Elton John - Honky Chateau
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Free Music Notes for Honky Chateau
Free Music Review: A Cat Named Elton Hercules John
Hit: 5 Stars
I bought this classic CD from Amazon recently (at a very attractive price). I bought the vinyl version more than 30 years ago, soon after it first came out. A few of the songs survived the vinyl era on my self-recorded cassette tapes. Since I got the CD, I've listened to "Honky Cat" countless times in the car, and copied it onto my laptop so I can listen to it inside too.
Everyone knows the hit songs "Honky Cat" and "Rocket Man". I remembered fondly the beautiful "tribute" to New York City, "Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters" (it was actually a DB discussion of this song that brought the album back to mind), "Salvation", and the closing number (inspired by a rhino if you believe the CD notes), "Hercules" (Elton's stage middle name). What surprised me were the other great songs I didn't remember so well--"Mellow" and "Susie (Dramas)", the latter of which has a chorus so great that they have to sing it three times--"She sure knows how to use me/pretty little black-eyed Susie/playing hooky with my heart all the time/Livin with her funky family/in a derelict old alley/down by the river where we share a little lovin' in the moonshine." I'm gonna sing at least one of these at Karaoke some night.
The album also brought back to mind the seamless songwriting collaboration of Elton and his lyricist Bernie Taupin, who did not play or sing with the band. I'm told that Taupin wrote the lyrics (poems) and Elton wrote the tunes around them. On "Honky Chateau", an album that was primarily recorded in France, the producer filled out the sound with an exciting electric violin, used very effectively on "Mellow" and "Amy". Elton's piano composition and playing is fabulous as always. Listening again to "Honky Chateau" makes me understand why Elton John became a pop music phenomenon.
Free Music Review: "Man, Can He Tickle the Ivories!"
Hit: 5 Stars
Honky Chateau
This is Elton at his early best, when he was still an awesome songwriter and piano player. Bernie Taupin is in top form, and the combination is somewhere between poetry and pop. I listen to this album for hours at a time just to remember the good times.
Free Music Review: This album is pure gold!
Hit: 5 Stars
Come on! what can you say about the future sir Elton in 1972? Thank God for the CD! I can put this on with a good set of headphones and transport back to 1972 as a 6 year old kid. My brother set this fire in my musical soul when he bought me this album a few months after its release. He had this album on an 8 track tape and was hooked at first by a song called (oddly enough) I think I'm going to kill myself. At 6 years old I did not pay much attention to the words but the piano rift and catchy melody and tap dancing shoes were enough to hook me to this day. Hurcules is another one of my favorites not knowing at the time that Elton was singing about himself and that Hercules was his middle name. Even though this album only scored a couple of hits with Rocket man and Honky Cat, I know if you were to get this album you will quickly learn that every song on this album is solid gold. Free Music Review: its necessary to hear to it twice
Hit: 5 Stars
Luis Mejia (son) - Elton John came in this album with a stunning concentration on every track of this marvelous, strongly produced #1 album, Honky Chateau. When I heard it first I considerated it as simply "good", but after hearing to it twice that's when I realized how strong, catchy, and even funny album Elton John had the pleasure to release.
Honky Chateau contains a lot of enjoyable and familiar sounds through the record, including a lot of folkish compositions, mixing it with classic style pianno ballads and some rock and roll. Along its moods I noticed the album to be very catchy, enjoyable, funny, soft and juvenile, also having some dramatic moments, making it his most comprehensible and easy to listen album.
among the tracks each one of them is as enjoyable as the other one, but very original and unique:
- Honky Cat: a famous hit song with a lot of folkish sounds and a fresh mood, having a very mellodic electric piano performed by Elton and some ocassional trumpets, perfect for hearing it driving through a lost in the map road in some deep, farm area.
- Mellow: a light piano song which is mainly a funny, juvenile song, very simple though, having a light folkish sound introduced when applying the electric violin, although it has its moments.
- I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself: another funny, fresh and catchy song, one of my personal favorites, which Elton performes in the perfect way, singing in a freaky way and in a mood just like a crazy man (and I say it in the best sense), also having a fantastic mellody and even having a tap sound part! although the song has its dramatic moment at the end of the second part of the chorus.
- Susie (dramas): the song title says it, a dramatic song very alike with Texan Love Song and The Ballad Of Danny Bailey, although a little bit exagerated its a suburban, strong song.
- Rocket Man: a long time favorite hit which is the most recognizable track in the album, being a piano ballad mainly focused on piano and applying brief guitars with a semi dramatic mood, its a song much more alike with his past works, and my personal favorite in the album.
- Salvation: another good ballad but it goes just too fast being a short song; a couple of more lines in the lyrics would've made it perfect; also the instrumental interlude goes too fast.
- Slave: the original version of this song is mainly a song defined by a lot of guitar, banjo and congas, but without Elton playing the piano, which makes the track a little boring. The alternative version is a lot faster and I like it more just because Elton plays the piano and it also features some synthesizers, but the same problem happens like with Salvation; it goes too fast being too short, but enjoyable after all.
- Amy: another dramatic song very alike with Susie (dramas), although it keeps its difference for being just a little bit more profound. its the second track to feature Jean-Luc Ponty in the electric violin.
- Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters: my second personal favorite, it was a minor hit but its lyrics and composition are very delicate and rythmical. The song mainly spins around Davey Johnstone's mandoline.
- Hercules: another minor hit and a song that explodes the best instrumentation in the record, applying one of Elton's best piano performances, it also includes synthesizers, light backing vocals, drums, guitars and even rhino whistle (whatever that is it appears on the performance credits). Its also the most rock and roll alike song.
The two greatest highlights in the album are Elton and Taupin outrageously simple but amazing compositions, and the variety of instruments applyied, noticing that this is the first Elton John album not to feature strings (excepting two songs).
In conclussion the album its an amazing, easy to listen, delicate, juvenile, fresh composition regarded as one of the greatest Elton John's albums of all time, just "a simple classic".
Free Music Review: Elton Begins To Really Rock Out Here
Hit: 5 Stars
HONKY CHATEAU is the first true rock & roll CD by Elton John. Songs such as the cheery "Honky Cat" and the braided-rope-angst rocker "I Think I'm Gonna Kill Myself", as well as the album's best songs- "Slave", "Amy", and "Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters." The latter song's jaundiced view of New York City began to strike a chord with me after my trip to the relative quiet of Maine, and I fully empathize with what Bernie Taupin wrote in its lyrics. Along with GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD, ROCK OF THE WESTIES, CARIBOU, TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION, and MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER, HONKY CHATEAU is one of the essential Elton John CDs to own.