BLUE MOVES - Elton John

YEAR: 1976

LABEL: MCA

TRACK LISTING: Your Starter For..., Tonight, One Horse Town, Chameleon, Boogie Pilgrim, Cage the Songbird, Crazy Water, Shoulder Holster, Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word, Out of the Blue, Between Seventeen and Twenty, The Wide-Eyed and Laughing, Someone's Final Song, Where's the Shoorah?, If There's A God In Heaven (What's He Waiting For)?, Idol, Theme From A Non-Existent TV Series, Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance)

IMPRESSIONS: "Here's one from the Blue Moves album!" This is one of Elton's favourites of his own albums and that's probably attested to by the number of times he's hollared the above sentence in concert. In my mind, this album marks the end of Elton's first "golden age" during which he could seemingly do no wrong in the charts. It was released around the time of John's famous interview in which he came out as bi-sexual which surely put a hurtin' on his career. This is a great album although there is a fair amount of padding on it; here is a prime example of a double album which would've made a superb single album (with the perfect track listing appearing below in "my favourite tracks" list. Elton's feverish pace of releasing 11 albums in only 7 years was obviously sending him to burnout city and Elton famously declared at a Wembley concert that "That's it! This is the last one" after which he temporarily gave up touring for a time. Nevertheless, BLUE MOVES carries some of my favourite Elton John songs of all-time: "Tonight", "Cage the Songbird", "Someone's Final Song", "Idol" and "Bite Your Lip".

MY FAVOURITE TRACKS: Your Starter For..., Tonight, One Horse Town, Cage the Songbird, Crazy Water, Shoulder Holster, Sorry Seems To Be the Hardest Word, Someone's Final Song, Idol, Theme From A Non-Existent TV Series, Bite Your Lip (Get Up and Dance)

GUEST ARTISTS: David Crosby (background vocals), Ray Cooper (percussion), Bruce Johnston (background vocals), The London Symphony Orchestra, Graham Nash (background vocals), James Newton-Howard (organ, synthesizer, clavinet, conductor, electric piano, mellotron), David Sanborn (saxophone), Toni Tennille (background vocals), Daryl Dragon (arrangements)

FACT SHEET: BLUE MOVES is Elton John's eleventh album. The cover painting was done by Patrick Procktor. "Cage the Songbird" is written for Edith Piaf. "Idol" is written for Elvis Presley. "The Wide-Eyed and Laughing" is used as a lyric in the Indigo Girls song "Joking". BLUE MOVES is Elton's second double album (after GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD) and the first album released by Elton's own Rocket Records Ltd.