UNI 93135
Producer: Gus Dudgeon
Track listing: Honky Cat / Mellow / I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself / Susie (Dramas) / Rocket Man (I Think It’s Going to Be a Long, Long Time) / Salvation / Slave Amy / Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters / Hercules
July 15, 1972
5 weeks
By 1971, Elton John had recorded six albums in a two-year span. John’s 1969 debut album, Empty Sky, wouldn’t be released in America until 1975, but half of those six — Elton John, released in 1970, and Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water, both released in 1971 — had broken into the top 10. It was under this hectic schedule that John recorded his seventh album, Honky Chateau, named for Chateau d’Herouville in France, where the album was recorded.
“We were doing two albums a year, because he was contractually obliged to do two albums a year,” says producer Gus Dudgeon. “Elton never at any time wanted to get to the end of his contract and find that he owed the record company any product at all.”
Honky Chateau marked the recording debut of former Magna Carta guitarist Davey Johnstone in John’s band. Elsewhere, John stuck with Dudgeon, who had worked on all of his previous efforts, but he opted to ditch the string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster, which had been featured on his previous albums. “That was never a conscious decision,” says Dudgeon. “Anything we ever used on any album at any time, was purely based on the composition.” If there was a change, Dudgeon adds, it would come from John’s longtime lyricist Bernie Taupin. “Every album began with Bernie, the lyric came first, then the songs.”
While the strings were left off, horns were added to the mix on “Honky Cat.” It marked the first time Dudgeon had handled horn arrangements, which proved to be quite troublesome. “They took a hell of a long time,” he says, “not so much to do the arrangements, but to explain to four Frenchmen, who didn’t speak much English, by an Englishman that didn’t know much French. They had never heard of Muscle Shoals. So when I tried to explain how the Muscle Shoals people played, it just went right by them.” The sessions for the horn arrangements at Strawberry Studios began at about 5 p.m. in the evening and ran through the night. “We finally got it done at seven in the morning,” Dudgeon says.
“Rocket Man,” which would go on to become John’s biggest hit to date when it reached number six in July, came together quickly. “It was written in literally a half an hour at breakfast time,” Dudgeon says. “By the time he was doing Honky Chateau, Elton was writing entire albums on the spot, in the studio, in about five days.”
Honky Chateau contained one surprise for John that Dudgeon added to the final mix. “Elton was never around for any overdubs,” Dudgeon says. “He figured we knew what we were doing, so he just let us get on with it. On ‘I Think I’m Going to Kill Myself,’ I was going to use his stepfather playing spoons, but he was on holiday. So I called up ‘Legs’ Larry Smith from the Bonzo Dog Band. He was a tap-dancer and that was the nearest thing I could think of to spoons, so I dubbed him on. The first time Elton heard it was when we got a pressing of the album.”
When “Rocket Man” was released as a single, critics compared it to David Bowie’s 1969 track “Space Oddity,” which was also produced by Dudgeon. “That was unfortunate,” he says. “That was my career-opener and it directly led to me working with Elton, because he liked the record. But I wasn’t aware of doing anything similar to ‘Space Oddity’ on ‘Rocket Man.’ In fact, I think it’s a very different kind of record. If he had been singing about anything else, I don’t think there would have been any kind of comparison.”
Thanks in part to “Rocket Man” shooting up the Hot 100, Honky Chateau became John’s first Number One album in its fifth week on the chart. It was the beginning of one of the greatest chart runs of the ’70s.
THE TOP FIVE
Week of July 15, 1972
1. Honky Chateau, Elton John
2. Exile on Main St., The Rolling Stones
3. Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway, Roberta Flack & Donny Hathaway
4. Thick as a Brick, Jethro Tull
5. Joplin in Concert, Janis Joplin