Elton John's playing my town this weekend and the place can't get enough of him. Everybody's lining up to hear Sir Elton (or should that be Sir Reggie?) sing all of his hits, with the reviewers cooing about how he sounds as good as he ever did and exactly like the original vinyl.
And that vinyl era would be about the time I first saw Elton in concert. Recalling the night with some young whipper-snappers this week, I mentioned that I was pretty sure Ted Nugent had been on the same bill. Which wouldn't've caused that much consternation in the 1970's but struck these guys as extremely unsavory.
"The gun freak hunter guy?"
Well, yeah. But back then Ted was pretty much a guitar freak hunting little more than some "Wango Tango". But I digress....
Driving home I considered how much Ted and others changed over the decades, while some like Sir Elton changed hardly at all -- save for maybe swapping out Marilyn Monroe for Princess Di to get a second Number One out of "Candle in the Wind".
Can "Saturday Night's All Right For Fighting" really have the same impact coming out of the throat of a 70 year old?
Perhaps.
But perhaps real artists change as they age, investing their songs with the insights and experiences the intervening decades have brought them.
Or perhaps -- it's the songs that need to evolve, rearranged to bring out imagery and emotions we never knew they could contain.
Take Aerosmith's "Dream On" for example. Place that in the hands of Postmodern Jukebox and the mouth of an inspired talent like Morgan James and see what happens.
Life, as I understand it, is supposed to go on -- not stand still.
Enjoy Your Sunday.
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