Customer Reviews

Tumbleweed Connection

5 star:		(16)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
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Always a fan of Tumbleweed Connection, I really don't see the need to discuss the songs on this album in detail, those who have heard this album know it's one of John's most creditable works.

As for the 5.1 remastering on this album, John has set the blueprint for what a 5.1 SACD should be. It is simply amazing. Perfect separation without being gimmicky. While other 5.1 mixes may simply use the rear channels for echo or effect, John perfectly places instruments in each giving a true surround sound effect. Never one of my favorite songs, Love Song takes on new clarity, with Duncan's vocals soaring. The only time the 5.1 mix seems a bit gimmicky is Ronson's guitar work on Madman. But that said, it does truly show what can be done with 5.1and to those not familiar with John's early work, recalls a time when John could truly rock. As my wife said after hearing Madman, I have new respect for Elton. This CD truly shows the potential for SACD 5.1 when in the right hands.

This SACD in 5.1 multichannel is very well mixed and mastered.
I use to own the LP and played the heck out of it but with the
multichannel SACD it sounds like you are there in the studio!
The sounds that were faint in the background come right out and
Elton`s voice punches through the center speaker as if he is
right there at the microphone. This SACD in multichannel not only has excellant sound but it has feeling and it is an experience which is not usually associated with cd`s.
If you like Elton John and want one of the best sounding SACD`s in multichannel then this should be in your SACD player.

"Tumbleweed Connection" has the dubious distinction of being the only Elton John album from the Seventies that did not offer up a certified "hit" (neither did "Madman Across the Water" if you want to get picky, but "Levon" was always a highly requested song on FM radio). However, the lack of acknowledge hits just speaks in favor of this album, because anybody who listens to Elton John's albums knows full well that his best songs are rarely (if ever) the Top 40 hits. Even without the benefit of a hit single, this 1971 album still made it to #5 on the Billboard charts.

Half the songs on "Tumbleweed Connection" are 4:59 or longer in life, which means the odds were long that they would ever be played on the radio. Yet theses songs, such as "Country Comfort" and "Burn Down the Mission," stand out as some of the best work by John and lyricist Bernie Taupin during this period. The latter track remains a prime choice for the big finish at an Elton John concert to this day. There is something of a "country/western" flair to the album, at least as interpreted by two Englishmen, represented by not only those two songs but "Ballad of a Well Known Gun," "My Father's Gun," and "Talking Old Soldiers." I think those who were listening to Elton John before he became a star (operationally defined as anything before "Honkey Chateau," always had a preference for these early albums, especially those where Paul Buckmaster was doing the arranging and conducting. Ironically, on many of these songs, such as "Come Down in Time," it is John's voice and not his piano playing that stands out (note: Dusty Springfield is one of the backing vocalists on the album). There is also "Love Song," which was written not by John & Taupin but Lesley Duncan, who plays acoustic guitar and sings the duet.

Elton John was certainly prolific during this early period and had the great advantage of those Buckmaster string arrangements. The self-titled "Elton John" album was released in the summer of 1970, with "Tumbleweed Conection" following in February 1971. That same year saw the live "11-17-70" and the "Friends" soundtrack released as well, with "Madman Across the Water" coming out at the end of the year. In 1972 with "Honkey Chateau," Elton John would become a star. But all of this is before the dazzling costumes and bizarre collection of eyeglasses, which made Elton John the Liberace of pop rock. This is way back almost to the beginning, when it was all about the music. By the time "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" came out, those days were clearly over. This CD version of the album offers up a couple of bonus tracks from John and Taupin, with "Into the Old Man's Shoes" and the original version of "Madman Across the Water," which clocks in at 8:52.

This album is a classic, so there is no need for me to say any more than what has been said regarding the songs. I'm commenting on the audio quality recording aspect of this particular SACD version.

The audio is great ! Really, it takes full advantage of the superior sound potential of the SACD format. Very nice 5 channel mixes. The difference in the dynamic range and clarity of SACD over traditional CD recordings is stunning.

To pontificate just a bit, it seems strange to me that at the same time people are fawning over HDTV's superiority over traditional TV, (and rightly so), they are clamoring for the convenience of MP3 players. The MP3 compressed format is inferior to the audio quality of CDs and far inferior to the sound of SACD and DVD-Audio discs. We've gotten TV better, but made music audio quality worse. Believe me, I understand and appreciate the convenience of MP3 players. But for a home stereo system, playing music through a compressed MP3 file is equivalent to watching movies on an old 19" TV rather than a 40" HDTV. It's a shame our collective audio standards have regressed. But not mine! . . . :)

Anyway, I highly recommend this SACD album. It's a hybrid, so it will play on traditional CD players as well, if you don't have an SACD player and a surround system.

Although this album had no hit single, it represents one of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's strongest albums. Filled with imagery and a strong feeling for the old west, the songs bounce and rides along like an old western movie. Impeccably recorded, this SACD version (DSD) sounds crisp and clear with a strong bass and drum. Oft-covered songs like "Country Comfort" and "Burn Down The Mission" have been long favored FM songs. This is another Buckmaster/Dudgeon production and veterans Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray also play here. Dusty Springfield and Kate Taylor (James Taylor's sister) make cameo backing vocals as well. The inclusion of the original version of "Madman Across The Water" is a great addition with a guest appearance from Mick Ronson on guitar (David Bowie bandmember). Nothing beats Elton John in Surround Sound!

i just turned 24 and had always known of elton john, like his eighties stuff and i have always liked his voice. someone told me i needed to check out his earlier works. so i went to my local c.d store and just looked him up. i just picked up this cd and fell in LOVE WITH it immediately!!!! my favourite song of all time is even on the album i sooned discovered after listening to it. my mom use to sing me this song "amoreena" when i was a little girl and it always stuck with me but it never crossed my mind again until tumbleweed connection. the album is very playful and elton's voice is young and even "excuse me" very sexy. well known gun "the first track" is awesome! from then on the record is total perfection. you will listen to this album over and over again AND EVEN TELL YOUR FRIENDS "i mean it", it was not at all what i was expecting from elton john. none of the songs sound commercial or affected. he is defenately a one of a kind artist--you won't reget it*

Elton John has created quite a number of great albums. His first great album had to be his third album, "Tumbleweed Connection." This album was an early indication of Bernie Taupin's fascination with the American West. It was also an indication of how little Bernie knew about the American West. In fairness to Bernie, his lyrics on this album are among the most coherent and understandable of those on Elton's first six or eight albums.

The music on this CD is well balanced. Instrumentation is chosen and arranged based on the selection, giving us a picture of an artist quite different from Elton as we would come to know him, whose keyboards and piano were often prominently featured. Also Lesley Duncan wrote and co-sang "Love Song," unusual among Elton's earliest albums where Bernie wrote nearly all the lyrics and Elton wrote all the music. The Elton John and Bernie Taupin commercial steamroller would soon downplay the artistic excellence that they displayed on this album.

I have so many favorite songs on this CD that there isn't sufficient space to discuss all the songs properly in a single review. Most of my favorites are the ballads. Slow, smooth, mellow, beautifully and artistically performed. "Come Down in Time," "My Father's Gun," "Love Song," and "Talking Old Soldiers" all fall into this category. The topics are serious. The lyrics broach incredibly mature subjects for the young songwriting duo and Lesley Duncan. The arrangements, instrumentation and backing vocals are excellent.

Several of the faster songs are also excellent. "Ballad of a Well-Known Gun" starts sounding a bit like the early 70s music it is, but then the beat and lyrics acquire a country flavor that could have placed Elton into country rock had he continued on this path. There seems something a bit bizarre about an English singer singing about a gunfighter in the American West, but this song, the first on the album, is performed so naturally that I immediately fell into the pace and style of the album.

"Country Comfort" may make some think of a similarly named beverage because the tone of the song feels mellow and smooth. The harmony on this song, with the steel guitar and violin, position this song as a country song. There isn't enough rock in this song to call the song country-rock. The next song, "Son of Your Father," has a boogie woogie piano starting the song, with segue into a fast rock beat. This song is rock with country underpinnings.

I've always enjoyed "Where to Now St. Peter?" The airy instrumentation and vocals, coupled with the surrealistic, dreamy lyrics, transitioning into a rock beat, create an interesting and unusual song about death. A song more easily experienced than described.

"Amoreena" is a love song, but much too fast-paced to be a ballad. The lyrics try a bit too hard to be poetically evocative rather than descriptive, but fall just a bit short. The music is pure pop as played by the instruments. The lyrics try to keep the song tied to the country flavor of the rest of the album, and succeed more by positioning of the song than any style of the music or vocals.

"Into the Old Man's Shoes" is well-done song about the transition from one generation to the next. The instrumentation foreshadows "Madman Across the Water," and would have fit well on that album. The subject, as in many of the other albums, is very serious and mature, and even the support of the instruments creates one of Elton's best, and highly underappreciated, songs.

I absolutely love "Burn Down the Mission." "Burn Down the Mission," at more than six and a half minutes, is one of the longest of Elton's early songs. The lyrics are virtually incomprehensible. While portions of the lyrics make sense, they conjoin pieces of Americana that did not coexist. Some portions of the lyrics make no sense within a stanza, for example burning down the mission while trying to take everything you need to live inside. In spite of the bizarre lyrical combinations, Elton's music and beat convey the sense of despair and urgency of people escaping attack by Mexican soldiers or perhaps Native Americans. I'm unsure because missions were typically an artifact of the southwest, while at least one reference is to a parish, which are only found in Louisiana. I have decided bordered on being progressive as we knew it then.

The last song on this CD is a nearly nine minute version of "Madman Across the Water." If you listen to this song and compare it to the style of the music on the CD "Madman Across the Water," I think you can see why this version was not used. The style is too heavy and different from the mellower, heavily orchestrated music of that CD. With the variety of musical pace and style on this album, this more bombastic version of "Madman Across the Water" is a somewhat better fit. It creates an interesting ending to this unique album.

This album deserved an SACD version. Many albums change for the worse in the transition to SACD. This album started as a great album and the SACD conversion is excellent. If you have an SACD stereo I recommend you consider acquiring this CD even if you already have the CD. In fact, if you like the non-SACD version, you will probably love the SACD version.

Elton John and Bernie Taupin have an incredible amount of talent. As their career progressed, and they were influenced by commercial needs, the talent evinced on this album was often obscured. But here you can see all that talent, bare, unfettered by commercial concern. Leap back more than 30 years to an album that may be a bit dated, but still contains all the power and talent of the King of Pop.

This CD is easy to enjoy because it is such great music.

Call me a fair-weather friend or whatever...when it comes to Elton John's music, my favourite period was always his early years (1968-75). As with so many other artists, he recorded a string of albums in the beginning that just couldn't be matched; from Empty Sky (1969) to Rock of the Westies (1975), E.J. proved himself a force to be reckoned with, and the songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin one of the greats, up there with Lennon/McCartney, Goffin/King, Bacharach/David...you name it.

Tumbleweed Connection, E.J.'s third album, released in the UK in October 1970 and the the US in January 1971, never really had any hits, but it doesn't matter. This album is full of well-crafted, beautifully-arranged and flawlessly performed songs; "Where to Now, St. Peter?" a great spiritual quandary, "Come Down in Time" one of the best love-unrequited songs ever written, "Country Comforts" a nice piece of folk-rock with big studio arrangements (Rod Stewart's cover version from Gasoline Alley never did it justice), and "Burn Down the Mission" is, of course, the track the classic rock and "best-mix" stations love to play the most. This expanded version first appeared in 1996, with the outtake "Into the Old Man's Shoes" and the alternate take of "Madman Across the Water." Mick Ronson's guitar work on the latter track is truly revealing; there are no strings here, it's just the band giving this song a run for its money. I find this early version to compare quite favourably to the final version that would appear on the album of the same name later in '71.

And the surround-sound mix is impeccable. On my Pioneer DV-563A, Sony 5.1 amp/receiver and KLH 5.1 speaker system (Surround Sound on a budget), this is transcendent. An undisputable classic.

I already have the deluxe remaster edition on cd(2008), and the sound is very good. But, this sacd version is just mindblowing!It has a vastly improved sound over the cd version. Execellent clarity,soundstage,bottom end,crisp and the dynamics, well,it will blow you away.The music is one of Eltons best in my opinion.If somebody is wondering what the fuss about sacd is compared to cd,this will show them.Once you slip the sacd in the tray and push play,you will hear that the sound is improced in every sound department.In general all Eltons sacds are very very good sounding,and the enginers have done a fantastic job.Review is about the stereo layer only. A MUST have.

Tumbleweed Connection is likely the least popular LP from EJ's pop period. No hit songs,no "Your Song" no eager to please like his next 100 lps. This is the only one to own...it has Randy Newman wit + the Band's ideal of American music in an time forgotten and ..really , honestly never was.
It's like Waltons TV show fake nostalgia written well for those who didn't live through it.
Nevertheless!
Fine songs and esp. sounds good in 5.1
The separation of winds and bass is great on each speaker
The vocals remain centered and consistent
This is a fun 5.1 to own