Classic Rock
“Rock of the Westies” is out again on 20 November in a fiftieth anniversary edition, on double vinyl, double CD, single vinyl and digital.
What’s new is nine piano-and-vocal takes from the 1975 sessions, never released before, among them “Island Girl”, “Grow Some Funk Of Your Own”, “Hard Luck Story”, “Feed Me” and the medley “Yell Help / Wednesday Night / Ugly”. The one for “Street Kids” is already up.
The original album is from October 1975, Elton John’s tenth studio record, and it was his sixth consecutive number one in the United States: it held the top of the Billboard 200 for three weeks.
“I had forgotten how good some of the tracks were and how good some of the piano playing was,” John says of the recovered takes. “After all these years, I am still very proud of the quality of the musicianship on this record.”
Text by Enric Vilaplana