Elton John will release his first solo studio album in seven years, The Diving Board, on September 24 via Capitol Records. While Elton released The Union in 2010 with Leon Russell, his last solo effort was 2006’s The Captain and the Kid.
The Diving Board is a more basic album then recent efforts, returning to a piano, bass and drums lineup. Elton commented “In many ways, I feel like I’m starting again, making records. Several years ago when beginning to work with T Bone [Burnett, producer] and being in the studio with Leon Russell for The Union, I had to ask myself, ‘What kind of music do I really want to make?’, and I realized that I had to go back to go forward again. I needed to strip away the excesses and get back to the core of what I do as an artist. That’s what The Diving Board represents. I’m incredibly excited about every aspect of this album: The performances, T Bone’s production, Bernie’s lyrics and the songs we’ve created. The Diving Board is the album I’ve been waiting to make for decades.”
Burnett saw Elton perform during his week of shows at the Troubadour in Los Angeles in 1970. “Those shows never left me. A three piece band – piano, bass, and drums, like one enormous instrument – just killing it. So we started from there. I wanted to be able to superimpose this recording over my memory of the sound and the wild intelligence of those shows. From that perspective, forty years down the road, The Diving Board is an album of music by a master at the peak of his artistic powers.”
The album will be available in a variety of formats including Standard, Deluxe, Super-Deluxe and a 180-gram 2-Disc Vinyl set. The Deluxe and Super-Deluxe editions will include a bonus track plus three live performances of songs from the album recorded during a preview performance in April at Capitol Records, Los Angeles.
The Super-Deluxe version comes in a special box with the Deluxe version of the CD, the vinyl LP, a DVD of the Capitol Records show, a photo book and an art print.
Track List:
- Oceans Away
- Oscar Wilde Gets Out
- A Town Called Jubilee
- The Ballad of Blind Tom
- Dream #1
- My Quicksand
- Can’t Stay Alone Tonight
- Voyeur
- Home Again
- Take This Dirty Water
- Dream #2
- The New Fever Waltz
- Mexican Vacation (Kids In The Candlelight)
- Dream #3
- The Diving Board
- Candlelit Bedroom [Deluxe & Super-Deluxe Versions]
- Home Again (live from Capitol Studios) [Deluxe & Super-Deluxe Versions]
- Mexican Vacation (Kids In The Candlelight) (live from Capitol Studios) [Deluxe & Super-Deluxe Versions]
- The New Fever Waltz (live from Capitol Studios) [Deluxe & Super-Deluxe Versions]
