Elton John: Rocket Man

Getting set for Christmas now so here's a small piece of value coming to you shortly, to paraphrase an old Jefferson Airplane song!

Like a good many people, my interest in Elton John came about in the early 1970's where I owned the UK lp versions of both his Greatest Hits albums, borrowing other titles periodically from the library.

In the intervening years I slowly built up a collection of what I consider to be albums from his classic period plus a few from the early 1980's on compact disc being a mixture of early 80's American MCA discs and a few European DJM issues of the same era as the "Classic Sound" titles issued in 1996 that  to me sounded too loud and bright plus the MCA issue of Greatest Hits II with the song, Levon, a fine track included.

Recently I acquired a few specialty releases that sound amazing that I wish to talk about.

This disc issued in 1994 by the now defunct DCC label followed the US MCA edition track order but added Candle In The Wind which featured on the UK version at the end, has a great selection of Elton's earliest songs in possible their best sounding versions. Bennie And The Jets sounds just like you're in a concert.

Volume II was to been issued by DCC but an eleventh hour licensing issue between Dick James Music and MCA  put an end to that after the test discs were made, which was a great shame.

Issued at the beginning of this year by Audio Fidelity, this edition of Rock Of The Westies originally released November 1975 and  the Home of Island Girl, Grow Some Funk Of Your Own and Dan Dare, is the best version on cd of this title with a wide dynamic range.

Strangely enough this disc originally in late 1989 by Mobile Sound Labs Inc of Illinois was the first edition with the whole double album on a single cd.  

In the opinion of many it remains the best sounding version on cd and being the home of Candle In The Wind, Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting, and Bennie and The Jets plus many other memorable songs. 

My copy is a slightly later US pressed UDII one.

In 1983 this compilation one of three with the title Love Songs  was issued with a cd issued very shortly afterward in those halcyon cd days by Rocket Records in the UK.

As the title suggests this is a collection of love songs drawn from the  Rocket era catalogue so it takes in the albums from 1976's Blue Moves up to 1982's Jump Up and is a very good summary of this era although it misses of  Part Time Love originally on the 1978 A Single Man album for we get most of the 45's and choice album cuts. 

Although this is an early regular cd, it seems some effort was taken to find good sounding analogue tapes leaving it with a lush presence in the midband, great for making the most of Elton's vocals.

I've transferred these discs to my iTunes library for portable listening.