One Night Only - John, Elton (Cassette 2000)

So what if he wears a wig now? He can still rock the house. That pacemaker is doing its trick!

In October of 2000 Elton John put on an amazing show at New York s Madison Square Garden. Some of you may ve seen the highlights of these shows on PBS over the last few days (always a good pledge drive show!). I bought my wife the CD of the NYC live show Elton John-One Night Only for her birthday this past January. We are both fans, my wife having seen him years ago at the Worcester, Massachusetts Centrum, and my having enjoyed Goodbye Yellow Brick Road as one of my first 45 s (ask your parents if you don t know what 45 s are!) back in 1973 or thereabouts. The CD is packed with his greatest hits, and the CD booklet offers a great retrospective of John s life. You ll find out where he gets his name, read about the origins of many of his great tunes, co-written with Bernie Taupin, and hear him team up with the likes of Kiki Dee ( Don t Go Breaking My Heart ) and Bryan Adams ( Sad Songs Say So Much ). These are toe-tapping tunes that ll transport you back to through a fantastic career. You ll travel back in time to 1972, when Crocodile Rock became Elton s first number one single. You ll revisit 1995 when Can You Feel the Love Tonight from the Lion King, won an Oscar for Best Original Score. The tunes from the mid 80 s I m Still Standing album take me back to my college years, and listening to tunes like Sad Songs remind me of traumatic breakups which drove me to slugging multiple cans of Old Milwaukee (we were poor then) and wandering the streets aimlessly at 3 a.m.

Mars ain t the kind of place to raise your kids! In fact it s cold as hell

You can t help but love Rocket Man released around time Apollo 16 visited the moon. 1972. Even though I was only eight, I had two older brothers, one of them a musician, and I always enjoyed early exposure to hits of the time way before I was hip enough to appreciate them! Another million seller, released in 75, was Philadelphia Freedom, about the professional tennis team of Billie Jean King. Again, ask your parents if you don t know who she is!

As a kid growing up in the mid seventies, we had iron-on Elton John decals from the local mall T-shirt shop (those were big in the seventies) and admired the cool shades, often wild pink, that he always wore. This CD is great fun. Heck, you can even apply for an Elton John Aids Foundation VISA card using the handy 800 number provided opposite the song list. Elton s voice is the same now as it was 25 years ago. He basically rocks. Crank the volume when you play it and ENJOY.

Here s a rundown of the whole CD:
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Philadelphia Freedom
Don t Go Breaking My Heart (features Kiki Dee)
Rocket Man
Daniel
Crocodile Rock
Sacrifice
Can You Feel the Love Tonight?
Bennie and the Jets
Your Song (features Ronan Keating)
Sad Songs (with Bryan Adams)
Candle in the Wind
The B*itch is Back
Saturday Night s Alright For Fighting (features Anastacia)
I m Still Standing
Don t Let the Sun Go Down on Me
I Guess That s Why they call it the Blues(w/Mary J. Blige)

Billy Joel appeared on the Video of this concert shown on PBS, but unfortunately isn t included on the CD!

Happy Listening and Thanks for Reading!

Kevlog in Boston