Sir Elton by Philip Norman

Author:Philip Norman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Pan Macmillan

ELEVEN

‘My God! It’s all going to crumble and go to Hell!’

EARLY in 1975, Sue Ayton returned to the Dick James organisation. Elton’s friend, and almost-girlfriend, of the late Sixties had left her job as Dick James’s secretary to get married, three years earlier. Now divorced and seeking a job back in the music business, she happened to meet Stephen James, who by then was largely running Dick James Music on his father’s behalf. Happy to regain such a valued employee, Stephen offered her the job of managing DJM’s international division.

Back in her old surroundings, Sue Ayton quickly noticed the huge change in DJM’s relationship with Elton. ‘When I’d left in 1972, he’d still been coming in all the time, to see Dick or talk about the next album with Stephen. But now you hardly ever saw him. In all that second time I was there, I think he came in about twice.’

Little now remained of the edifice which Dick James had constructed around Reggie Dwight in 1967. His management had been relinquished to John Reid in May 1973. The publishing agreement, for Elton and Bernie Taupin together, had ended in November that same year and had not been renewed. All that was left was Elton’s four-year recording agreement, due to expire in February 1975.

Though reconciled to losing Elton’s management and publishing (the latter bearable, since his pre-1973 songs remained copyright of DJM), James naturally had no wish to lose the world’s biggest recording star. Nor was it yet a foregone conclusion that he would. Despite their recent estrangement, Elton was unswerving in acknowledgement of his professional debt to DJM and his affection for Dick James personally. His own Rocket label, so he constantly stressed, was not a vehicle for himself, but for new young talent. It was with some hope, therefore, that Stephen James approached John Reid in 1974 and asked if the recording contract could be renewed.

Reid did not refuse outright, especially since, in addition to an increase in future royalties, DJM also offered to boost the percentage on product already released. What Stephen James describes as ‘quite meaningful’ discussions took place between John Reid and him towards the end of 1974. The sticking point was Reid’s insistence that DJM should put money into Rocket and that a £30,000 advance be paid on future British albums, which were then to be released unconditionally. ‘He was saying we had to release stuff whether we liked it or not,’ Stephen James remembers. ‘That was the point when I decided to back out.’

Elton’s recording agreement would thus terminate with his next album, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. But that did not quite sever all links with the James organisation. Over the past two years, he had fallen behind with the annual quota of albums he was contracted to deliver to DJM. After Captain Fantastic he still owed two more – a studio-made one and a ‘floater’, the contractual term for a live album or compilation of past hits. Though legally separated, artist and record company had to continue in harness for at least another year.

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