Sunday, March 04, 2007

Elton John plays Nick Drake






Back in June 1970 Joe Boyd was wondering how to turn the genius that was Nick Drake into a marketable star. As a taster to see if other artists might record some of Nick's songs, he got Elton John into the studio at Sound Techniques in Chelsea to record a variety of his whitchseason stable artists' songs, including a couple of John and Beverley Martin songs from their Stormbringer album and four by Nick Drake, all from his first album, 1969's Five Leaves Left.

The Elton session included Linda Peters (later Linda Thompson) on backing vocals, Dee Murray on bass, Ray Cooper on percussion, Nigel Olsson on drums and Davey Johnstone on guitar. The sound is similar to the Tumbleweed folk-rock soul Elton was recording at that time.

Three of the Nick Drake covers have been available on nickdrake.net for a while, and the fourth (saturday sun) is now available here.




6 comments:

Anonymous said...

Pretty cool. I had heard about this, but had not got my sh*t together enough to track 'em down.

Thanks,

Bruce K.

AndyMac said...

Thanks a lot for this, never heard Elton's 'Saturday Sun' before.
Cheers.

Anonymous said...

Wow, I'd never heard of this...I seldom go out of my way to listen to Sir Elton, but this is pretty cool.

thundereggrules said...

Ladies and gentlemen...on lead, harmony, and electric sledgehammer...SIR ELTON!!

Boo.

Jon said...

hey Will - give the guy a break. He was only a jobbing session musician when these were laid down and he was told to make them POP!

Tho' come to think of it, it would be cooler had he recorded Nick Drake att he height of his fame, rather than in 1970!

Anonymous said...

Thanks for writing this.