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Elton John: Wonderful Crazy Night

 A l b u m   D e t a i l s


Label: Island Records
Released: 2016.02.16
Time:
 47:08
Category: Pop/Rock
Producer(s): T Bone Burnett, Elton John
Rating:
Media type: CD
Web address: www.eltonjohn.com
Appears with:
Purchase date: 2016
Price in €: 1,00





 S o n g s ,   T r a c k s


[1] Wonderful Crazy Night (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 3:13
[2] In the Name of You (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:33
[3] Claw Hammer (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:22
[4] Blue Wonderful (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 3:37
[5] I've Got 2 Wings (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:35
[6] A Good Heart (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:50
[7] Looking Up (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:06
[8] Guilty Pleasure (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 3:38
[9] Tambourine (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:17
[10] The Open Chord (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 4:04

Deluxe edition bonus tracks:

[11] Free and Easy (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 3:55
[12] England and America (Elton John / Bernie Taupin) - 3:51


 A r t i s t s ,   P e r s o n n e l


Elton John - Piano, Vocals, Creative Director, Producer

Matt Bissonette - Guitar, Vocal Harmony
Kim Bullard - Keyboards
Ray Cooper - Tambourine
Nigel Olsson - Drums, Vocal Harmony
John Mahon - Percussion, Vocal Harmony
Joe Sublett - Tenor Saxophone
Jim Thompson - Tenor Saxophone
Davey Johnstone - Vocal Harmony
Ken Stacey - Vocal Harmony

Gabriel Witcher - Conductor, Horn Arrangements
Allen Fogle - French Horn
John Grab - Trombone
Dylan Hart - French Horn
Nick Lane - Trombone
William Roper - Tuba

T-Bone Burnett - Producer, Soliste
Kylie Kempster - Assistant Producer
Jason Wormer - Engineer, Mixing
Gabriel Burch - Second Engineer
Vanessa Parr - Second Engineer
Jeff Gartenbaum - Second Engineer
Alex Williams - Second Engineer
Gavin Lurssen - Mastering
Mat Maitland - Art Direction, Design
Mike Piersante - Editing
Tony King - Creative Director
Joseph Guay - Photography
Juergen Teller - Photography
Adrian Colle - Project Manager
Carl Lieberman - Piano Technician
Rick Salazar - Equipment Technician
Chris Sobchack - Equipment Technician
Ivy Skoff - Contractor, Production Coordination

 C o m m e n t s ,   N o t e s


Elton John gives away his game with not just the title of Wonderful Crazy Night but its artwork. Our hero stands against a garish, colorful backdrop, sporting a grin a mile wide, signaling that he's once again ready to have fun. The measured melancholy of The Diving Board aside, Elton hasn't precisely avoided fun since returning to making records for himself, not the charts, with 2001's Songs from the West Coast, but a certain sobriety crept into the proceedings, particularly when he joined forces with producer T-Bone Burnett for The Union, the 2010 duet album with Leon Russell. Burnett is back for Wonderful Crazy Night and so is John's touring band, making their first studio appearance since 2006's The Captain & the Kid. It's possible to feel the presence of all of Elton's collaborators: the band brings a bit of a kick to the proceedings and the ever-tasteful Burnett reins things in, keeping things from being too crazy, while lyricist Bernie Taupin schemes with John to keep things from being too wonderful. To be sure, there's a fair amount of joy and swagger here, particularly on the ebullient opening pair of "Wonderful Crazy Night" and "In the Name of You," two songs perched between a canny, knowing nostalgia and casual craft. As the record rolls on, seams start to appear, not in the performances or production - this is an album that sounds as comforting as a long candlelit bath - but in the compositions. Often, the tunes appear to be handsome constructions - grand, stately, and well appointed - but their foundations are shaky, constructed from threadbare melodies and words that dissipate not long after they land. It's an odd mix of lazy and laborious; the songs feeling tossed together in an afternoon and then recorded meticulously. As such, Wonderful Crazy Night never lingers in the imagination - there are no hooks to pull a listener back in for another spin - but it sounds just fine as it plays.

Stephen Thomas Erlewine - All Music Guide



Elton John opens his 32nd studio album by looking back in delight. "Some things you don't forget/Some things just take a hold," he sings with relish in the title song, a jaunty recollection of lasting love at first sight. The music framing that glee – "Loose clothes and a cool, cool drink/A greasy breeze from the chicken stand," conjured by John's lifelong lyric partner, Bernie Taupin – is retrospective too. John's roller-coaster piano figure and R&B solo evoke the glitter-gospel charge of exuberant early-Seventies songs like "Honky Cat" and "Crocodile Rock." John, 68, has rarely strayed far from that template. But there is a striking vigor and engagement here, especially for an artist of his vintage. He animates Taupin's images as if they are his memories, with convincing, grateful zeal.

Wonderful Crazy Night is the latest stage in an extended return to form for John – his third straight album with co-producer T Bone Burnett after 2010's The Union, a sublime collaboration with Leon Russell, and 2013's The Diving Board. Where the former LP was designed as a tribute to an idol and the latter was heavy on pensive balladry, this record is closer to the swing of moods and earthy hues that marked John's early classic LPs such as 1970's Tumbleweed Connection and 1972's Honky Chateau. "In the Name of You" moves in creeping time to a bluesy piano riff doubled by Davey Johnstone, John's longtime guitarist. Johnstone also chimes in, literally, on "Claw Hammer," brightening its swampy aura with Byrds-like 12-string guitar. In "A Good Heart," John and Burnett turn the pleading in Taupin's lyrics into a Beatlesque spin on Southern soul with a coat of horns that could have come from Abbey Road.

There is a loose, earnest theme running through most of these songs. The exception, "I've Got 2 Wings," is an effectively restrained country-church tribute to the real-life Louisiana preacher-guitarist Elder Utah Smith, written by Taupin as a first-person memoir from heaven (Smith, who died in 1965, notes the years he spent in an unmarked grave). Everything else – the jangling surrender in "Blue Wonderful"; the liberating certainty of "Looking Up," with its chopping-piano gait; the allusions to flirting and deliverance in "Tambourine" – examines the hard work of maintaining paradise on Earth: the confession, reassurance and unconditional giving. The songs routinely summon comparisons to John's greatest hits; it's easy to imagine "Tambourine" sliding onto 1973's Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.

But there is a matured pacing and weight to the music and John's vocal performances that make this record one of his finest in its own right. Wonderful Crazy Night is about what happens after those loose clothes and cool drinks. The final tally: It's all worth it.

David Fricke - February 5, 2016
© 2016 Rolling Stone



Elton John’s 2010 album with Leon Russell, The Union, signalled a new determination to reconnect with the magic of his early-70s albums that established him as the world’s biggest-selling artist and are still revered by connoisseurs. You’d have to say that on Wonderful Crazy Night he succeeds in recreating the rootsy Americana of his youth, with help from his touring band, co-producer T-Bone Burnett and, of course, long-standing lyricist Bernie Taupin. It sounds like they’re having a blast. It was recorded in just 17 days, which has perhaps contributed to the urgency of tracks such as In the Name of You. But it has not come at the expense of John’s nose for a hit, with melodies such as that of Claw Hammer proving his pop sensibility is as acute as ever. A Good Heart and Blue Wonderful are classy, mid-paced ballads – familiar territory for Elton John, though there’s a bit more gravel and grit in his voice these days

Jon Dennis - 4 February 2016
© 2016 Guardian News and Media



In 1980, Elton John denoted his age and work rate with 21 at 33, the 21st album of an already prolific career. By the strictest arithmetic, his new release shows a slowing of productivity, since Wonderful Crazy Night could have been titled 33 at 68. But the apparently inexhaustible singer-songwriter – and beneath all the superstar hoopla, that is what he is still proud to call himself – maintains such an unremitting schedule in studio and on stage as to make nonsense of that interpretation. His sheer fervour for his craft puts many pretenders a third his age to shame.

Thus he arrives at the follow-up to 2013’s The Diving Board, an altogether darker affair than this set, which is largely as high-spirited as its title suggests. By his own assessment in a recent encounter, John finds himself at a highly positive stage of his life and work, and Wonderful Crazy Night sees him going backwards to go forwards.

Perhaps ironically for someone with something of a track record for more hirings and firings than most Premiership chairmen, he is also intensely loyal to his fellow musicians. The album represents a reunion with the core Elton John band that has decorated almost his entire recording career, including original drummer Nigel Olsson, longtime guitarist Davey Johnstone and, on five tracks, irrepressible percussionist Ray Cooper. That’s before you consider the extension to 48 years of surely the most remarkable and enduring songwriting partnership of our times, with lyricist Bernie Taupin.

Such a familiar setting, overseen in Los Angeles by a more recent, but frequent, confederate, producer T-Bone Burnett, encourages an infectiously spontaneous flavour to what may be one of the most “live” studio albums in John’s catalogue. The breezy title track may be a relatively lightweight John-Taupin confection, but like many here, it boasts an adhesive piano figure that most writers would pine for.

Such vivid keyboard detail is a recurring feature, as on the brooding introduction to the driving “In the Name of You” and the vaguely psychedelic “Claw Hammer”. The latter also showcases nicely textured electric and acoustic guitars before the inspired introduction of jazz horns, as Taupin’s evocative lyric describes someone “holed up in your house of wax, just waiting for the fire”.

To have such a consummate piano player showcasing the instrument, as he did on his marvellous introductory run of records, adds considerable heft to the album. At times, as on “I’ve Got 2 Wings”, the sense of Americana in sound and imagery recalls the atmosphere of, say, Madman Across the Water, whereas the bare “Blue Wonderful” evokes the Eighties era of Too Low for Zero.

By the time of “Looking Up”, which introduced the album as a pre-Christmas single, we’re back into killer piano motifs and unswerving optimism. Wonderful Crazy Night is not an album of hit singles, but John knows his game is to sit on the sub’s bench these days. But still to be delivering such carefully and enthusiastically forged handiwork says much about his respect for his legacy and his audience.

Paul Sexton - 3 February 2016
Independent.co.uk



Elton John’s 33rd studio album, co-produced by Elton with T-Bone Burnett and recorded and mixed at the Village in Los Angeles. It is John’s first album since 2006’s The Captain & the Kid to feature the Elton John Band. The deluxe edition includes two additional tracks. Elton John gives away his game with not just the title of Wonderful Crazy Night but its artwork. Our hero stands against a garish, colorful backdrop, sporting a grin a mile wide, signaling that he’s once again ready to have fun. The measured melancholy of The Diving Board aside, Elton hasn’t precisely avoided fun since returning to making records for himself, not the charts, with 2001’s Songs from the West Coast, but a certain sobriety crept into the proceedings, particularly when he joined forces with producer T-Bone Burnett for The Union, the 2010 duet album with Leon Russell. Burnett is back for Wonderful Crazy Night and so is John’s touring band, making their first studio appearance since 2006’s The Captain & the Kid. It’s possible to feel the presence of all of Elton’s collaborators: the band brings a bit of a kick to the proceedings and the ever-tasteful Burnett reins things in, keeping things from being too crazy, while lyricist Bernie Taupin schemes with John to keep things from being too wonderful. To be sure, there’s a fair amount of joy and swagger here, particularly on the ebullient opening pair of “Wonderful Crazy Night” and “In the Name of You,” two songs perched between a canny, knowing nostalgia and casual craft. As the record rolls on, seams start to appear, not in the performances or production – this is an album that sounds as comforting as a long candlelit bath – but in the compositions. Often, the tunes appear to be handsome constructions – grand, stately, and well appointed – but their foundations are shaky, constructed from threadbare melodies and words that dissipate not long after they land. It’s an odd mix of lazy and laborious; the songs feeling tossed together in an afternoon and then recorded meticulously. As such, Wonderful Crazy Night never lingers in the imagination – there are no hooks to pull a listener back in for another spin – but it sounds just fine as it plays.

Liner Notes



Wonderful Crazy Night is the 32nd studio album by British singer-songwriter Elton John.[2] It is John's first album since 2006's The Captain & the Kid to feature the Elton John Band.[3] John's long-standing percussionist, Ray Cooper makes his first appearance on any of John's albums since Made in England in 1995. This is Kim Bullard's first appearance on keyboards replacing Guy Babylon, and Matt Bissonette replacing Bob Birch on bass. Wonderful Crazy Night received generally positive reviews from music critics. At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 17 reviews.

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