Jewel Box

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An in-depth exploration of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's extensive catalogue including early rarities and deep cuts personally curated by Elton. Elton has never stopped loving the music of the man who first turned him on to Americana in all its glory. Leon Russell was an immense influence on the young singer-songwriter, as he and Bernie began their songwriting adventures, and he was famously in the audience at Elton’s career-changingTroubadour shows of August 1970. The admiration was already mutual; Russell had tried to sign the young Englishman, just too late, to the Shelter label. A couple of months afterwards, Leon invited Elton to open for him at the Fillmore East. John already has one career-spanning boxed set behind him, the out-of-print To Be Continued…, but Jewel Box goes out of its way to be a very different, sometimes maddening beast. Its eight discs include a substantial chunk of unheard early material, like those Zippo tunes, but they sit alongside an even bigger batch of songs that have already been released in one form or another, either on albums or singles. Jewel Box doesn’t just clean out the closet but the whole house.

David Browne (12 November 2020). "Elton John's Eight-Disc 'Jewel Box' Rewrites the Story of His Epic Career". Rolling Stone.Flipsides, never before compiled together. Those B-Side gems that are now given another chance to shimmer. Subsequent to their original appearance on 45 or CD-single, a number of these non-LP B’s were included on 1990’s box set To Be Continued...and even more found a home on Rare Masters (1992) and various studio album CD reissues. But for decades, many of the B-sides to Elton’s 1980s singles had never appeared on CD or in an official collection, and most of his 2000s non-CD B-sides were not issued worldwide. Until now. Added Taupin: “We referenced ‘Scarecrow’ in a song later on. There’s a line in ‘Curtains’ [from 1975’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy). It says, ‘I used to know this old scarecrow/He was my song, my joy and sorrow.’ That was a tip of the hat to the very first song we wrote because Captain Fantastic was an album about our early trials in the music business.” His B-sides contain buried treasure This collection contains148 songs spanning 1965 to 2019, of which 60 are previously unreleased. The first two CDs feature ‘Deep Cuts‘, a selection of personal favourites curated by Elton himself and what follows that are three CDs of Rarities. The rarities include many, many piano demos and band demos mostly recorded before he was signed or had released his first album, Empty Sky, in 1969. Discs 6 & 7: B Sides 1976-2005 – Flipsides, never before compiled together. Those B-Side gems that are now given another chance to sparkle – many never previously available digitally.

Elton comes from the days when 45rpm, and later CD, singles, were the focal point of any mainstream artist’s profile. With the insane work schedule he always maintained, that meant a lot of singles, and a lot of B-sides. Like many artists in that era, his insatiable creativity and his desire (as a record buyer himself) to give value for money often meant that his big numbers were released with flipsides that never appeared on LP. Discs 3–5 contain early demos of previously unreleased material as well as original piano demos of songs from his earlier albums. On 17 September 2020, two months prior to the album's release date, a 1969 demo recording of "Sing Me No Sad Songs" was released for the very first time. This song, described as "a fascinating early taste of what was to come from Elton and Bernie", was used to promote the album. [2] Starting with those Regimental Sgt. Zippo songs, the jewels of the box are those pre-fame recordings from the late Sixties, which take up three discs. In those years, John was something of a pop mad scientist and a radio sponge, leaping from one style to the next to see which fit the best. As revealed by the over 50 songs he created and discarded, the sheer number of them is astonishing, but so is the quality. Instead of the homemade tapes that often fill up such collections, most of these are fully or largely realized takes cut with studio musicians and even string sections.Elton: Jewel Box, the sumptuous box set collection of deep cuts, rarities and B-sides, is appropriately titled, because its subject is one of the true, enduring treasures in pop music history. Even those who think they know the recording make-up of Elton John inside and out will find a deeper understanding of his creative make-up within its array of 148 songs, which reach from his earliest recording in 1965 to Oscar-winning glory in 2019. Here are some of the facts to be learned by listening to these recovered jewels. A 1968 demo became the first John/Taupin cover

Elton’s debut album Empty Sky, released in June 1969, wasn’t a success at the time. But for those who listened, it contained definite signposts to his fast-blooming talents as a songsmith and piano player, and to Taupin’s as a lyricist of considerable culture. One of its best-known songs was the ballad “Skyline Pigeon,” featured in Jewel Box in its simple, piano-and-vocal demo recording which is in some contrast to the harpsichord-adorned LP version. For a further comparison, try the live version on the 1976 album Here and There, recorded two years earlier at the Royal Festival Hall. There, he describes it as “the first song Bernie and I ever really felt excited about that we wrote.” Elton and Bernie’s first co-write predated their meeting Offiziellecharts.de – Elton John – Jewel Box" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved April 23, 2023. Selected items are only available for delivery via the Royal Mail 48® service and other items are available for delivery using this service for a charge.Among other things, Elton John’s sprawling new box set answers a question most of us have never even pondered: Did he have his own version of Smile? A few years after Brian Wilson had tried and failed to complete his attempted masterpiece with the Beach Boys, John considering launching his career—after playing in bands and doing sessions—with a psychedelic album, which even sported a straight-outta-Spinal-Tap title, Regimental Sgt. Zippo. Tom Skinner (17 September 2020). "Elton John announces extensive 50th anniversary boxset 'Jewel Box' ". NME. Disc 7 continues with 17 more 1980s B-sides, four of which are making their first appearance digitally. The rest of the disc showcases Elton’s B-sides from 1988 until 2005, most of which have so far only been available on UK CD-singles, leaving fans in the US and other parts of the world at the mercy of import establishments, or in the dark completely. Discs six and seven are B-sides compiled together for the first time. These start from 1976 and go all the way through to 2005. Many of these are being offered on CD for the first time. Elton John‘s “Scarecrow” along with five other deep cuts from Elton: Jewel Box have been made available worldwide on streaming and digital formats for the first time in celebration of his 74th birthday on Thursday (March 25).