...and the Brown Dirt Cowboy

Picked this up at the thrift store yesterday. Cleaned the crap out of it, but it's in only ok condition. Good enough to listen to though and man, this is a really good album! When I saw it I thought I'd heard it was one of his good ones. I like it a LOT.

Side two plays great. First track on side one has a couple of issues. But the cover is great and it has all the posters and booklets and stuff. Big load of fun for $2.00. Got a lot of Fixx records too. They go on next. Most look to be in good shape.

Oh, and Joe Walsh- The Smoker you drink plus a Tubes record. Pretty good haul for little dough.

The Joe Walsh album is pretty good, I have heard the Elton John also, but it has been a long time and I don't remember how it was. You got some great finds, enjoy! Happy T-day

Thanks Jon,

The "hit" came up again - Someone Save My Life Tonight. I remembered something. I heard this on the radio when I was maybe 22 years old. Went to the record store to get whatever album it was on (though, sadly, it would have been a cassette at that time) but they didn't have it. Forgot about it and never go it... until now. Damn, that's a shame because this is just an amazing record. I mean Beatles good. I don't say that very often.

I remember it now. Someone Saved My life Tonight is one of my favorite Elton songs. Good tune

I always enjoyed listening to Captain Fantastic.

This album was special in a lot of ways.

First ever to enter Billboard at #1. The man could have issued a three record set of Gregorian chants in '75 and it would have gone platinum.

It was particularly ballsy in that it was an autobiographical retrospective only six years into his/their major label career. About the only other artist I can think of that pulled this off in less time was Prince with Purple Rain (the film, and only parts of it). In other words, I'm at a loss to think of any other artist that conceived an entire LP around "this is how we got together, this was our writing process, let me tell you about my suicide attempt, my years cranking out crap songs for other people and singing in a bar, etc." The Rutles don't count :-)

The freebies were, I think, unmatched until then. Two well-executed booklets and a poster, and a gatefold, and, well...breasts. Even if they did belong to a creepy fantasy character.

Enjoy. It doesn't get much better.

My copy of Captain Fantastic has a few pops and clicks, and was a 25 cent yard sale find about 20 years ago. But it's still one of the very best sounding LPs I own recording quality-wise (it's one of my TT test records!), and the songs are all winners. One of EJ's very best.
Tom

I really like that album...my copy has some pops and clicks but the cover and poster and all of that is near perfect...the music is special to me for many reasons... and I am not all that much of an Elton John fan.

Ok, I'll be the contrarian here!
Of all Elton's 1970's albums, this by far my least favorite. I just never liked it. Then or now. I don't know particularly why, either!

And, although 'Meal Ticket' does kick ass! The rest of it doesn't hold a candle to 'Yellow Brick Road', 'Honky Chateau', 'Tumbleweed', or 'Madman', or even 'Caribou'.

Just my opinion, ya unda'stand? :music:

I love the record. Great music and cover. Poster is suitable for framing. Super well produced as well.

Rick

I've always enjoyed C.F. I bought it new as a kid. I have a very clean copy now. I like most of his stuff pre-1978 or so. After that, I could care less.

I have a mint copy. In my opinion, Captain Fantastic was the last Elton worth having. Great album.

I've always enjoyed C.F. I bought it new as a kid. I have a very clean copy now. I like most of his stuff pre-1978 or so. After that, I could care less.

I originally bought it when I was a kid as well. I remember the big deal was that it was the first record to debut at #1 on the Billboard chart. After Cap'n there wasn't much worth listening to. "Rock of the Westies" signaled a direction that was not good....understatement!

Yup- one of Elton and Bernie's best, IMHO. '(Gotta Get A) Meal Ticket' and 'Better Off Dead' really pop, recaptured that 'Grey Seal' and 'Saturday Night's (Alright For Fightin')' energy. And 'Someone Saved My Life Tonight' (BTW, an autobiographical piece for Elton, you know...) and 'Writing' are some of their best introspective pieces ever. 'Writing' really reminds me of 'Your Song' a lot. Not a clunker in the batch, 'Captain Fantastic' been a fairly regular play on my Zen for a while now.

The 'Remastered' CD issue included 'Philadelphia Freedom', 'Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds', and 'One Day At A Time' also, just making it that much better.

Yeah, I'm a BIG Elton fan. 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' coincided with the blossoming of my 'serious' interest in Hi-Fi. Columbia Record Club was instrumental in allowing me to assemble a collection of all his albums to that point...ah, the memories...

I've always enjoyed C.F. I bought it new as a kid. I have a very clean copy now. I like most of his stuff pre-1978 or so. After that, I could care less.

Yeah, I got my copy when it was first out too. This is the last album that I liked by him. I thought Rock of the Westies (next album after Captain Fantastic) was the beginning of the end.

I grew up in the 70s/80s. Graduated High School in '85. Elton John was just never on my radar. He had hits, but, well, they kinda sucked. This has been an eye opening experience for me. Now I understand why Elton is Elton.

And I would be remis if I didn't give Bernie a tip of the hat for his half of the effort.

Captain Fantastic was so well made in all aspects that I gave a copy of the album and all the extras to our ad manager and she asked how much would all this art cost to produce? A bunch was my answer. Who picked up the cost and how all that was handled on the production of that album I have never seen in writing. My copy of it was bought while in the service stationed in Germany. I tended to buy many of my albums from a German record store because they seemed to always sound better. The owner would have a stack pulled for me that I might find cool. Having been too long in the field I made it back and Captain Fantastic was the top album on the stack. Bought the whole stack with out even looking because the owner would give me price break and always said should an album stink or sound bad in any way bring it back we will find something else. That album got played and was recorded to a R2R that night. It played by request over and over. Of coarse sooner or later everyone went out and bought it. Was it Beatle good? Only you can decide that. Like the Beatles it still being played and sounds excellent.

Well, I can tell you, in printing, the cost is almost entirely in set up. Once it's set, a much, much larger run is only a little more expensive than a small run. On the scale of a record like this, the unit cost undoubtedly got pretty low and I'm sure they had some notion that it would sell as well as it did.

It is true that set up is always the hefty chunk on a printing job. But with the extra paper, saddle stitch of booklet, poster and even shipping weight it had to run the cost up far more than what was called normal for that time. Our question is did Elton take a hit off his end or was the record company paying all the extra production costs? Just one of those things you wonder about is all.

Capt Fantastic! Wow! This brings me back to the 5th grade when I bought it at the Navy Exchange for $4.25. I remember snagging the last copy and beating the sailors to it. LOL...Pays to be 10 years old and quick. Unfortunately I lost my original copy and now have a replacement. My favourite songs on it were Tower of Babel, Bitter Fingers, Writing and We All Fall In Love Sometimes....