Sunday, October 18, 2020

Elton John - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1972-1974

Here's the next in my series of BBC albums for Elton John. Most of the albums in this series are entire concerts. But this consists of a bunch of performances from different radio or TV shows strung together. Most are from the BBC, but a couple near the end are not. The sound quality is generally excellent. In terms of song choice, this could almost serve as a greatest hits for the time period.

The first three songs are from a concert at the Royal Festival Hall in 1972. I'm not sure what TV show these are from, but they almost certainly are from one, because professional quality video footage of the songs exist on YouTube. This was part of a full concert by Elton John, but I've only been able to find these three in high quality. The next two songs are from a "Royal Variety Performance" that was broadcast on TV as well. it was a sort of variety show done in front of British royalty, and I believe these were the only two songs played by John.

One song, "Daniel," appears to be live vocals only that were done to prerecorded instrumental tracks. A couple others might also fall into that category, but I'm not sure. If you can tell, please let me know. It's surprising to me how few TV or radio appearances I could find, considering that John was probably the best selling musician in the world for a few years in the early 1970s. So I went with live vocals only versions because I couldn't find any better ones.

"Get Down" was a hit by Gilbert O'Sullivan. This is a duet version with John from a TV special hosted by O'Sullivan.

01 talk (Elton John)
02 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Elton John)
03 Honky Cat (Elton John)
04 talk (Elton John)
05 Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters (Elton John)
06 I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself (Elton John)
07 talk (Elton John)
08 Crocodile Rock (Elton John)
09 Daniel [Live Vocals Only] (Elton John)
10 Step into Christmas (Elton John)
11 Get Down (Gilbert O'Sullivan & Elton John)
12 Candle in the Wind (Elton John)
13 Ticking (Elton John)
14 Grimsby (Elton John)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15835753/EltonJn_1972-1974_BBSessionsVolume4_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from a performance on German TV in 1972.

4 comments:

  1. Thanks a lot for this other great collection !

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  2. Thank you for this. I enjoy your collections and appreciate the effort that goes into them.

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  3. Hi Paul!

    Love your website!

    I was getting my downloads of the Elton John BBC Sessions updated today. I noticed some revisions to your uploads and I think I've got it all. However, I see one thing that may be incorrect.

    The cover art photo for Volume 4 seems to be correct in the download. However, the date is shown as 1972-1976. The date on the blog indicates 1972-1974. Which is correct?

    Thank you!

    WarfDawg

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    1. Oops! I had the wrong cover art. How the heck did nobody notice until now? Sigh. Thanks for pointing it out. I just fixed it.

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