Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *
The yellow brick road is long and hazardous; it is full of dreams and bounty, of falls, the odd failure and the extreme high of performance, the yellow brick road is journey that has been undertaken by one of the very finest and perhaps one of the most adored musicians of the last 50 years and yet the feeling of like him or loathe him still runs deeply throughout the veins of those who come across his music.
Elton John has only the self-imposed mountains still to conquer, the ones that are set up to add grace to a career that has been incredible and a life that has been rather extraordinary and during that time the underlying trend for the spectacular and the richness of abundant elegance, arguably even opulence, of his music has always been a constant and considered factor; if the formula works why change.
However underneath the Rock star glitz, the showman, the rocket man is a man who just wants to perform songs and his latest album, Wonderful Crazy Night, the man gets his wish, it might be subconscious, it might be deliberate but the sincerity which comes across is something uplifting, edged in darkness but altogether understated and cool; it is the man shedding off the performer and almost metaphorically naked allowing the listener to hear the lyrical genius of Bernie Taupin freely stand out in amongst serious and just under the radar dramatic musical arrangements.
Wonderful Crazy Night might hide the theatrical but it still resonates with the appreciation befitting someone of Elton John’s stature and in songs such as Claw Hammer, the tremendous and searching, probing question of Guilty Pleasure, The Open Chord and the generous flexibility of England And America, a different kind of Elton John takes root in the mind, a measured set of songs that are not overblown, not playing up to a stadium crowd packed into a small living room, this is a kind of beauty that was abundant in Goodbye Yellow Brick Road but was hijacked by the circus surrounding the atmospheric groove; it is a beauty that isn’t draped in anything but the smile of appreciative understanding and it flourishes because of it.
A return to past glories for Elton John perhaps, but one that feels refreshingly new; a Wonderful Crazy Night indeed.
Ian D. Hall