Perhaps the best place to being with Elton John’s album Caribou is with the cover art, where we find everything that was wrong in the 70’s embodied and exhibited in the image of Elton, where he’s superimposed in front of a painting by the amazing Maxfield Parrish, a painter and illustrator who had a revival of sorts in the 1970’s, whose work comes alive from within, and contains a.

1. Elton John Albums In Order
2. Elton John Album Covers

HomeNewsGalleriesInterviewsSessionsNoise Proby Paul Cashmere on May 23, 2019in News

I had a simple question for former Eagles guitarist Don Felder. “The Bernie Taupin credited with the artwork on your new album. Is that THE Bernie Taupin?” “That’s the only Bernie Taupin I know,” Felder answered laughing.

Don Felder’s ‘American Rock ‘N’ Roll’ album has quite the Rock ‘N’ Roll roll-call, and artwork by Bernie Taupin is just one of the well-known credits. “I went to a hotel opening in Nashville, walking around the lobby and there was all this crazy art on the walls of smashed guitars with American flags wrapped around them,” Don tells Noise11.com. “There were these beautiful American flags soaked and wet and looking like they were about to be ignited. I said to the guy who built the hotel, “who did all this work?” and he said “Bernie Taupin”. I said, exactly like you, “THE Bernie Taupin, the Elton John Bernie Taupin?”

Don Felder and Bernie Taupin first crossed paths more than 40 years ago when Eagles were opening for Elton. “I knew Bernie back in 1975 at Wembley was Elton was playing. We were on the bill with him. So I reintroduced myself and said ‘this stuff is beautiful. I would love to use some of this stuff for my album artwork’ and he said (putting on a very bad English accent) “Absolutely mate, you tell me what you need”. He offered to let me use one of his flags which I thought was a beautiful rendition of the flag. Everybody on this record, music, mixing, mastering, including the artwork, has been a critical part of the history of Rock and Roll”.

The roll-call for ‘American Rock ‘N’ Roll’ is the Who’s Who of rock. “Everybody on this record, Sammy Hagar, Joe Satriani, Bob Weir, Sambora, Orianthi (my favourite female guitarist on the planet) Peter Frampton, Mick Fleetwood, Chad Smith, all of those amazing players on this record were all influenced from the music from the very end of the 60s and the early 70s, the artists who were at Woodstock,” Don says. “A lot of the people that I mention in the song ‘American Rock N Roll’ influenced all of those artists. Whether it was vocals from Crosby Stills Nash & Young or the Eagles, Slash was influenced by Jimi Hendrix and Carlos Santana. A lot of the people on this record were influenced by the history and evolution of rock and roll music since 1969. I tried to collect those people all the way down to Bob Clearmountain who is probably the most noted audio hi-fi mixing engineer in the business. Bernie Grundman, who mastered the record, when I was sitting in his studio he brought out the original two-track mix of Hotel California. He mastered it back then for vinyl and cassette. Every time there has been a remastering process for all of the Eagles project, Bernie has done it”.

‘American Rock ‘N’ Roll’ is only Felder’s third solo album. ‘Airborne’ was released in 1983, ‘Road To Forever’ came out in 2012.

The album also features the song ‘Sun’, written by Felder in 1974 for Eagles ‘One of these Nights’ album but rejected by Glenn Frey and Don Henley.

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Elton John Albums In Order

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Have you ever come across someone who captures a style that you can admire but never hope to emulate? Elton John made me awestruck when I found a copy of Greatest Hits in my sister Karen’s room when I was a kid. The album came out at a time when greatest hits packages actually meant something, long before digital made it possible for listeners to create their own playlists. The best collections served as an introduction to an artist’s body of work and made it easy for you to enjoy in one listening singles that you otherwise had to catch on the radio if you were lucky enough to be listening at the right time. And Elton John’s first Greatest Hits collection was one of the best, not only for the music but the memorable album cover.

All the songs that defined his rise to superstardom were laid out for you like diamonds — hits like “Rocket Man,” “Your Song,” and “Bennie and the Jets” (I always wondered who came up with the brilliant idea of pronouncing “Jets” like “jetssssss,” which gave the song its signature moment). My favorite was (and remains) “Daniel.” When he sang “Daniel, my brother, you are older than me/Do you still feel the pain” my mind drifted to my brother Daniel, who was two years older than me and who was indeed experiencing a lot of pain in his life. I’d heard all those songs — how could you not growing up in the 1970s? — usually riding in the car with my mom and dad, driving to places like Peoria, Illinois, or Mishawaka, Indiana, to visit relatives on both sides of the family. Even on a crappy car radio, his songs were unmistakable.

Elton John Album Covers

But when I found that album, I didn’t even bother listening to the music at first. I really didn’t need to. I just studied the album. Every detail. The creamy white suit, oversized glasses, and natty hat offset by the dark blue shirt and multi-colored bow tie. The over-sized pin of the dude looking like Marlon Brando in The Wild One affixed to his jacket. And to top it all off, that elegant walking stick. On the back cover, there he was, playing his piano, wearing glitter shoes. I loved everything about his look, but I realized he had captured a style that was all his own. I was just a kid entering adolescence, with no sense of how to look. I was making that awkward transition from matching clothes to jeans and shirts, but I had no idea what I was doing, and I was too shy and awkward to try to attempt to look anything like presentable. On that album cover, Elton John gave me a glimpse of another world, of other possibilities beyond my imagination.

All I could do was press my nose against the glass and watch.