Elton John - Tumbleweed Connection (Dlx)
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Free Music Notes for Tumbleweed Connection (Dlx)
Free Music Review: My Favorite EJ
Hit: 5 Stars
I bought the original vinyl for this "back in the day" and I'm still confused as my vinyl has "Madman" on it. Regardless - this version of Madman with Mick Ronson on guitar is my favorite.
While this might be the only EJ album without a hit single, it's my favorite work of his (and obviously Bernie). There isn't a weak song on this CD. My favorites include "Ballad of a Well Known Gun", "Where to Now St. Peter", "My Father's Gun", "Country Comfort", "Amoreena" and "Burn Down the Mission". If you don't have this - you should. It's essential "Classic Rock".
Free Music Review: Tomac from Cincy
Hit: 5 Stars
Elton and Taupin's best album, especially the lyrical theme. This is Elton at his pre-weirdo best. The second CD of unreleased versions of the songs is worth the price by itself. Great for new and old Elton John fans.Free Music Review: Not quite Deluxe enough
Hit: 4 Stars
"Tumbleweed Connection" is a fantastic re-imagining of the American West by a couple of brilliant young British songwriters who had never been there. Other reviewers here have described the album, and if you think you are interested in Elton's breakthrough years, you need to have this. The songs are inventive, poetic, and rockin', and Elton's vocals and piano playing are superb. It's beautifully arranged and recorded, but more of a piano-based rock album than the self-titled album that preceded it. There isn't a bad song on it, and it may be Elton's most thematically unified work. In addition, since it never had a hit single, it is not as well known as most of his early works, so it is easy to listen to it with a fresh appreciation. (The least known is his first album, "Empty Sky", which is so easily forgotten that the sticker on this new edition mistakenly says that "Tumbleweed" is his second studio album...which means his own CD company completely forgot about "Empty Sky" which preceded both "Tumbleweed" and the self-titled one!)
The 2008 Deluxe Edition has some nice extras, but falls short of being an essential upgrade. Disc One consists solely of the original running order of the album, and the mastering sounds identical to every CD version released since 1995 (including the Japanese imports). But that's fine...it sounds great and that may be the best mastering they can get out of the original masters. (Or maybe they can't find the original two-track masters...that happens more often than you want to know.)
Disc Two has some nice piano/vocal demos for the album, but there are several other demos from the album that have circulated in good sound quality on a bootleg called "Tumbleweed Collection", so it is too bad that Universal didn't track those down as well, to make it a more complete picture. The piano demos included here are fun to hear, played and sung extremely well by Elton (he would have had to have done them live, probably in his publisher Dick James' studio), but they don't have the spark that their final album versions have once they got input from the producer and fellow musicians. There are demos for a couple of songs which were later dropped from the lineup, but even though they are lovely, I think the album was stronger by not including them.
Also on Disc Two are some alternate versions of songs. The most surprising is a country rock version of "There Goes A Well-Known Gun". It sounds more like standard country rock of the early `70's, but ultimately Elton slowed it down a bit, gave it more of a Rolling Stones-type roughness with an aggressive piano-based rhythm section, and bluesier vocals.
Elton's instincts could occasionally go awry in the studio, but in live performance in the `70's he was electrifying. The last four tracks on Disc Two are BBC radio performances, three of which haven't been released before, and they're wonderful. Elton already knew how to lead a rock band with his pounding piano, but the band and vocalist always served the songs, and the songs are very, very good. The style and content are similar to Elton's first live album, "11-17-70", but with no audience present. These are tracks you are likely to listen to more than once or twice, unlike the rest of Disc Two.
The Deluxe Edition packaging is very nice, with original artwork, lyrics, musician credits, and a few new pictures from the period, but the included essay about the album is largely identical to the one in 1995. This comes across as kind of lazy. TC is a much loved album by musicians, so it would have been nice to hear from players who either worked on the original sessions or were influenced by it.
So I give this Deluxe edition four stars. It's a classic album that's a pleasure to listen to today, and this is the best release so far of it, but it could have been a better presentation with just a couple more days of work. (Actually, no reissue producer is listed, so maybe nobody was particularly motivated to push it to the next level.)
Free Music Review: Historically critical, yet incomplete
Hit: 4 Stars
The various labels that have had the rights to these tapes since 1971 made EJ fans wait 37 years before releasing this rare material, and STILL did not give up the goods. There are several demo versions of Tumbleweed Connection songs that have been available underground for years, yet are not included on this official release. And who knows how many demos lay in the vaults that have not been released as bootlegs and therefore the millions of fans still do not know of their existence? This should have been a bigger release; if not now, then when? After another 37 years when another two generations of fans have passed on and cannot enjoy the music? The bonus disk is certainly worth owning even at this price--the very first bonus track is an entirely different sound for EJ--but it is a disappointing release.Free Music Review: What could have been......
Hit: 3 Stars
For starters, I have every single Elton John album ever made, (with the exception of Victim of Love). I have virtually every B side that I know exists and have mulitple sources of other unreleased material, studio and live. Depending on the day of the week you ask me, Tumbleweed Connection is probably my second favorite Elton release behind Captain Fantastic.
To be clear, my mediocre rating has absolutely nothing to do with the original record. If you have never heard Tumbleweed before, purchase this right away. It is Elton and Bernie at the top of their early game.
While there is much to cheer on this release, my mediocre review is solely predicated on what is not here. For some reason, a trend is developing on re-releases, where the original album is placed on one disc with no additional material, and the second disc is jammed with the extras. It's as if the belief of a few purists that the original release should not be tampered with has permeated the masses. I, for one, just don't understand it.
If I am repurchasing an album I already own, I want as much unreleased material on BOTH discs. If I only want to hear the original album, I'll either GO PLAY THE ORIGINAL ALBUM, or simply hit the stop button once Burn Down the Mission has ended. It's not that hard...
Now, if this was a case of what we have here being the total wealth of unreleased material, then obviously there wouldn't be a problem with formatting the CD this way. But I know there is A LOT more material, because I've already heard it.
I have heard perfectly clean demo versions of Amoreena, Burn Down the Mission, Where To Now St. Peter, and worst of all, a criminally unreleased version of a beautiful song titled Rolling Western Union that was recorded in this time period. Where are these tracks, among others?
O.K. Enough ranting. Let's get to what's great on here. The first song on the bonus disc is worth the price of admission all on its' own. It is an alternate take on Ballad of a Well Known Gun in a more countrified rock version. And it is absolutely gorgeous.
This track is followed by some clean and clear demo versions of about half the album tracks, including a very nice unreleased song I've never heard before, Sisters of the Cross.
Some alternate live BBC versions end the album. The first is a fantastic, piano only version of My Father's Gun, followed by an another great version of Ballad.
The last two songs are a treasure of immeasurable value. They are culled from the same session that ends the other re-released "Elton John" album, (a BBC Sounds of the Seventies session). Although the rather hapharzard and incomplete liner notes make no mention of it, we are listening to the Elton, Nigel and Dee trio on their mini-tour, months before their U.S. sessions that produced the 11-17-70 album. The arrangements and playing style are almost exactly the same and it is absolutely wonderful to hear the slightly different takes of these songs. I would give an eye tooth to have those full sessions released on disc. (Who know, maybe they can remedy that with a deluxe edition of 11-17-70).
Overall, there was and is no chance of any diehard Elton fan not purchasing this album and loving what they hear. There is a treasure trove of unreleased material on here that is absolutely wonderful. My only issue is this; if you are going to go to the effort of re-releasing an album, take time and get it right. I understand that there isn't enough room on two discs to give the fans every second of unreleased material. But when there is an easy opportunity to give them more, take it.
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