Fact #118099
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At The Troubadour, Los Angeles, California, USA, Elton John plays his first American gig. It will prove to be a major turning point in his career.Full article:
“At one point,” Elton John has said, “the idea had been for me to play the Troubadour with Jeff Beck; I'd met him in London and got along with him fantastically well. But Jeff’s manager stepped in and said that because he was already so big in the States, I'd get ten percent and Jeff would get 90. He was telling my manager, Dick, that Jeff gets $10,000 a night in some places - and it'd take Elton six years to build up to that. So I'm sitting there, wanting, thinking, $10,000 a night, wow! And I hear Dick saying, "Listen, I guarantee you this boy will be earning that much in six months!" And I say to myself, Dick, what a dippy old fart you are! You'd be picked immediately in a Cunt-of-the-Month competition! What a schmuck. . . . So the Jeff Beck thing fell through and I was sulking. But I ended up going to the Troubadour anyway – Dick paid half, MCA paid half and we came over. It was very exciting. We were met with a banner that said, Elton John Has Arrived. So we played the Troubadour, but it only happened because of all that rubbish.”
Doug Weston, owner of Los Angeles legendary Troubadour club on Santa Monica Boulevard, paid Elton John’s trio a meagre $500 for a week of gigs.
The Troubadour’s talent co-ordinator, Travis Michael Holder, recalls how, “I argued repeatedly with Doug about my interest in booking a young British unknown named Elton John, whom I'd met at a recording studio in England with Dusty the year before as he was recording Your Song, for his first appearance in the United States. Despite Doug's early grumbling that I had no idea what I was doing (I didn't), I booked Elton as an opening act for Jerry Jeff Walker, fairly confident that the booking would be postponed as Walker raced to finish an album and Elton would have to headline "at the last minute." I don't know if Doug ever fully realized my treachery, but the resulting notoriety that one historic appearance brought The Troub great clout - and gave my employer a new respect for me.”
“We’d flown to Los Angeles,” explained Elton later, “thirteen hours over the pole in this jumbo jet, and we arrived to find this bloody great bus … ‘Elton John has arrived!’ and all that sort of thing … and it took another two hours to get to the hotel. Once we’d booked in, we were hustled out again and off to The Troubadour where The Dillards were appearing … they were incredible, just knocked me out completely.”
Taken aback by the level of hype that surrounded his arrival, Elton was even more astonished to discover that one of his musical heroes was supporting him. “David Ackles was on the bill. I mean, that was the first thing I couldn’t believe, that we were playing above David Ackles. In England, he had much more prestige than he apparently had in America. He apparently hadn’t been working much that year. I said, ‘What about people like Tom Paxton and Tim Buckley?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, no, they very rarely work.’ And I’d feel that was very strange.”
Then, the night before the first show, Elton’s manager Ray Williams found him “sulking - and petrified.” Convinced that he was too inexperienced to play for a sophisticated LA crowd, Elton was in a state of panic. “He said he wasn’t going to play The Troubadour date,” remembers Williams, “and was getting on the first plane home. I basically had to fight with him.”
Luckily, Williams prevailed but Elton’s anxiety wasn’t reduced when he arrived at The Troubadour to find that, “It was packed to the brim with people from the record industry, who expected me to come on with this fifteen-piece orchestra and reproduce the sound of the album, which had recently been released there.” So, when a still-terrified Elton finally hit the little stage (introduced by Neil Diamond) that Tuesday night, he was seen by Beach Boy Mike Love, Bread leader David Gates and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, not to mention such luminaries as Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein and Henry Mancini.
Robert Hillburn of the L.A. Times remembers Elton’s shaky opening. “He started going through his songs in a somewhat distant, businesslike manner. He looked scared, keeping his eyes on the piano.” The ultra-cool Troubadour crowd virtually ignored the unknown Brit until, four numbers into the set, Elton snapped. Composer Don Black, also in the house that night, recalls that, “He stood up, kicked away his piano stool and shouted ‘Right! If you won’t listen, perhaps you’ll bloody well listen to this!’ Then he started pounding the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.” By the end of the set, America was Elton’s for the taking.
Rolling Stone magazine rated that night as one of the all-time greatest rock performances and, the following morning Elton received a telegram from Bill Graham, the country’s most important promoter, offering him $5,000 to play at the Fillmore East in New York - the largest sum ever offered to a first time act.
“Second night I played,” remembers Elton, “Leon Russell was in the front row but I didn’t see him until the last number. Thank God I didn’t, because at that time I slept and drunk Leon Russell. I mean, I still really like him but, at that time, I regarded him as some kind of god. And I saw him and I just stopped. He said, ‘Keep on,’ and he shouted something, and I said, ‘Oh, fuck!’ and he said, ‘Come up to the house tomorrow.’
In retrospect, Elton has said, “I think the start of all the success was the Troubadour thing. It was just amazing. It’s an incredibly funky little place, the best club of its kind anywhere, and all it is is some wooden tables and chairs and good acoustics.”
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Doug Weston, owner of Los Angeles legendary Troubadour club on Santa Monica Boulevard, paid Elton John’s trio a meagre $500 for a week of gigs.
The Troubadour’s talent co-ordinator, Travis Michael Holder, recalls how, “I argued repeatedly with Doug about my interest in booking a young British unknown named Elton John, whom I'd met at a recording studio in England with Dusty the year before as he was recording Your Song, for his first appearance in the United States. Despite Doug's early grumbling that I had no idea what I was doing (I didn't), I booked Elton as an opening act for Jerry Jeff Walker, fairly confident that the booking would be postponed as Walker raced to finish an album and Elton would have to headline "at the last minute." I don't know if Doug ever fully realized my treachery, but the resulting notoriety that one historic appearance brought The Troub great clout - and gave my employer a new respect for me.”
“We’d flown to Los Angeles,” explained Elton later, “thirteen hours over the pole in this jumbo jet, and we arrived to find this bloody great bus … ‘Elton John has arrived!’ and all that sort of thing … and it took another two hours to get to the hotel. Once we’d booked in, we were hustled out again and off to The Troubadour where The Dillards were appearing … they were incredible, just knocked me out completely.”
Taken aback by the level of hype that surrounded his arrival, Elton was even more astonished to discover that one of his musical heroes was supporting him. “David Ackles was on the bill. I mean, that was the first thing I couldn’t believe, that we were playing above David Ackles. In England, he had much more prestige than he apparently had in America. He apparently hadn’t been working much that year. I said, ‘What about people like Tom Paxton and Tim Buckley?’ And they’d say, ‘Oh, no, they very rarely work.’ And I’d feel that was very strange.”
Then, the night before the first show, Elton’s manager Ray Williams found him “sulking - and petrified.” Convinced that he was too inexperienced to play for a sophisticated LA crowd, Elton was in a state of panic. “He said he wasn’t going to play The Troubadour date,” remembers Williams, “and was getting on the first plane home. I basically had to fight with him.”
Luckily, Williams prevailed but Elton’s anxiety wasn’t reduced when he arrived at The Troubadour to find that, “It was packed to the brim with people from the record industry, who expected me to come on with this fifteen-piece orchestra and reproduce the sound of the album, which had recently been released there.” So, when a still-terrified Elton finally hit the little stage (introduced by Neil Diamond) that Tuesday night, he was seen by Beach Boy Mike Love, Bread leader David Gates and singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot, not to mention such luminaries as Quincy Jones, Elmer Bernstein and Henry Mancini.
Robert Hillburn of the L.A. Times remembers Elton’s shaky opening. “He started going through his songs in a somewhat distant, businesslike manner. He looked scared, keeping his eyes on the piano.” The ultra-cool Troubadour crowd virtually ignored the unknown Brit until, four numbers into the set, Elton snapped. Composer Don Black, also in the house that night, recalls that, “He stood up, kicked away his piano stool and shouted ‘Right! If you won’t listen, perhaps you’ll bloody well listen to this!’ Then he started pounding the piano like Jerry Lee Lewis.” By the end of the set, America was Elton’s for the taking.
Rolling Stone magazine rated that night as one of the all-time greatest rock performances and, the following morning Elton received a telegram from Bill Graham, the country’s most important promoter, offering him $5,000 to play at the Fillmore East in New York - the largest sum ever offered to a first time act.
“Second night I played,” remembers Elton, “Leon Russell was in the front row but I didn’t see him until the last number. Thank God I didn’t, because at that time I slept and drunk Leon Russell. I mean, I still really like him but, at that time, I regarded him as some kind of god. And I saw him and I just stopped. He said, ‘Keep on,’ and he shouted something, and I said, ‘Oh, fuck!’ and he said, ‘Come up to the house tomorrow.’
In retrospect, Elton has said, “I think the start of all the success was the Troubadour thing. It was just amazing. It’s an incredibly funky little place, the best club of its kind anywhere, and all it is is some wooden tables and chairs and good acoustics.”