For all of the great hits Elton John has had, you’d think that he’d be a little less humble than he is.
Anyone who has that much star power would usually be flaunting it up and down the street every time they go out in public, and while John has never been shy about his physical appearance, there were more than a few times when he could plug in and be any average session player when the tune called for it. He was willing to bring himself down a notch, and one of the most humbling experiences for him came when he came face-to-face with one of the titans of rock and roll.
But a lot of John’s first meetings with rock royalty didn’t always go as planned. He didn’t anticipate Leon Russell being in the audience when he made his first trip to the US, and even when he was becoming one of the biggest stars in the world, the fact that he could yell at Bob Dylan for not understanding charades and go off when Stevie Wonder tried to play him ‘Happy Birthday’ wasn’t how he wanted to remember his idols.
If anything, a lot of these people would become his lifelong friends, and he wanted to savour the moments that he had with a giant like John Lennon for as long as he could. But while The Beatles opened many doors for someone like John, the idea of a wild piano player wouldn’t have existed were it not for someone like Little Richard arriving with a scream that could scare any concerned parent half to death.
Elvis Presley was the one opening up people’s minds to what a rock and roll singer could do, but Little Richard was the original wild man. Ray Charles had been used to taking rock and roll into new territory by playing the blues, soul, and country favourites, but Richard left nothing to the imagination when he started singing on ‘Good Golly Miss Molly’ or ‘Long Tall Sally’. Here was someone who was in complete control of their instrument, and John didn’t appreciate that until he saw them without the facade.
Getting to perform a duet with Richard would have been on any rock and roll star’s bucket list, but when John first saw one of his idols walk in, he was a lot more reserved than he remembered. Richard had to work up to become this character whenever he played live, and since John had him sing a gospel song for their duet, he got a better understanding of why this guy was beloved by everyone.
Sure, he could excite people on his rock and roll records, but getting the chance to hear him sing from the heart was one of the great privileges of his career, saying, “When I had the opportunity to work with him for my Duets album, I wanted to do something with him in a style he was not really known for. ‘The Power’ is a favourite of mine, and recording this track with him was one of the greatest moments of my life. It’s a memory I will cherish forever; I will never forget how humble, shy and funny he was — and me full of nerves! Without a doubt, he was one of the great music inspirations in my life, and of our time, really.”
There’s a good chance that Richard would have been as nervous as John was, but the greatest part of making music is taking these kinds of chances. No one knew how it was going to come out, but since Richard had gone religious, he was more than happy to sing from the heart about his higher power, even if it meant him picking up a handful of cues from what John was playing on the other side of the studio.
Not everyone would have been able to lock in and deliver this kind of tune off the cuff, but it’s people like Richard who serve as the gold standard of what a musician can be like under pressure. There are so many opportunities for someone to screw things up every time they walk into the studio, but the true professionals are the ones who face that challenge head-on and pull it off flawlessly.