The Captain and the Kid

Elton John | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (September 19, 2006)
• Original Release Date: 2006
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Interscope Records
• ASIN: B000H7JDVI
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Vinyl  |  MP3 Download
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (165 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #63,654 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com

The degree to which you'll like The Captain & the Kid is going to depend on your personal history with Sir Elton John. If you're a resolute follower who was once reduced to a quivering mass of humility by "Someone Saved My Life Tonight" and then revived by the blast of pop liberation that was "Philadelphia Freedom" (a single that later appeared on the CD version of Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, the album to which this disc is a sequel) you'll have enough invested to appreciate the concept. If, on the other hand, you're a late arrival to the Rocket Man's repertoire, you'll have to adjust your expectations. Kid, unlike more recent efforts, isn't aiming itself at the lite-FM listening masses. What it's asking instead is that you return yourself to your 1970s-era childhood bedroom, flop on the bed, and lock the door, or at least fasten an elastic band around your MTV-addled attention span. This is total-immersion music, and it's got 30 years worth of stories to tell.

The Captain and the Kid are John and Bernie Taupin, his longtime songwriting partner. The music, a choir-enhanced swerve through genres including pop, rock, blues, folk, and country with signature piano riffs thrown in nearly everywhere, chronicles their splintery relationship. Innocence and hope ("Postcards from Richard Nixon") give way to success and joy ("Just Like Noah's Ark"), which eventually leads to discontent ("Tinderbox") and disaster ("And the House Fell Down"). A shot at redemption ("The Bridge") later finds the Captain; reflection ("Old 67") and a joyous reunion (the title track) follow.

Theirs is ultimately a simple story, but John and Taupin suffuse it with hypnotic sentimentality--along with the narrative, echoes of past hits wander into several classic-sounding tracks. "Tiny Dancer" darts through the cracked-voice beauty of "Blues Never Fade Away" and "The Bridge," for example, while "Wouldn't HaveYou Any Other Way (NYC)" works in hints at both "Candle in the Wind" and "Where to Now St. Peter." Other songs shake loose less likely influences ("I Must Have Lost it on the Wind" sounds like something off a vintage Linda Ronstadt album), but all are compellingly steeped in context; if you don't get the late-disc reference to fine silk suits and six-inch heels, you'll wish you did. --Tammy La Gorce

Selected Favorites from Elton John

Tumbleweed Connection	Madman Across the Water	Goodbye Yellow Brick Road
Honky Chateau	Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy	Greatest Hits 1970-2002 (Box Set)

Product Description

The Captain & The Kid, written with his long-time writing partner, Bernie Taupin. More than 30 years after the release of their landmark #1 multi-platinum album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, the duo returns with this sequel. The new album features 10 new songs reflecting the intimate lives and public times spanning the long-standing songwriting partnership of Elton John and lyricist Bernie Taupin. In fact, for the first time, both John and Taupin are featured on an Elton John album cover.

"The album is a celebration of our lives and our lifetimes, of our music and of the music we love. The Captain & The Kid continues our story. You can't look back, we're looking ahead," says John.

Created in the tradition of those fantastic records of the 60's and 70's, The Captain & The Kid is a celebration of when music was the most important voice of our culture and the album was its prime vehicle. Much like Elton's previous records Tumbleweed Connection, Madman Across The Water, and Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, The Captain & The Kid is an album meant to transport you back to that place in time when music mattered most. 35 plus years-later, Elton really has become Captain Fantastic and Bernie is most definitely The Brown Dirt Cowboy and they are as passionate about their music as they have ever been.

"I find the whole album to be so touching and beautiful for me because I've lived it," Elton added. "I lived it with Bernie and we've come through it. We've gone over the bridge and here we are at the other side."

The first single from the album, 'The Bridge" is one of 10 tracks which picks up where Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy left off. The album tells the story of Elton and Bernie from when they arrived in Los Angeles 30 years ago, through the ups and downs of their lives, to present day.

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

29 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You can't go back... but sure glad they tried., October 21, 2006

By 

C. Beyer (Los Altos, CA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain and the Kid (Audio CD)

Having grown up with the radio during Elton John's reign on top of the American charts in the early-to-mid 1970s, I've always had a soft spot for his music, even after moving on musically in college in the 1980s. Especially since I learned to play piano by butchering his songs from this period, and was lucky enough to see him live at his famous Dodger Stadium gig in 1975 (my first rock concert) and in intimate shows like his pre-"Unplugged" tour with Ray Cooper in 1979. His classic albums from Madman through Capt. Fantastic were always within reach in my collection even when I more often listened to the Clash or R.E.M., and despite the lack of radio hits, Captain Fantastic was always my favorite, due to the strength of the highly personal songs and the superb production by the late Gus Dudgeon. I still recall listening to the album while poring over the "scrapbook" included in the packaging in my bedroom in southern California, wondering what a "Bank Giro Credit" and other Britishisms meant, and marvelling at how the flashy showman and his writer started out as a shy musical dreamers composing in his mother's living room.

So it was with some trepidation that I ordered The Captain and the Kid, given that a less-than-stellar outing from the Rocket Man would leave me with the feeling that they were trying to cash in on the old magic with longtime fans like me by releasing something not worthy of the connection to the great original. Like Paul McCartney, Elton is a musical genius who bears the curse of artistic survival and longevity, so that any new material released inevitably pales next to the timeless output of his peak years. Some will no doubt recoil at the McCartney comparison, as Sir Elton has clearly had more shining moments past his prime than has Sir Paul. But these are relatively few and far between when you look at the 1970s catalog, and we are all a lot older now. As Bernie notes so succinctly in the final track, "You can't go back, and if you try you fail..." But sometimes you have to try anyway, and the results can be deeper and richer than ever imagined.

The album opens with "Postcards from Richard Nixon," highlighting the wide-eyed wonder of the English-country and London-suburb "pale kids" as they hit America and their careers rocket to the stratosphere, with name-checks of Brian Wilson and Walt Disney to boot. A fun way to open the retrospective ride, picking up where Capt. Fantastic left off.

The debauchery of rock-star tour life is the theme of "Just Like Noah's Ark," a swampified southern R&B raver with a nifty organ solo and some dirty slide guitar from Davey, (the only time) cranked to an appropriate level. Living in Atlanta so long, it sounds like Elton has absorbed a lot more of the authentic feel of New Orleans R&B, Memphis blues and even Lynryd Skynyrd than in his previous English pastiches, like "Dixie Lily" off the Caribou album. Lyrically, the song shares a close connection to "Tower of Babel," which was superior in my view, but the infectious music pushes this one forward -- you can tell the band are enjoying themselves as this one winds down.

Things quiet down for "Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way (NYC)", Bernie's awkward paean to New York. Not his best lyrics, perhaps reflecting his reported ambivalence to the city over the years. In that uncanny way they have always managed, Elton matches this uncertainty with a musically unresolved verse that meanders down through minor chords and numerous key changes, before sliding into a celestial chorus. The meter of the words don't seem to fit Elton's tune in the chorus, but he moves the melody around in such a way to leave a poignant ache in the heart like the memory of an old girlfriend.

"Tinderbox" is another piano-driven song that reflects the strain of their close partnership toward the end of their chart-topping days, with a gorgeous chorus that echos "Harmony" off of Yellow Brick Road, and features the trademark backing vocals of Davey and Nigel in his classic years. This one really grows on you with repeated listening.

Next it's time to ramp it up again with the fevered, clipped R&B piano of "...And the House Fell Down." Bernie's most honest and evocative portrayal of Elton's drugged-up years is matched again with music and a vocal performance that perfectly suits the lyric, showing how all the hard work and they success they earned almost collapsed around them. As noted in another review, the musical resemblance to "I'm Still Standing" is no coincidence, and this song is also notable for Elton's jumpy, agitated R&B piano solo that is undoubtedly his best since "Bennie and the Jets."

While earmarked as a single, I did not love "Blues Never Fade Away," with its lugubrious piano and "We Are the World"-type vocals. It documents the loss of some of their closest friends, such as Gianni Versace and John Lennon, with a nod to Ryan White and an unidentified young woman. While no doubt sincere, the lyrics border on trite in spots ("All that matters is they came around and brightened up our lives"), and the overall feel is too charity-proceeds single for me -- sorry to be such a cynic. More typical of his recent work musically, it sounds like something he would have written for the stage or screen. I appreciate his talent in branching out that way, but it's not my favorite.

"The Bridge", the other rumored single, follows, and is another piano-only song that is much better in several ways. One, the music is stunningly beautiful, matched with his best vocal performance on the album. Secondly, Bernie's lyric is far more metaphorical than the previous track, and stronger because of it. Its mystery is part of the appeal -- is the bridge their career, their success where so many others failed? Or is it about overcoming other challenges in life and being a survivor? The choir-like coda concludes this beautiful song with echoes of the final track on Capt. Fantastic. Simply a gorgeous song.

It's back to a southern hoe-down with the bluegrass-tinged "I Must Have Lost it On the Wind," a close-harmony toe-tapper with a nostalgic look at their loves and losts, and some nice mandolin.

The album closes with two of the strongest and most personal tracks, wistfully and perfectly summing up their long career and friendship, with all of the ups and downs. "Old '67", referring to the year they met and started their long, hard climb to the pinnacle of the music world, is a nostalgic reflection of those simple, deprived days. You can see them shaking their heads and laughing at where they've come, set to another relaxed R&B piano tune. Davey contributes some nice slide guitar and steel guitar fills in something that sounds like it could have been recorded by The Band or Bonnie Raitt. The album then closes (perhaps too soon?) with the country/western twang of "The Captain and the Kid". Another simply perfect pairing of lyric and tune, this reprises the opening lines of Captain Fantastic before easing into a chugging brush-drum beat and the kind of hook-laden major-minor chord progressions that sold this guy about a billion albums back in the day. Just a song you could listen to over and over even if he was singing the phonebook. Bernie's lyric pretty much suffices as the entire summation of their brilliant career -- witty, sardonic, appreciative, sentimental -- it is all of these things without be cloying or predictable. If they had done nothing more than this song, it would have been a worthy cherry on top of the career cake. How nice that instead it can close the book on a fine album that more than lives up to the expectations of "completing the cycle," as Elton remarks in the liner notes.

A few minor quibbles. Clearly, Elton's soaring vocal range of the 1970s, epitomized by songs like "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road," is long gone. This is not surprising, but I tend to associate some of his recent vocal sounds as much with the "Lion King" songs as with the occasional gem like "The One" or "I Want Love." But he opens it up a bit on the R&B/blues-tinged songs and reveals a much richer vocal sound than he had back in the day.

Second, the production quality is a big departure from Captain Fantastic's tremendous sound -- Nigel's booming drums, spacious instrumentation, and the soaring vocal mix. Many of the songs are recorded quite "dry" on the new album, giving one the impression having Elton in your car or living room (the beginning of the first track especially), but in turn losing some of that wall-of-sound quality that Gus Dudgeon created. He was truly an under-rated contributor to Elton's career and body of work during that period.

Finally, I would have liked to have heard more guitar from "Musical Director" and longtime collaborator Davey Johnstone. His subtle fills with acoustic guitar, mandolin, and slide guitar are great, but we're missing the recognizable electric guitar sound he created with rockers like "Meal Ticket" and "Saturday Night's Alright...", or the chunky Fender-Strat blues fills he brought to "Tell Me When the Whistle Blows." While Elton's piano work is as inventive as ever (bringing to mind songs from Tumbleweed and Madman), more electric guitar would have been welcome. Of course, the point was not to re-create Capt. Fantastic, but Johnstone's guitars were almost always a critical aspect of Elton's hit songs and classic album cuts like "Funeral for a Friend."

But these are minor complaints. Every Elton fan should have this CD, to me it is far better than Songs From the West Coast, and the personal, affecting lyrics are poignant and meaningful to anyone with the slightest appreciation for their remarkable career and the body of musical work that has enriched our lives. Thanks to the boys for saddling up one more time before they ride off into the sunset.

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Captain Impossible, September 28, 2006

By 

R. Fleischer "RonToon" (Chicago, IL United States) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain and the Kid (Audio CD)

I've been an Elton John fan since 1972 when I was 12 years old. Elton and Bernie were my introduction into the adult music of pop and rock and roll. I won his 1st Greatest Hits album from a local radio station and bought Goodbye Yellow Brick Road shortly thereafter. It was my 1st album. I remember buying Captain Fantastic the day it came out, the record cover seemed to be worth the price of admission alone. The songs on this album had a more unique and intricate structure than his usual pop hits and this soon became a very special and personal album for me. Its been my favorite. I love all of his classic work through Rock of the Westies and even though I followed all of his releases throughout the 80's, he kind of lost me along the way. While it was always a treat to see him perform live, his studio efforts just didn't reach me anymore.

While Songs from the West Coast was a return to form, it hasn't appeared in my CD player for a while. And now Elton and Bernie are releasing a follow up to Captain Fantastic? Why even try to attempt something so challenging? It seems that they are just setting themselves up for a big fall with this one. It would seem an impossible task to follow up that classic and it was certainly impossible to create anything 3 decades after Rock of the Westies that could hold a place in the pantheon of those classic early EJ albums. Yes, what they are trying to do here is totally IMPOSSIBLE!!!

Well ladies and gents, I have news for you. Elton and Bernie have done the impossible. You can read all the details about the songs and music in other reviews, but for this long time EJ and BT fan, a miracle has happened. This album is as tight as Tumbleweed, Honkey Chateau, and even Captain Fantastic. No filler, just that old magic that they must have sold their souls (once again?) to produce. And sentimental fools beware. When that final track begins, just try not to get all emotional when that familiar theme begins to play. Where Captain Fantastic ended with a melancholoy note, this new album ends with a uptempo ramble looking back on their success as they stayed true to themselves and ahead towards the promise of a bright future.

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy ride off into the sunset in grand style! Long may you run....

14 of 15 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Remarkably average despite the hype, October 15, 2006

By 

David R. Modny (Cleveland, OH) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The Captain and the Kid (Audio CD)

Let me state right off the bat, so as not to be accused of being a troll, that I'm an Elton John fan. Like many, I eagerly awaited this sequel to Elton's 1975 album Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy with fingers firmly crossed. I must say, after having a month to let the new record sink in, that The Captain And The Kid, while definitely attempting to capture a little of that old genie in the bottle of Elton's classic period, is a fairly pedestrian, average affair.

On a positive note, Elton has wisely found his way back to the creative side of the tracks (vs. crass commercialism) - a trend that started with Songs From The West Coast in 2001 and has continued on with 2004's Peachtree Road and this current album. While Songs was a triumphant return to form in my opinion, Peachtree, though well intended, was somewhat less successful. While that same commitment is obvious on the new record, sadly it seems to fall closer to Peachtree in terms of overall consistency.

The album starts out on a strong note. In fact, Postcards From Richard Nixon might be my favorite cut on the record. With its infectious piano riff, memorable melody and Bernie's clever lyrics (coupled with those vintage Davey/Nigel harmonies of days gone by), it starts the record off with a bang. If only the rest of the album could have maintained this level. Here is where the biggest problem lies in my opinion - an overall lack of melodic inventiveness. We've heard most of these melodies in similar form on other Elton tunes over the years. In fact, at times I found myself predicting where the verse melody or bridge was heading next - only to have it come to be. I'm sure a lot of this stems from the fact that Elton's somewhat frozen, even shredded at times, voice is no longer the soaring and clear, falsetto-driven instrument it once was. Thus, the melodies are tailored for this. Just Like Noah's Ark is virtually the same "rocker" we've heard Elton do before - on the last album it was "called" They Call Her The Cat. Conversely, the album's first single, The Bridge is pretty much every middle-of-the-road, over-dramatic ballad that seemed to rule the 90's for Elton. Even Tinderbox, while definitely one of the better songs on the album, seemed utterly predictable to me. Maybe not offensive...just not inspiring.

The one other album highlight for me was Wouldn't Have You Any Other Way (NYC). In this particular case, Elton was able to conjure up the spirits of his musical past in a satisfying way. Owing more than a lyrical nod to Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters and even a stylistic nod to something like Come Down In Time, this valentine to New York City did manage to move me due to it's melodic freshness, lyrical imagery and some really great production touches by Matt Sill (a sweeping orchestra and what sounds like a moog synthesizer that would have respectively made Paul Buckmaster and David Hentschel proud...and probably the late Gus Dudgeon as well for that matter).

Other than that:

The title song, a cop of the original Capt. Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy riff (admittedly by Elton) and meant to serve as a bookend to the entire concept, ends up sounding like a Muzak-lite version of its predecessor. Again, not offensive, but one which will probably have you reaching for the earlier tune afterward. I'm sure many will also say that it's not valid to draw comparisons between this album and the records of Elton's classic period, but the fact that this is a concept album that's tied to an earlier work makes it fair game in my opinion. .

In conclusion, the rest of the album just left me hollow. While certainly not atrocious, or even bad for that matter, I didn't find myself remembering much of what I just listened to. A month later, and after repeated listenings...I still don't. While this is definitely miles up from bottom-of-the-barrel Elton (those honors can safely go to something like Victim Of Love or Leather Jackets), or even mediocre Elton (much of the 90's), this isn't really the monster return to form that many have been hyping it as. Songs From The West Coast can still proudly wear that badge in my opinion. "Best album in 30 years?" Not quite. 3 out of 5 stars.