You don’t want to miss Elton John & Bernie Taupin: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song, which will air in primetime on PBS stations nationwide on Monday (April 8). (Check local listings.)
The two-hour special was taped during a tribute concert at DAR Constitution Hall in Washington, D.C. on March 20. Billboard had a (lucky) correspondent in the room, who filed this report.
The success of the show is a tribute to the quality and range of the songs written by Elton John and Bernie Taupin, of course, and also to smart production choices by Ken Ehrlich, who executive produced and wrote the show. Ehrlich, who oversaw the annual Grammy telecast for 40 years, incorporated talk segments with both songwriters, as well as Elton’s long-time music director Davey Johnstone; past Gershwin Prize recipients Sir Paul McCartney (the only previous British honoree), Carole King, Stevie Wonder and Emilio & Gloria Estefan; and Robert Hilburn, the former Los Angeles Times pop music critic whose rave review of Elton’s 1970 show at the Troubadour in L.A. gave the singer a big boost.
Those talk segments provide much context and insight. In one, Elton said how much American music has always meant to him. “Thank you, America, for the music you’ve given us all over the world. It’s an incredible legacy that you have – all the wonderful blues, the jazz, classical, all the songs the Gershwin brothers [George and Ira] wrote. It’s just incredible. … I’m so proud to be British and to be here in America to receive this award, because all my heroes were American.”
Elton also put his music with Bernie in the context of the Great American Songbook. “We write songs that we hope will last. And our songs have lasted – and so have the Gershwins, Rodgers & Hammerstein, all those wonderful people. The Cole Porters of the world. They wrote classic songs, and once you write a classic that people love, it never goes away.”
Elton’s band backed the various artists, leading Elton to say “This is the first time in my life where I have sat in the audience and listened to my band. And I know they’re good, but they’re amazing!” He also paid the ultimate tribute to his partner. “He gives me the lyrics and then I write the song. Without the lyrics, I’d be working in any record store in the world.”
Elton John and Bernie Taupin: The Library of Congress Gershwin Prize for Popular Song is a co-production of WETA Washington, D.C.; Ken Ehrlich Productions, Inc.; and the Library of Congress. It will be available via broadcast and streaming on PBS.org and the PBS App.
An end title card dedicated the show to Tony Bennett, the 2017 Gershwin Prize recipient, who died in July at 96. The show honoring Bennett and last year’s show honoring Joni Mitchell both received Primetime Emmy nods. This show also deserves Emmy consideration.
All but one of the 14 songs performed on the show appeared on Billboard’s 2022 ranking The 75 Best Elton John Songs: Staff List, which was keyed to the star’s 75th birthday that year. If you missed it, here it is. Read it before or after the show, but not during. You don’t want to miss a moment.
Here are all the performances on the show ranked from least to most memorable. (Three artists performed multiple songs. We listed their songs together.) No shade to the performers who aren’t ranked high: The competition for “best of the night” honors was fierce. And how can Elton not be No. 1 on his own tribute? We’ve all heard him sing his songs many times, so there was no element of surprise there like there was with the top three selections.
Puth, at 32 the youngest artist on the bill, seemed a little daunted by the task of performing this stately rock ballad, but he pulled it off. Still, it won’t make anyone forget either Elton’s original, which reached No. 2 on the Hot 100 in 1974, or the 1991 George Michael/Elton John pairing that went all the way to No. 1.
The pop and country singer did a fine job on this ballad, which Taupin said that he regards as one of their best songs. “It’s definitely one of our finest songs…I mean, it’s a simple song, but it’s a beautiful song.” It’s also the only song performed on the show that wasn’t written by Elton and Bernie alone. Davey Johnstone joined them in writing this song.
Lennox opened the show by performing this gospel-inflected ballad, which Aretha Franklin turned into a top 40 hit on the Hot 100 in late 1970. The Queen of Soul’s version entered the top 40 the same week (Dec. 19, 1970) as Elton’s first top 40 hit as an artist, “Your Song” — so his songs were his calling card from the start.
Carlile performed these two early album cuts in separate spots on the show. The tender ballad “Sky Pigeon” was a perfect choice to follow an emotional, but overlong, segment that featured Elton’s work with the Elton John AIDS Foundation, as well as his friendship with Ryan White.
Brooks, the 2020 Gershwin Prize recipient, ably performed these top 10 Hot 100 hits in separate spots on the show. Kim Bullard’s accordion break in the torch song “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” was intriguing and highly effective.
Porter, who also hosted the show, performed this song from the center aisle in the audience. In addition to being the hardest-rocking single Elton ever took to the top 10 on the Hot 100, this song speaks to the inner brat in all of us: Who wouldn’t occasionally like to cut loose and say “I don’t like those!/ My God, what’s that?”
The song still has the electric jolt that it brought to pop radio in 1974, when it went up against more sedate hits by the likes of John Denver and Olivia Newton-John. Porter (rather needlessly) said, “Listen, it’s 2024. I don’t want you to be offended by the word ‘bitch.’ The queer community uses it as a love letter.” If “bitch” could fly on the radio 50 (gulp) years ago, it’s a non-issue in this much more permissive era.
Even with 29 top 10 hits on the Hot 100 to choose from for his three-song mini-set, it’s interesting that Elton selected an album track, “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” (from 1972’s Honky Chateau). He also chose “Saturday Night’s Alright…,” a Stones-like rocker that, on Billboard’s 2022 list, Melinda Newman called “an unadulterated blend of youthful joy and aggression.” Elton was 26 when it was released. He’s now 77 – a reminder that youthfulness is an attitude, not a number.
“Your Song” is probably Elton’s most universally beloved song – and for good reason. The ballad marries a graceful melody to a wonderfully conversational lyric. “It may be quite simple,” Elton sings, and that simplicity is at the heart of the song’s appeal. In her remarks, Carole King called the song “perfection” – and she knows a thing or two about writing perfect pop songs.
Lusk, the lead singer of Gabriels, was probably the least well-known performer on the bill. Lusk performed “Are You Ready for Love” alongside Elton at the Glastonbury Festival last June, but he hasn’t really broken through in the U.S. yet.
His highly theatrical, falsetto performance of this smash, which got the audience on its feet, should raise his profile. This “spaced-out” song is one of the most eccentric songs in Elton’s catalog of hits. The choice in early 1974 to go with this as a single, rather than a more typical Elton track like “Harmony” or “Candle in the Wind,” was one of the boldest and ultimately smartest of his career.
The song ranked No. 7 on Billboard’s 2022 list of Elton’s best songs. Andrew Unterberger wrote “It plays almost like a parody of glam rock… Elton and Bernie may have ultimately been too tradition-bound at heart to really fit into glam full-time, but they have great fun trying on the furs for one song.”
This two-part opus, a highlight of Elton’s 1973 double-album masterwork Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, topped Billboard’s 2022 list of Elton’s 75 best songs. Metallica amped up the rock component considerably, taking it from about 6.5 to 10 (if not 11). The result was undoubtedly the hardest-rocking number in the history of the Gershwin Prize event. At night’s end, Bernie praised Elton’s band, calling them “the best band in the world – outside of Metallica, of course.”
We are so used to hearing this as a spunky, sassy pop song, can you even imagine it slowed-down? Well, damn if it doesn’t work that way too! Mitchell, the 2023 Gershwin Prize recipient, performed it as a jazzy, mid-tempo ballad, which brought out the song’s sly humor. She also changed some lyrics, with Elton and Bernie’s permission, which superfan Brandi Carlile said “is honestly the most Joni Mitchell thing I’ve ever heard of.”
Elton and Bernie wrote this song to celebrate Elton’s surviving some career and personal downs in the late ’70s and early ’80s. Those were ordinary struggles compared to the back-from-the-brink challenges Mitchell has overcome: Nine years ago, she suffered a brain aneurysm rupture, which required her to undergo physical therapy and learn to walk again. (That was unspoken, but obvious to people who know her story.) At one point, Mitchell waved the walking stick she still needs to get around in the air. That defiant gesture added to the song’s sense of uplift – and the show’s sense of triumph.