Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton and Me by Taupin Bernie

Author:Taupin, Bernie [Taupin, Bernie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Autobiography, Entertainment & Performing Arts, Music
ISBN: 9781800960794
Publisher: Hachette UK
Published: 2023-09-11T14:00:00+00:00

The Little White Wonder

It was but a small affair.

—GENERAL ANTONIO LÓPEZ DE SANTA ANNA,

on the Alamo

It wasn’t a particularly good idea, but if it was mine then it was hardly surprising. It might have made a little more sense if I’d put some thought into it, but rational thinking not necessarily being my forte at the time, I decided to declare my independence and make a solo album.

But first things first. With our burgeoning success, we’d decided to get all entrepreneurial and form a record company. Why not? If the Beatles could cock it up, who’s to say we shouldn’t have had the opportunity to do the same thing? The principals along with Elton and myself were producer Gus Dudgeon, current manager John Reid, and in-house coordinator and guru Steve Brown. Rocket Records was launched in 1973 with a label that depicted a . . . well, not a rocket, but a cartoon Thomas the Tank Engine kind of train! I’m still wondering why.

In its infancy, it was definitely more idealistic than successful with the first batch of releases winding up in the bargain bin pretty much out of the gate. Our offices, deep in the heart of Soho on Wardour Street, were a perfect reflection of both the idealism and the guilelessness that the label copy depicted. Topsy-turvy and cramped, they were located up a rickety flight of wooden stairs in a narrow old building surrounded by porn merchants and strip clubs. In other words, it was quite fabulous, Soho at that time being a slightly more concentrated and less treacherous version of New York’s Times Square of the same time period.

It was a clubby little place with three or four offices and a makeshift reception area. Elton’s manager, John Reid, had an office in the back and Gus had one to the left of it. Steve’s, however, was where we’d hang since Steve was more apt to compose a more laid-back environment. Embracing the hippie manifesto, he’d painted the walls to mirror Rocket’s motifs. Sky blue with puffy white clouds and tranquil pastoral scenes, it was like spending time in a peacenik nursery. Steve burned incense, drank a lot of coffee, and smoked a great deal. It was here, though, that a lot of plans were made and ideas, both good and bad, were discussed, many regarding album design and titles. Although Elton was not an artist on Rocket Records at this point, everything pertaining to his career was in-house at Rocket. I remember one afternoon, Monty Python alumnus Eric Idle came in to help us with the ad campaign and titling of what would become the Caribou album. As you can imagine, his ideas were both ingenious and absurd. Best of all was his suggestion that the commercial voice-over should have the announcer continually get the name of the album wrong, “Get the new Elton John album Elk, no, sorry, sorry, Moose, no Yak, Aardvark,” while a frustrated voice off-screen shrieks, “It’s CARIBOU!”

By the mid-’70s, Rocket had

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