Davey Johnstone on stage with Elton John, Norfolk, Virginia, 2011. © Jason Moore/ZUMA Press/Corbis
"What's going on with us is remarkable, and Madison Square Garden is a classic example," marveled Elton John guitarist Davey Johnstone the other day. "We've played there so many times, well over 60 concerts, and to still sell it out for a couple of shows, it's incredible. New York City has always been a great city for us. We love coming here."
Having just played two knockout (and yes, packed) dates at the Garden, Johnstone was in town with Sir Elton and the rest of the band (which also includes drummer Nigel Olsson, who, along with Johnstone and the late bassist Dee Murray, comprised the famed, original Elton John four-piece), for an appearance on Saturday Night Live. John hosted, and he and the band played a couple of numbers with Leon Russell, Elton's idol and musical partner of late.
During a break in his schedule, Johnstone sat down with MusicRadar in Manhattan's swanky London Hotel. He admitted that the SNL gig promised to be "a lot of fun. Elton's such a comedy fan - I'm sure he'll be brilliant in all the skits." But after the show, it's back to the road. Johnstone, who has performed with John for 40 years now ("very hard to believe - the time has just blown by"), not counting a brief period in the late '70s when the superstar went into semi-retirement, said that touring has lost none of its luster. The three-hour show is a dizzying cavalcade of multi-platinum smashes, but Johnstone revealed that he and the boss try to change things up here and there.
"Elton and I talk before every show," he said. "We look at the setlist and make adjustments when needed. It's a long show, with no opening act. We do all the hits. Of course, when I say 'all' the hits, there's still many that we aren't doing. Even in a three-hour show, we can't do every hit. I'm always trying to get him to do stuff that we haven't done in a while, like Harmony, which I love.
"Every Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, which I've been hassling him to do for years, and Crocodile Rock - he hasn't been doing that one for a while, either. That's what I do: I stay on him about the set. Fortunately, I know his tolerance level, and I know not to ask him about something too many times. But he knows me, and he knows if I say something often enough that there might be something to it. We have a great relationship in that way."
The Scottish-born Johnstone joined Elton John's band in 1971 at the advanced age of 19. Throughout the decades, the guitarist has put his unique guitar stamp - one minute he's dishing out lashing electric solos, the next he's applying lush acoustic layers - on a breathtaking number of worldwide chart-toppers (it's estimated that John has sold over 250 million albums) and has become Elton's musical director. In addition to his day job, Johnstone has worked with John on The Lion King soundtrack, as well as the music to productions such as Aida and Billy Elliot.
"We've done pretty well," Johnstone said, chucking at what he realizes is a whopper of an understatement. With so much history to talk about, classic songs and decades of memorable shows (the guitarist cited 1974's Madison Square Garden concert, during which John Lennon joined Elton and the band, as a career highlight), it was difficult to know where to start. So, MusicRadar went right to the beginning:
Tell me how you came to join Elton's band.
"I was a studio player, and I knew Gus Dudgeon. Gus was Elton's producer [Dudgeon died in a car accident in 2002], but he was also working with a band I played with called Magna Carta. One day, Gus talked to me about an album he was doing with Elton - this would be Madman Across The Water - and he said that none of the guitar players they had tried had worked out. He asked if I wanted to come to the studio and do a session, and I said, 'Sure. Of course.'
"Honestly, I didn't really know at the time who Elton John was. I'd seen him a bit in the music papers, but I wasn't into what he was doing - I was into traditional Irish music. But money's money, so I agreed to do the session. Why not, right? The day before the session, however, I saw Elton perform Border Song on Top Of The Pops, and I went, 'Wow…this guy is good! [laughs] So I went into the session with a whole new attitude."
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