CD Rezensionen » Captain fantastic and the brown dirt cowboy

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy...

ist das 9. Studio Album von Elton John und wurde 1975 veröffentlicht. Es stieg auf Platz 1 der US Pop Album Charts ein, das erste Album überhaupt, das dies schaffte. Es blieb sieben Wochen an Platz der Charts und bekam 3-fach Platin. In den UK Album Charts schaffte es das Album nur auf Platz 2. 2003 wurde das Album auf Platz 158 der Rolling Stone Magazin Liste der 500 größten Alben aller Zeiten geführt. Es war das letzte Album vor "Too low for zero"(1983), bei dem Elton John, Davey Johnstone, Dee Murray, Nigel Olsson, und Ray Cooper zusammenspielten.

Zur Geschichte (aus dem englischen Wikipedia übernommen)

Written, according to Taupin, in chronological order, Captain Fantastic is a concept album that gives an autobiographical glimpse at the struggles John (Captain Fantastic) and lyricist Bernie Taupin (the Brown Dirt Cowboy) had in the early years of their musical careers in London (from 1967 to 1969). The lyrics and accompanying photo booklet are infused with a specific sense of place and time that would otherwise be rare in John's music. John composed the music on a cruise ship voyage to the U.S.

"Someone Saved My Life Tonight", the only single released from the album (and a number 4 hit on the U.S. Pop Singles chart), is a semi-autobiographical story about John's disastrous engagement to Linda Woodrow, and his related 1969 suicide attempt. The "Someone" refers to Long John Baldry, who convinced him to break off the engagement rather than ruin his music career for an unhappy marriage. It was generally viewed as the best track on the album; Rolling Stone writer Jon Landau said, "As long as Elton John can bring forth one performance per album on the order of 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight', the chance remains that he will become something more than the great entertainer he already is and go on to make a lasting contribution to rock."[1]

In a 2006 interview with Cameron Crowe, Elton said, "I've always thought that Captain Fantastic was probably my finest album because it wasn't commercial in any way. We did have songs such as 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight,' which is one of the best songs that Bernie and I have ever written together, but whether a song like that could be a single these days, since it's [more than] six minutes long, is questionable. Captain Fantastic was written from start to finish in running order, as a kind of story about coming to terms with failure--or trying desperately not to be one. We lived that story."

Producer Gus Dudgeon was apparently also satisfied with the results. The album's producer was quoted in Elizabeth Rosenthal's "His Song," an exhaustive detailed accounting of nearly all John's recorded work, as saying he thought "Captain Fantastic" was the best the band and Elton had ever played, and praised Elton and Bernie's songwriting. "There's not one song on it that's less than incredible," Dudgeon said.

In 1976 Bally Manufacturing released a Pinball machine for arcades, titled Capt. Fantastic. Elton is featured on the backglass, in his character from the movie Tommy, as the pinball wizard. It is considered an iconic pinball by most enthusiasts as far as artwork. It was also the most produced electromechanical pinball machine.

The 2006 album The Captain & The Kid is the sequel, and continues the autobiography where "Captain Fantastic" leaves off.

Both "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds" and "Philadelphia Freedom" were originally released as non-album singles, but years later both songs, along with "Lucy"'s B-Side, the John Lennon-penned "One Day at a Time", were included as bonus tracks on the remastered Captain Fantastic CD reissue.

A deluxe 30th Anniversary edition CD was released September 2005, containing the complete album and the bonus tracks included on prior reissues and adding the "House of Cards", "Someone Saved My Life Tonight"'s B-Side, which had previously only appeared on CD on the 1992 Rare Masters collection. Also included is a second disc containing the complete album performed live at Wembley in 1975.

In September 2005, Elton John and his band again performed the entire album (minus "Tower Of Babel" and "Writing") in a series of sold-out concerts in Boston, New York City and the tour's final stop, Atlanta, in October. These "Captain Fantastic Concerts" were a part of the Peachtree Road Tour and were the longest concerts in Elton's career, lasting nearly three and a half hours. The songs from Captain Fantastic were aired by Capital Gold Radio in a broadcast taken from the September 16, 2005 performance in Boston.

Seite 1

1. "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" 10/10
2. "Tower of Babel" 10/10
3. "Bitter Fingers" 8/10
4. "Tell Me When the Whistle Blows" 6/10
5. "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" 10/10

Seite 2

1. "(Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket" 9/10
2. "Better Off Dead" 7/10
3. "Writing" 8/10
4. "We All Fall in Love Sometimes" 5/10
5. "Curtains" 5/10

78/100 Punkte

Sicherlich ein für Elton John und Bernie Taupin sehr bedeutendes Album. Für mich daher auch in einigen Liedern die Intensität, die sie sicher für dieses Album verwand haben, zu spüren. Im Vergleich zu dem für mich in der damaligen Version sehr schwachen Album "Blue Moves", was ein Jahr später erschienen ist, ein absolut hervorzuhebendes Album mit einigen wirklich tollen Songs (siehe Bewertung). Leider werden auch hier oft, bis auf "Someone saved my life tonight", kaum Lieder in den aktuellen Setlisten zu finden sein.