Elton John - Hits '70 - Non-Album Cover Versions (1970)

Lately, I've been going through an Elton John phase, so I'll be posting more from him. Here's a very strange album that needs some explanation.

In 1969, Elton John was already starting to make it in the music business. He put out a single in 1968, and two more singles and an album in 1969. But none of them made the charts anywhere, and he needed money to live on while he waited for more success. He'd also been writing songs for other artists, but hadn't had much success with that either. 

At the time, it was very rare for record companies to put out compilations featuring recent hits from different artists, due to the difficulty of securing to rights from other companies and then splitting the profits. So instead, it was common practice to make compilation albums filled with nearly exact copies of hits done by anonymous musicians. Elton John made some extra money playing keyboards on some of these songs, and sometimes singing lead vocals on them. He did most of these in early to mid-1970, at a time when he was already starting to break out as a star. I guess the royalty checks for his own songs hadn't started coming in yet.

It was only after he became a superstar that some listeners realized that some of these anonymous copycat versions of hits were actually sung by him. Over the years, there have been various collections of these performances. But this generally has remained little more than a curiosity for his die-hard fans.

I think these recordings deserve more attention. Yeah, many of them just aren't good. Often they sound like the anonymous copies that they are. But on some of the songs, Elton John's talent and individual style shines through. So I've cut these songs about in half to the ones I think are the best. They're presented in the order they were recorded. He did a couple of lead vocals in late 1969, but those didn't make the cut. 

Generally speaking, I picked the songs where his lead vocals are the most clear and distinctive. (On many of the songs I rejected, he shared lead vocals with others, or double tracked himself to make his voice sound more generic.) I also rejected a few songs that were just weird. For instance, he sang a version of "Young, Gifted, and Black," which is silly when you know he isn't black. Also, some of his performances were more like parodies, and I wanted to keep this serious. Furthermore, I tried to avoid the versions that were too slavishly similar to the original hit versions.

The quality of this album is greatly helped by the fact that he didn't just sing copies of hit songs. In mid-1970, he also was asked to make demos for a handful of songs from lesser known artists in hopes that other artists would hear them and be more inclined to cover them. (Those are tracks 7 through 13.) Luckily, four of the seven songs from this batch were Nick Drake compositions. At the time, Drake was totally obscure, but he has risen in stature to become a music legend. So, ironically, you may find some of the Nick Drake songs here more familiar than some of the hits. 

The other three songs from that bunch were from an obscure folk duo, John and Beverley Martyn. Although the duo wouldn't last the year as a musical entity, John Martyn would go on to have a long and critically acclaimed career as a singer-songwriter. So it was a lucky thing that Elton John was assigned to record those songs too.

It wouldn't have been a smart thing for Elton John to release an all-covers album in 1970, the year he was hitting it big as a performer of the songs he co-wrote with Bernie Taupin. But in hindsight, this is a perfectly good album. By cutting out the lesser copycat songs, I think this goes from a marginal curiosity to an album that holds its own in his discography.

The album is 50 minutes long. That was on the long side for an album in that era, but some albums were that long or longer.

Here is a list of the artists who had the original and/or hit versions for each song:

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water - Simon and Garfunkel
02 I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top - Hollies
03 Question - Moody Blues
04 Yellow River - Christie
05 Lady D'Arbanville - Cat Stevens
06 Love of the Common People - Nicky Thomas
07 Saturday Sun - Nick Drake
08 Sweet Honesty - John and Beverley Martyn
09 Stormbringer - John and Beverley Martyn
10 Way to Blue - Nick Drake
11 Go Out and Get It - John and Beverley Martyn
12 Day Is Done - Nick Drake
13 Time Has Told Me - Nick Drake
14 Natural Sinner - Fair Weather
15 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder

Here's the usual song list:

01 Bridge Over Troubled Water (Elton John)
02 I Can't Tell the Bottom from the Top (Elton John)
03 Question (Elton John)
04 Yellow River (Elton John)
05 Lady D'Arbanville (Elton John)
06 Love of the Common People (Elton John)
07 Saturday Sun (Elton John)
08 Sweet Honesty (Elton John)
09 Stormbringer (Elton John)
10 Way to Blue (Elton John)
11 Go Out and Get It (Elton John)
12 Day Is Done (Elton John)
13 Time Has Told Me (Elton John)
14 Natural Sinner (Elton John)
15 Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours (Elton John) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/15905281/EltonJn_1970_Hits70VariousCoverSongs_atse.zip.html

While I was collecting songs and information to put this album together, I came across the cover art to the many cheapo cheapo hits collections that contained one or more of Elton John's vocals. I could have tried to make a serious and respectable album cover. But instead, I decided it would be more fun to lean into the cheesy fly-by-night nature of those albums by basing my cover on one of those. 

So that's what I did. The title "Hits '70" is unchanged. The left side of the original cover was a list of the songs it contained. I replaced that with a photo of Elton John in concert from that time period. The bottom left of the cover contained some more text and the record company logo. I replaced that with Elton John's name, done in the same font as the album title.