Elton John - Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy [6]

Title: Elton John - Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy
Year/Genre/Sub-Genre/City: 1975, Classic Rock, Piano Rock, Pinner, England 10/26
Matrix #: MCA-2142 (MCA, custom Captain Fantastic label); runout not legible in photo
Condition: EX (LM) | Members: Elton J (47' - ), Bernie T (50' - ), Davey J (51' - ), Dee M (46' - 92'), Nigel O (49' - ) | Producer: Gus Dudgeon
Cultural Facts: [6]

1. An Envelope on the Ride Home: On June 17, 1967, Liberty Records' Ray Williams ran a "Liberty Wants Talent" ad in NME. Twenty-year-old Reg Dwight, stuck playing keys behind Long John Baldry in Bluesology, told him he could write songs but not lyrics, so Williams handed him a sealed envelope of poems from the pile on his desk. He opened it on the way home and found the words of 17-year-old Bernie Taupin from Lincolnshire, and the two wrote by mail before ever meeting. That ad turns up on the cover of the "Scraps" booklet made for this album.
2. Sugar Bear Saved Him: "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" goes back to 1968, when Elton was engaged to Linda Woodrow and sharing a Furlong Road flat with her and Taupin. Feeling trapped, he made a half-hearted try with the gas oven, with the kitchen window wide open. Over drinks at the Bag o' Nails, Long John Baldry told him that marrying her would ruin two lives, he called off the wedding that night, and Taupin wrote Baldry into the song as "Sugar Bear."
3. Written at Sea, From Memory: Elton wrote the music in July 1974 aboard the SS France, then the world's longest passenger liner, working in its music room, the Salon Debussy. With no tape recorder, he kept every melody in his head until the band cut the songs in running order at Caribou Ranch in Colorado that August. Released in May 1975, it went gold on pre-orders alone and became the first album ever to enter the Billboard chart at No. 1.