Music Break

Taking time out from the normal things going on, here's some music, starting with Elton John and Elderberry Wine, which was the B-side of his hit Crocodile Rock and included on his 1973 album Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player.  John (piano and vocals) and his regular bandmates Davey Johnstone (guitar), Dee Murray (bass) and Nigel Olson (drums) are joined by French musicians Jacques Bolognesi (trombone), Ivan Jullien (trumpet), Alain Hatot (sax) and Jean-Louis Chautemps (sax), the brass arranged by the album's producer Gus Dudgeon.


In 1997, Kathy Mattea released the album Love Travels, which included 455 Rocket.  The song was written by Gillian Welch and David Rawlings, about a woman who drove an Oldsmobile with a 455 cubic inch V8 engine.  Thus, the song's title refers not to the car, but to the engine.  The video shows Mattea and three male side musicians with their instruments inside a car, and three women outside the car acting as backing vocalists.


One of the most popular patriotic songs in Australia is I Am Australian, written by Bruce Woodley of The Seekers and Doby Newton of The Bushwackers.  In the Seekers' version, Woodley shares the lead vocals with Judith Durham, and are backed up by Keith Potger and Athol Guy.  The song gives us a little summary of Australian history and culture.


Montgomery Gentry released Gone, written by Bob DiPiero and Jeffery Steele, in 2004.  It was the third single from their You Do Your Thing album, and includes a Hammond organ solo.


To finish, this is But I Try, which appears on Joe Walsh's 2012 album Analog Man, but was recorded back in 1970 or 1971 in a collaboration between the James Gang and Little Richard.  The personnel are thus Little Richard on piano and vocals, Walsh on guitar, Dale Peters on bass, and Jim Fox on drums.