Oops! I’ve been writing these Dr. Bob Prescribes posts since August 6, 2018. I have only now realized that I have not yet featured the pianist Ray Bryant (1931-2011). OMG. It’s time to address and make good on that oversight! What made the light go off in my head regarding Ray Bryant was the act of preparing yesterday’s Music History Monday post about Elton John and Bernie Taupin. As we observed in that post, Elton John is a classically trained pianist who has used his pianistic skill to master a wide range of decidedly non-classical piano styles, including rock ‘n’ roll, blues, and gospel. One of the many songs I listened to in preparing yesterday’s post was Elton John’s and Bernie Taupin’s Take Me to the Pilot (recorded in 1970). As lyrics go, Bernie Taupin’s makes about as much sense as John Lennon’s words to I Am the Walrus. (Lennon later confessed to writing the Walrus’ nonsense lyrics when he learned that many Beatles fans were actually analyzing the band’s lyrics as serious poetry!) Anyway, Taupin’s lyrics for Take Me to the Pilot are out there, way out there. In 2005, Elton John confessed that regarding those lyrics: “in the […]
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Robert Greenberg
Historian, Composer, Pianist, Speaker, Author
Archive for Elton John
We mark the conclusion on November 20, 2022 – one year ago today – of the North American leg of Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour.” The concert took place at Dodgers Stadium in Los Angeles; it was the third of three “farewell” concerts held at Dodgers Stadium. The three concerts (on November 17, 19, and 20) saw a total attendance of 142,970 people and grossed $23,462,993. Since the first rock ‘n’ roll concert , which was held in Cleveland on March 21, 1952 (that would be the “Moondog Coronation Ball”), there have been rock ‘n’ roll concert tours and there have been rock ‘n’ roll farewell concert tours. But Elton John’s “Farewell Yellow Brick Road: The Final Tour” was in a league of its own and will likely never, ever be matched. The numbers are mind-boggling and bladder-weakening. The tour, interrupted, as it was, by the COVID epidemic, ran for nearly five years, from September 8, 2018, to July 8, 2023. It began in Allentown, Pennsylvania and concluded in Stockholm, Sweden. It consisted of nine separate legs (or “tours within the tour”) and a total of 330 shows. All together, the tour was attended by 6.1 […]
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