughest Bernie Taupin poetry in decades: "A man like me is dead in places other men feel liberated," John spits out, owning every succinct phrase. Other tracks miss admirably. "American Triangle" addresses Matthew Shepard's homophobic murder with awkwardly specific lyrics that narrow the widescreen scope of John's classical-minded composition. "The Emperor's New Clothes" flashes back to Tumbleweed Connection's Americana, but its verse is too wordy, a few notes too low and hillbilly corny.

"Ballad of the Boy in the Red Shoes" is the best of the rest that fall between rediscovery and self-homage. Former Madonna collaborator Patrick Leonard helps John re-create the muscular orchestration of "Tiny Dancer" to metaphorically suit Taupin's tale of a male ballet master thinking back on former glories and family frustrations as AIDS claims his once-agile body. John can't always send his music soaring the way it used to, but its spirit and ambition have finally come back home.

Barry Walters - September 17, 2001
RollingStone.com



At the beginning of the 21st century, Elton John was, effectively, a touring greatest hits act. Despite the excellence of 1995’s Made in England album, his 70s and 80s heydays had departed, and most people who had discovered Elton in the 90s had done so via the remake of Candle in the Wind he wrote for the late Princess Diana. He was an act left over from the past, with an increasingly pop direction exemplified in up-tempo hookfests like I’m Still Standing that had led him away from his earliest, more American influences. A career of charity concerts and compilations seemed certain.

So it was something of a surprise when John, reunited once again (again) with his traditional lyricist Bernie Taupin, emerged from the studio in 2001 with one of the strongest albums of his career. Songs From the West Coast, as the name suggests, took the pair back to the early days of their career, when comparisons might have been made between John and the likes of Randy Newman or Leon Russell, and when a powerful sense of Americana pervaded the work of both creative forces.

Songs like This Train Don’t Stop There Anymore and I Want Love are not only as rootsy as anything from Tumbleweed Connection or any of Elton’s older work, but they were, significantly, released with videos that didn’t feature Elton. Instead, Robert Downey Jr and – even more significantly – Justin Timberlake were recruited, the latter playing the part of a young, glammed-up Elton. The rest of the album, most notably in songs like Look Ma No Hands and Birds, has a looseness and thoughtfulness not heard in Elton’s work for a long time. And the combined result, remarkably, was an album nobody thought could have happened, and one that’s still worth a listen today.

David Quantick - 2010 BBC Review



Songs from the West Coast is the twenty-seventh studio album by British singer/songwriter Elton John, released worldwide on 1 October 2001. Many critics have said that this album brought him back to his piano-based musical roots. He once again collaborated with long-time lyricist Bernie Taupin. Drummer Nigel Olsson returns to the band full-time. Tata Vega makes an early appearance as a backup vocalist and joined the EJ band later. This album marks the first time John and Taupin wrote together in person. From the album, "I Want Love" was a single and a Grammy nominated song, and "This Train Don't Stop There Anymore" and "Original Sin" also became hits. None of the songs from this album hit the Billboard Hot 100, which froze John's record of 31 years with at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100 (30 with at least one in the top 40). George Strait tied that record on the Country charts in 2011. Stevie Wonder, who previously worked with John for the songs "I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues" and "That's What Friends Are For", played harmonica and clavinet on "Dark Diamond".

Patrick Leonard produced the album and played keyboards on several songs, as was the case for The Road to El Dorado soundtrack. Guy Babylon, Bob Birch and John Mahon, three of John's band members at the time, do not appear on this album.

It was the first non-soundtrack studio album from John to be released after PolyGram and Universal Music Group merged, consolidating distribution rights to his entire catalogue.

Rufus Wainwright sings backing vocals on the track "American Triangle", which is about Matthew Shepard, a gay college student who was brutally murdered in 1998.

The restaurant shown on the album's cover is Rae's Restaurant, which is frequently used as a location for many Los Angeles-based film shoots, including 1993's True Romance and 2005's Lords of Dogtown. John's partner David Furnish and his Director of Operations Bob Halley appear on the album cover: Furnish as a cowboy at the bar and Halley as the man getting handcuffed.

John has said that the inspiration for many of the songs on this album came from when he listened to Heartbreaker by Ryan Adams.

In an interview with Jon Wiederhorn in 2001, John revealed that the album was recorded using analogue tape as he believes "the voice and instruments sound warmer".

The album was dedicated to Matthew Shepard and Oliver Johnstone, Davey Johnstone's late son.

In 2002, the album was repackaged as a special edition containing a bonus disc with remixes, b-sides and non-album singles from the time of its release.

For the most part, Songs from the West Coast was warmly received by music critics. Allmusic's Stephen Thomas Erlewine was glad that Elton made a record that sounded like his classic albums from the early seventies, even though he still included some adult contemporary material. Erlewine went on to say that the record doesn't have all the "warmth" of his classic albums, but that it is still the best album he has made in years. Ken Tucker of Entertainment Weekly that the album effectively sounds like Elton's early recordings. He feels that Taupin's lyrics, such as "American Triangle", devalues the song, but on other times makes Elton "liberated". Jane Stevenson, writing for Jam! CANOE, felt glad that Elton returned to his roots, even if he doesn't quite make it there. Barry Walters of Rolling Stone knew that back-to-the-roots albums by artist rarely work, but Elton was able to make it work on Songs from the West Coast even if some songs, such as "American Triangle" and "The Emperor's New Clothes", miss the mark, others like "I Want Love" effectively manage to sound like his earlier work.

Wikipedia.org
 

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