Name: Empty Sky [LP]
Brand: Mercury
SKU: 151249646
Price: 54.45 SGD
Availability: InStock

Performer Notes

The 1996 reissue of EMPTY SKY includes four songs that were issued as two singles prior to the album's release: "Lady Samantha"/"All Across The Havens" and "It's Me That You Need"/"Just Like Strange Rain." The album has been digitally remastered by Gus Dudgeon, using original master tapes and digital processing equipment at 20-bit resolution. According to Dudgeon (ICE newsletter, January 1996), the results are "100% better" than the two previous American CD issues.
Personnel: Elton John (vocals, piano, organ, electric piano, harpsichord); Caleb Quaye (electric & acoustic guitars, congas); Graham Vickery (harmonica); Don Fay (tenor saxophone, flute); Tony Murray (bass); Roger Pope (drums, percussion); Nigel Olsson (drums).
Recorded at Dick James Studios and Olympic Studios, London, England. Includes liner notes by John Tobler and Gus Dudgeon.
This is part of Rocket's Elton John: The Classic Years series.
Not released in the U.S. until 1975, after he'd achieved superstardom, Elton John's first album is as much a part of late-'60s blues-rock and the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement as it is part of the grandiose pop catalog that would soon follow. The eight-minute-plus title song includes a long flute-harmonica-piano jam that wouldn't have been out of place on a Traffic album; the closing "Gulliver/It's Hay Chewed/Reprise" connects a waltz-time requiem with an acoustic-jazz instrumental and (rather audiciously for an unknown singer's debut) a reprise of bits from every song on the album.
Elsewhere, one can find a Lennonesque melody on "Western Ford Gateway," a breezy Summer-Of-Love feel on "Hymn 2000," and recurring imagery of a caged bird dreaming of flying away--most notably in the title song and the harsichord-and-organ tune "Skyline Pigeon." It all bursts with pop-rock melodicism, even when John was adding music to some of collaborator Bernie Taupin's most opaque, image-heavy lyrics. John would later call EMPTY SKY a "naive" record, but it contains the seeds of almost everything he would eventually do.

Album: Empty Sky [LP]
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Empty Sky	More Info...
2)	Val-Hala	More Info...
3)	Western Ford Gateway	More Info...
4)	Hymn 2000	More Info...
5)	Lady What's Tomorrow	More Info...
6)	Sails	More Info...
7)	The Scaffold	More Info...
8)	Skyline Pigeon	More Info...
9)	Gullivar/Hay Chewed/Reprise	More Info...

Album: Empty Sky [LP]
#	Song Title		Time
1)	Empty Sky	More Info...
2)	Val-Hala	More Info...
3)	Western Ford Gateway	More Info...
4)	Hymn 2000	More Info...
5)	Lady What's Tomorrow	More Info...
6)	Sails	More Info...
7)	The Scaffold	More Info...
8)	Skyline Pigeon	More Info...
9)	Gullivar/Hay Chewed/Reprise	More Info...