Music

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.