Don't Shoot Me I'm Only The Piano Player - ELTON JOHN*****

Daniel/Teacher I Need You/Elderberry Wine/Blues For My Baby & Me/Midnight Creeper/Have Mercy On The Criminal/I'm Going To Be A Teenage Idol/Texan Love Song/Crocodile Rock/High Flying Bird

With Don’t Shoot Me Elton John amazingly managed to maintain the high quality of his songwriting despite releasing albums in quick succession. Includes the US and UK top 5 hits Daniel and Crocodile Rock. (US:1 UK:1)

“Don’t Shoot Me builds on the musical foundation laid down on Honky Chateau. It continues his move in a pop/rock direction and away from his early work which primarily presented him as a piano-based balladeer and crooner. The album features some of the best lyrical imagery of Bernie Taupin’s career. Many of the songs create pictures in your mind that stay with you. There is also an innocence about it which adds to its overall charm.”

“Crocodile Rock is perhaps the most famous song here, but in my opinion it is not the best number. The opener Daniel, and the majestic and bluesy Have Mercy On The Criminal, which is truly a beautiful and a massive cut, are the best songs here. The rest are pretty fantastic too and I like every single song.”

“It starts off unusually with the low-key mood piece Daniel, which Elton intuitively and bravely issued as a single, before we're taken in hand by a plethora of songs, mostly upbeat, often injected with humour, played, sung and produced with panache, before we're ushered out with a high-class traditional Elton ballad High Flying Bird.”

“For me this is his best record up to this point, it just feels like Elton got the balance right here and incorporated everything he'd tried thus far into the record, and where it began to feel less forced. His natural sense for melody and strong arrangements combine perfectly with the pretty balladry, country-rock, glam-rock, 50s pop and soulful R & B that he clearly loves.”

“Young Elton at his zenith with the three songs that open the album among the greatest songs he ever recorded: Daniel (a classic, of course), Teacher I Need You (little known but fantastic) and Elderberry Wine, one of Elton's most underrated gems In addition, Crocodile Rock is as good as it was all those years ago. It's still impossible to listen to this album and not have a smile on your face and feel happy. Elton and Bernie produced some of the great songs of the 70s and many of them are on this record.”