Becoming a frontman of a group is never something that any performer falls into. It takes years of practice to summon up the courage to even perform in front of an audience, and once those nervous barriers are broken down, it’s anyone’s guess whether someone is going to sound great or if they are going to choke up the minute that they open their mouth. But whereas everyone else was focusing on their technique and raw vocal chops in their salad days, Elton John was putting his songs before anything else.
Because as much as his voice has dominated the pop sphere for over half a century, John never envisioned himself as being a lead singer in a band by any stretch. He knew that he could write great songs, but the goal was always for him to give songs away for other people to sing, and since no one wanted his stuff in the early days, he would have to make do singing the words Bernie Taupin wrote for him.
That’s probably why many of his earliest songs are meant to be sung by people with the greatest ranges. ‘Your Song’ is an absolutely gorgeous piece of music, but the reason why it works so well is John’s delivery. For someone known for being as flamboyant as possible, this was him channelling the same kind of downtempo material that Cat Stevens and James Taylor were doing, only this time with a piano instead of an acoustic guitar.
As time passed and he started gaining momentum, though, many more songs saw him taking a few more chances. ‘Crocodile Rock’ was definitely a change of pace from people expecting a traditional pop song, and ‘Tiny Dancer’ is the kind of tune that feels like it’s meant to be sung by a vocal diva rather than John’s traditional voice. If he nailed all of those correctly, though, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road was his time to put everything he could all under one roof.
John still didn’t consider himself a proper vocalist the same way that people looked at Robert Plant or Roger Daltrey, but he did feel that he had grown into his role as a singer, saying, “I think I found my own little niche as a vocalist. I never started off as a vocalist. I started off as a piano player who was told that, because his songs weren’t being recorded, he would have to record his own songs. I’ve gotten to be a much better singer over the years, but by that time, I was really finding my own style.”
But Goodbye Yellow Brick Road doesn’t have one set style for him to play around in, either. There are songs that flirt with different genres like reggae on ‘Jamaica Jerk-Off’ and manage to pull off fantastic R&B hooks like ‘Bennie and the Jets’, but no one expected him to have the kind of power to pull off a song like ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ or the genuine emotion of ‘Roy Rogers’ so well by that time.
His double album could be considered the actual peak of his career, but there are some albums where his voice went beyond what anyone could have imagined. If we ignore all the fantastic songs he made for Disney, ‘I’m Still Standing’ brought back his rock and roll chops, and while he might have been the biggest fan of ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me’, his soulful voice sells every single minute of the tune.
John never wanted the chance to be a frontman and would have been more than happy at the back of the stage playing his piano, but his success is proof that anyone can be a great singer even if they don’t want to be. It’s simply about taking care of your instrument like anyone else, and John has turned his voice into one of the most enduring soundtracks of the 1970s for countless fans around the world.
