A feat even more impressive for an album from which no singles were released.Tumbleweed Connection hit number two on the British charts and number eight in the US.
These were not the inept attempts of artists dabbling in a genre beyond their skillset. The now well-known songwriting team of Elton John & Bernie Taupin seemed to be purposefully steering this album down country roads.Īnd here’s the thing: they were not unsuccessful. And the cover: a sepia-toned photo of Elton John (front cover) and Bernie Taupin (back cover) in front of a wooden, empty railway station that could have been right out of the Old West (but is in fact about 30 miles south of London). The title itself brings to mind a dusty western town. “I’ll take my horse and ride the norther plain/To wear the color of the greys and join the fight again” “I saw Grandma yesterday down at the store” Side 1 in particular is filled with Southern-Americana, Civil War Era, Old West songs with titles like “Country Comfort” & “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun” & “My Father’s Gun.” The sound was not full-on Country twang, but it leaned that direction. With Tumbleweed Connection, the future Glitter-Rock star gave us an album whose down-home, country-ish feel makes it stand out like a sore thumb in his discography. Just as the music world was in a search for a new king, so Elton John seemed to be in a search for which path to take his music. The first, titled simply Elton John, had come out just the year before and featured the hugely successful “Your Song,” establishing EJ as a promising new soft-pop performer. Existing bands such as The Stones, The Who and Pink Floyd were likely contenders, and a slew of fresh new faces were making their presence known artists such as David Bowie, Led Zeppelin, Chicago, and of course – Elton John.ġ970 was also the year that Elton John released Tumbleweed Connection, his second to hit North America. The problem was not that there we no worthy candidates to be found, but rather that there were too many. The breakup of the Fab Four hit the Pop and Rock genres particularly hard as the reigning monarch had abdicated the throne and left no apparent successor. The music world was still reeling as it adjusted to living in a post-Beatles era.
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