The Captain & The Kid

by

Elton John

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Having grown up with the radio during Elton John's reign on top of the American charts in the early-to-mid 1970s, I've always had a soft spot for his music, even after moving on musically in college in the 1980s. Especially since I learned to play piano by butchering his songs from this period, and was lucky enough to see him live at his famous Dodger Stadium gig in 1975 (my first rock concert) and in intimate shows like his pre-"Unplugged" tour with Ray Cooper in 1979. His classic albums from Madman through Capt. Fantastic were always within reach in my collection even when I more often listened to the Clash or R.E.M., and despite the lack of radio hits, Captain Fantastic was always my favorite, due to the strength of the highly personal songs and the superb production by the late Gus Dudgeon. I still recall listening to the album while poring over the "scrapbook" included in the packaging in my bedroom in southern California, wondering what a "Bank Giro Credit" and other Britishisms meant, and marvelling at how the flashy showman and his writer started out as a shy musical dreamers composing in his mother's living room.

So it was with some trepidation that I ordered The Captain and the Kid, given that a less-than-stellar outing from the Rocket Man would leave me with the feeling that they were trying to cash in on the old magic with longtime fans like me by releasing something not worthy of the connection to the great original. Like Paul McCartney, Elton is a musical genius who bears the curse of artistic survival and longevity, so that any new material released inevitably pales next to the timeless output of his peak years. Some will no doubt recoil at the McCartney comparison, as Sir Elton has clearly had more shining moments past his prime than has Sir Paul. But these are relatively few and far between when you look at the 1970s catalog, and we are all a lot older now. As Bernie notes so succinctly in the final track, "You can't go back, and if you try you fail..." But sometimes you have to try anyway, and the results can be deeper and richer than ever imagined.

The album opens with "Postcards from Richard Nixon," highlighting the wide-eyed wonder of the English-country and London-suburb "pale kids" as they hit America and their careers rocket to the stratosphere, with name-checks of Brian Wilson and Walt Disney to boot. A fun way to open the retrospective ride, picking up where Capt. Fantastic left off.

The debauchery of rock-star tour life is the theme of "Just Like Noah's Ark," a swampified southern R&B raver with a nifty organ solo and some dirty slide guitar from Davey, (the only time) cranked to an appropriate level. Living in Atlanta so long, it sounds like Elton has absorbed a lot more of the authentic feel of New Orleans R&B, Memphis blues and even Lynryd Skynyrd than in his previous English pastiches, like "Dixie Lily" off the Caribou album. Lyrically, the song shares a close connection to "Tower of Babel," which was superior in my view, but the infectious music pushes this one forward -- you can tell the band are enjoying themselves as this one winds down.

Things quiet down for "Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way (NYC)", Bernie's awkward paean to New York. Not his best lyrics, perhaps reflecting his reported ambivalence to the city over the years. In that uncanny way they have always managed, Elton matches this uncertainty with a musically unresolved verse that meanders down through minor chords and numerous key changes, before sliding into a celestial chorus. The meter of the words don't seem to fit Elton's tune in the chorus, but he moves the melody around in such a way to leave a poignant ache in the heart like the memory of an old girlfriend.

"Tinderbox" is another piano-driven song that reflects the strain of their close partnership toward the end of their chart-topping days, with a gorgeous chorus that echos "Harmony" off of Yellow Brick Road, and features the trademark backing vocals of Davey and Nigel in his classic years. This one really grows on you with repeated listening.

Next it's time to ramp it up again with the fevered, clipped R&B piano of "...And the House Fell Down." Bernie's most honest and evocative portrayal of Elton's drugged-up years is matched again with music and a vocal performance that perfectly suits the lyric, showing how all the hard work and they success they earned almost collapsed around them. As noted in another review, the musical resemblance to "I'm Still Standing" is no coincidence, and this song is also notable for Elton's jumpy, agitated R&B piano solo that is undoubtedly his best since "Bennie and the Jets."

While earmarked as a single, I did not love "Blues Never Fade Away," with its lugubrious piano and "We Are the World"-type vocals. It documents the loss of some of their closest friends, such as Gianni Versace and John Lennon, with a nod to Ryan White and an unidentified young woman. While no doubt sincere, the lyrics border on trite in spots ("All that matters is they came around and brightened up our lives"), and the overall feel is too charity-proceeds single for me -- sorry to be such a cynic. More typical of his recent work musically, it sounds like something he would have written for the stage or screen. I appreciate his talent in branching out that way, but it's not my favorite.

"The Bridge", the other rumored single, follows, and is another piano-only song that is much better in several ways. One, the music is stunningly beautiful, matched with his best vocal performance on the album. Secondly, Bernie's lyric is far more metaphorical than the previous track, and stronger because of it. Its mystery is part of the appeal -- is the bridge their career, their success where so many others failed? Or is it about overcoming other challenges in life and being a survivor? The choir-like coda concludes this beautiful song with echoes of the final track on Capt. Fantastic. Simply a gorgeous song.

It's back to a southern hoe-down with the bluegrass-tinged "I Must Have Lost it On the Wind," a close-harmony toe-tapper with a nostalgic look at their loves and losts, and some nice mandolin.

The album closes with two of the strongest and most personal tracks, wistfully and perfectly summing up their long career and friendship, with all of the ups and downs. "Old '67", referring to the year they met and started their long, hard climb to the pinnacle of the music world, is a nostalgic reflection of those simple, deprived days. You can see them shaking their heads and laughing at where they've come, set to another relaxed R&B piano tune. Davey contributes some nice slide guitar and steel guitar fills in something that sounds like it could have been recorded by The Band or Bonnie Raitt. The album then closes (perhaps too soon?) with the country/western twang of "The Captain and the Kid". Another simply perfect pairing of lyric and tune, this reprises the opening lines of Captain Fantastic before easing into a chugging brush-drum beat and the kind of hook-laden major-minor chord progressions that sold this guy about a billion albums back in the day. Just a song you could listen to over and over even if he was singing the phonebook. Bernie's lyric pretty much suffices as the entire summation of their brilliant career -- witty, sardonic, appreciative, sentimental -- it is all of these things without be cloying or predictable. If they had done nothing more than this song, it would have been a worthy cherry on top of the career cake. How nice that instead it can close the book on a fine album that more than lives up to the expectations of "completing the cycle," as Elton remarks in the liner notes.

A few minor quibbles. Clearly, Elton's soaring vocal range of the 1970s, epitomized by songs like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," is long gone. This is not surprising, but I tend to associate some of his recent vocal sounds as much with the "Lion King" songs as with the occasional gem like "The One" or "I Want Love." But he opens it up a bit on the R&B/blues-tinged songs and reveals a much richer vocal sound than he had back in the day.

Second, the production quality is a big departure from Captain Fantastic's tremendous sound -- Nigel's booming drums, spacious instrumentation, and the soaring vocal mix. Many of the songs are recorded quite "dry" on the new album, giving one the impression having Elton in your car or living room (the beginning of the first track especially), but in turn losing some of that wall-of-sound quality that Gus Dudgeon created. He was truly an under-rated contributor to Elton's career and body of work during that period.

Finally, I would have liked to have heard more guitar from "Musical Director" and longtime collaborator Davey Johnstone. His subtle fills with acoustic guitar, mandolin, and slide guitar are great, but we're missing the recognizable electric guitar sound he created with rockers like "Meal Ticket" and "Saturday Night's Alright...", or the chunky Fender-Strat blues fills he brought to "Tell Me When the Whistle Blows." While Elton's piano work is as inventive as ever (bringing to mind songs from Tumbleweed and Madman), more electric guitar would have been welcome. Of course, the point was not to re-create Capt. Fantastic, but Johnstone's guitars were almost always a critical aspect of Elton's hit songs and classic album cuts like "Funeral for a Friend."

But these are minor complaints. Every Elton fan should have this CD, to me it is far better than Songs From the West Coast, and the personal, affecting lyrics are poignant and meaningful to anyone with the slightest appreciation for their remarkable career and the body of musical work that has enriched our lives. Thanks to the boys for saddling up one more time before they ride off into the sunset.

Let me state right off the bat, so as not to be accused of being a troll, that I'm an Elton John fan. Like many, I eagerly awaited this sequel to Elton's 1975 album Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy with fingers firmly crossed. I must say, after having a month to let the new record sink in, that The Captain And The Kid, while definitely attempting to capture a little of that old genie in the bottle of Elton's classic period, is a fairly pedestrian, average affair.

On a positive note, Elton has wisely found his way back to the creative side of the tracks (vs. crass commercialism) - a trend that started with Songs From The West Coast in 2001 and has continued on with 2004's Peachtree Road and this current album. While Songs was a triumphant return to form in my opinion, Peachtree, though well intended, was somewhat less successful. While that same commitment is obvious on the new record, sadly it seems to fall closer to Peachtree in terms of overall consistency.

The album starts out on a strong note. In fact, Postcards From Richard Nixon might be my favorite cut on the record. With its infectious piano riff, memorable melody and Bernie's clever lyrics (coupled with those vintage Davey/Nigel harmonies of days gone by), it starts the record off with a bang. If only the rest of the album could have maintained this level. Here is where the biggest problem lies in my opinion - an overall lack of melodic inventiveness. We've heard most of these melodies in similar form on other Elton tunes over the years. In fact, at times I found myself predicting where the verse melody or bridge was heading next - only to have it come to be. I'm sure a lot of this stems from the fact that Elton's somewhat frozen, even shredded at times, voice is no longer the soaring and clear, falsetto-driven instrument it once was. Thus, the melodies are tailored for this. Just Like Noah's Ark is virtually the same "rocker" we've heard Elton do before - on the last album it was "called" They Call Her The Cat. Conversely, the album's first single, The Bridge is pretty much every middle-of-the-road, over-dramatic ballad that seemed to rule the 90's for Elton. Even Tinderbox, while definitely one of the better songs on the album, seemed utterly predictable to me. Maybe not offensive...just not inspiring.

The one other album highlight for me was Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way (NYC). In this particular case, Elton was able to conjure up the spirits of his musical past in a satisfying way. Owing more than a lyrical nod to Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters and even a stylistic nod to something like Come Down In Time, this valentine to New York City did manage to move me due to it's melodic freshness, lyrical imagery and some really great production touches by Matt Sill (a sweeping orchestra and what sounds like a moog synthesizer that would have respectively made Paul Buckmaster and David Hentschel proud...and probably the late Gus Dudgeon as well for that matter).

Other than that:

The title song, a cop of the original Capt. Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy riff (admittedly by Elton) and meant to serve as a bookend to the entire concept, ends up sounding like a Muzak-lite version of its predecessor. Again, not offensive, but one which will probably have you reaching for the earlier tune afterward. I'm sure many will also say that it's not valid to draw comparisons between this album and the records of Elton's classic period, but the fact that this is a concept album that's tied to an earlier work makes it fair game in my opinion. .

In conclusion, the rest of the album just left me hollow. While certainly not atrocious, or even bad for that matter, I didn't find myself remembering much of what I just listened to. A month later, and after repeated listenings...I still don't. While this is definitely miles up from bottom-of-the-barrel Elton (those honors can safely go to something like Victim Of Love or Leather Jackets), or even mediocre Elton (much of the 90's), this isn't really the monster return to form that many have been hyping it as. Songs From The West Coast can still proudly wear that badge in my opinion. "Best album in 30 years?" Not quite. 3 out of 5 stars.