Every singer only has a finite time where they can be at their absolute peak. Some of the greatest artists of their generation can’t be able to sing the same way forever, and while Elton John has switched things up, he did take time to admire vocalists who were true forces of nature whenever they performed.
Because as much as John carried himself like a professional whenever he played throughout the 1970s, he probably wasn’t thinking about the logistics of performing some of his songs into his older age. There are many moments on his records that sound fantastic, but was anyone expecting him to be able to sing all of the falsetto lines in ‘Goodbye Yellow Brick Road’ at his later stage of life? Hell, even the legendary pianist talked about how difficult it was recreating his tunes, but he could always take some liberties as well.
In a song like ‘Rocket Man’, for example, where his voice goes high in every single verse, he always sings a harmony line whenever he performs it nowadays. It might not be what everyone might expect out of one of his concerts, but considering how many times he’s sacrificed his vocal cords to get the right notes out, it’s a miracle that he even managed to get the right stuff out of his throat when he could.
And considering how much of his higher register was lost during surgery and the severe dependency he had on cocaine during his prime, most of us would be happy if we could speak afterwards, let alone carry a tune. But that professionalism always came from John’s admiration of the crooners of old, who always treated their voice like an instrument whenever they performed.
Sure, someone like Frank Sinatra played himself up as one of the biggest bad boys in the pre-rock and roll music industry, but in between various swigs of liquor, he always knew to give the people what they wanted at all costs. But even if ‘Ol’ Blue Eyes’ was among the gold standards of a pop singer getting better with age, John was knocked out by how great Tony Bennett managed to sound after over half a century in the business.
Having been on collaboration albums with Lady Gaga, Bennett still had the magic, and John was transfixed by it, saying, “I saw Tony Bennett last year, and he was singing at 72 better than I’ve ever seen him sing. It’s that kind of thing, you’re still trying to learn as an artist, trying to play better, sing better. I’m happy at my age to have that kind of power in it.” But that also comes from the kind of music that Bennett was playing as well.
There were bound to be some notes at the top of his range that he had to lose as he got older, but working off of someone like Lady Gaga was the perfect foil for him. She had her reputation as being one of the boldest artists working in the pop sphere, but hearing her duet with him on albums like Cheek to Cheek gave him the proper partner for an album that’s perfect for the end of the night with a glass of wine in your hand.
Even if John’s style is completely different from anything that Bennett was doing, he knew that he had found a prime example of what an ageing singer is supposed to sound like. No, it didn’t have the same youthful exuberance as before, but it had the same tone with the character of someone who had done their fair share of living.
