From Tin Pan Alley to Captain Fantastic: Keith Hayward on Elton’s Masterpiece

Today, we’re celebrating the 50th anniversary of Elton John’s Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, a landmark album that marked a turning point in his and Bernie Taupin’s careers. To guide us through its creation, impact, and enduring legacy, we’re honoured to have Keith Hayward with us — a leading expert on Elton John, whose meticulous research and in-depth interviews have provided fans and historians alike with unparalleled insight into the music, stories, and people behind the legend. 

And who's Keith?

Keith Hayward is a British music historian, writer, and respected authority on Elton John’s early career. His work documents the formative years of Elton’s musical journey — from his days as Reg Dwight and his time at Dick James Music, through the creation of his first albums and the landmark tours that defined the 1970s sound.

Hayward has authored several acclaimed books providing a detailed and intimate view of Elton’s rise to fame. Tin Pan Alley: The Rise of Elton John (2013) explores Elton’s early years in London’s songwriting scene, chronicling his collaborations with musicians such as Caleb Quaye and Roger Pope. This was followed by From Tin Pan Alley to the Yellow Brick Road (2015), tracing Elton’s creative and personal evolution through the end of the 1970s. His most recent work, Elton John: From The Inside (2023), draws on over fifteen years of research and interviews with key figures — musicians, managers, producers, and crew — offering fresh insights into the artist’s inner world.

A dedicated collector of music and photographs, Hayward has gathered rare archival material and firsthand accounts that bring Elton’s early career vividly to life. He was also part of the archive team for Elton’s official documentary Never Too Late, contributing his expertise and deep knowledge of Elton’s formative years. Based in the United Kingdom, Keith Hayward’s publications have become essential reading for Elton John fans, collectors, and scholars seeking to understand the creative, cultural, and human context behind one of the most successful music careers of all time.

Keith, your impressions, just listening!

Caribou Ranch

Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy is Elton John’s ninth studio album, recorded at Jim Guercio’s Caribou Studios in Nederland Colorado.  For me this album marks a significant change in Eltons career and the last seventies album to feature Nigel Olsson and Dee Murray.  The album also marked the first time Elton and Bernie had written on a formulaic basis to tell the story of the beginning of their career together up to the recording of the album.  Although Bernie wasn’t told to write he had a brief to keep him in the right direction.

Although the album reached number 1 in the UK and USA it was with a touch of arrogance that Elton decided to play the entire album live, before anyone had heard the songs and on top of that with an entirely new band, (except Ray Cooper), from that which had played in the studio; stupid, arrogant or a master stroke.  It was certainly not the latter as the audience started to leave part way into the album having just watched The Beach Boys completely blow Elton John out of Wembley Stadium during the album live launch on 21^st June 1975.

The album takes us through the early years from the Bluesology days and into the studios of Dick James and the story of two young musicians who loved music.  Obviously, the songs are written through the eyes of Bernie Taupin who sometimes gave a more jaundiced view of people who were around then during the time.  Dick James for instance was pilloried in the song Bitter Fingers, even though Dick stuck with the pair during lean and good times.  In fact, Elton, or Reg, was very well respected in Tin Pan Alley, Denmark Street in London, for both his cover songs, backing piano and singing for major artists from the sixties such as Hollies, Tom Jones, etc.  His melodies on the Captain Fantastic album were, and still are, superb.  I felt sorry for Linda Woodrow, who was engaged to be married to Elton, and the way Bernie’s lyrics treated her in Someone Saved My Life Tonight, both unnecessary but it didn’t tell the full picture, so Linda has had the pain of listening to this song for a large portion of her life and not only that she couldn’t easily escape it as it was the only single from the album.

Overall, the album was up there with the best, but then all of Elton’s work was excellent during the seventies.  In some ways it marked the peak of Elton’s career with his appearance at Dodger Stadium, another suicide attempt and then Elton week where he was given a star on Hollywood Boulevard.

The albums that followed were good, Rock of the Westies marked the first album with a new band, which was rock and raunch with Caleb Quaye and Roger Pope giving it that Hookfoot feel, and Blue Moves, a decent album with some musical brilliance but morose miserable lyrics.  For me that was the album where Elton lost his way; he was never the same after Blue Moves even though A Single Man was an excellent album with Gary Osborne writing lyrics.  That’s the direction Elton should have taken really instead of returning to Bernies lyrics, which by now, had lost their way too,

I’d love to have seen Elton with his studio band of Nigel, Dee, Ray and Davey play the album live.

Fast forward to 2006 Elton decided to repeat the process and introduce the world to another autobiographical album, that takes our hero to America in the ‘70’s.  The Captain and The Kid.  Not impressed at all.  Whereas Captain Fantastic evoked all the feeling and emotions of the seventies music scheme with the struggles of two budding songwriters, The Captain and the Kid just didn’t have the same feel.  By this time they were multi-millionaires with nothing to prove; I just didn’t believe any of the songs and what made it worse was the poor attempt at trying to rehash the music to Captain Fantastic in the final track The Captain and the Kid.  There is very little that is good about this album but I honestly believe that Elton’s career had ended before then anyway.

In the end, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy captured Elton and Bernie at their most authentic — still hungry, still fighting to be heard. It was the sound of two artists writing their own story before fame rewrote it for them. Whatever came after — the highs, the lows, the reinventions — nothing ever quite matched the honesty and urgency of Captain Fantastic. It remains the true heartbeat of Elton’s seventies.

Keith, thank you for sharing your thoughts and for joining us in the Week Of... Captain Fantastic 50th Anniversary. It’s been a real pleasure having your voice in the celebration.