In the 2020s, Elton John started offering 50th anniversary deluxe editions of classic albums in his catalogue that hadn’t been expanded to multi-disc sets yet. After Madman Across the Water and Honky Château, expansions of Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and Caribou were only made available as vinyl expansions for Record Store Day activations. That changes with a new general retail expansion of Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy arriving this fall with a bonus disc of unreleased material.
Due October 24, the album (remastered in 2016) will be paired with a second disc featuring unreleased session demo versions of five songs from the original LP (including two takes on the title track) as well as a near-full…
Tag Archive: Elton John
…Deep cuts from John’s rich catalog are given the spotlight on Live from the Rainbow Theatre with Ray Cooper. The 13-song set was culled from a six-show residency in London in May 1977, with John at the piano and his longtime percussionist, Ray Cooper, joining him for the second half of the show.
…While John, of course, performed his biggest hits during the residency, the album wisely focuses on often overlooked material, pointing to the astounding quantity of quality songs John produced early in his career. That includes “Cage the Songbird,” a lilting tribute to Édith Piaf from the underrated 1976 LP “Blue Moves.”
Another highlight from that album is the cabaret jazz ballad “Idol,” which shows John could…