Track Listing

1. Empty Sky
2. Val-Hala
3. Western Ford Gateway
4. Hymn 2000
5. Lady What's Tomorrow
6. Sails
7. The Scaffold
8. Skyline Pigeon
9. Gulliver/It's Hay Chewed
10. Lady Samantha
11. All Across The Havens
12. It's Me That You Need
13. Just Like Strange Rain

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #9304 in Music
• Released on: 1995-05-10
• Number of discs: 1
• Formats: Original recording reissued, Original recording remastered
• Dimensions: .21 pounds
• Running time: 54 minutes

CD Description
Not released in the U.S. until 1975, after he'd achieved superstardom, Elton John's first album is as much a part of late-'60s blues-rock and the burgeoning singer-songwriter movement as it is part of the grandiose pop catalogue that wouldsoon follow. The eight-minute-plus title song includes a long flute-harmonica-piano jam that wouldn't have been out of place on a Traffic album; the closing "Gulliver/It's Hay Chewed/Reprise" connects a waltz-time requiem with an acoustic-jazz instrumental and (rather audiciously for an unknown singer's debut) a reprise of bits from every song on the album.
Elsewhere, one can find a Lennonesque melody on "WesternFord Gateway", a breezy Summer-Of-Love feel on "Hymn 2000",and recurring imagery of a caged bird dreaming of flying away--most notably in the title song and the harsichord-and-organ tune "Skyline Pigeon". It all bursts with pop-rock melodicism, even when John was adding music to some of collaborator Bernie Taupin's most opaque, image-heavy lyrics. John would later call EMPTY SKY a "naive" record, but it contains the seeds of almost everything he would eventually do.

Customer Reviews

The Lucky Locket hangs around your precious neck.
Elton’s first album has been called naive and under produced, and that the only half-decent song on it is ‘Skyline Pigeon’. I disagree with this thinking. The opening track ‘Empty Sky’ offers the listener a wonderful example of the partnership between Bernie and Elton. The lyrics show the genesis of Bernie’s awareness of emotional situations and his interest in isolation and loss, a theme that runs through the band’s early work. The Album also shows Elton’s roots in music with some wonderful riffs and use of instruments. I don’t disagree that he went on to make much better work, however I like subject matter of these songs and I like the composition.

If you pick up the classic year’s version, you will also be treated to ‘Lady Samantha’ Elton first single. Hard to believe it never charted in 1969.

Elton's classic debut!
Although I cannot deny he went on to do much better work, Elton John's first album Empty Sky is a good album. My favourites are the touching 'Skyline Pigeon' and the western-themed 'Western Ford Gateway' and 'Empty Sky' is the best on the album. 'Hymn 2000' is an oddly likeable song while 'Lady What's Tomorrow' is the song that's closest to sounding like a classic Elton song. A solid effort, but only brought down by the fact that Elton blew it away with what was to come.

(Almost) 40 Years On!
Hey! I got the first 4 Elton albums - And that's it! Bought Empty Sky, from new, In Coventry, but don't hold it against me. On the strength of Lady Samantha... Bought the first 4 then he got old - And now I listen to Beck, Shearwater, Bon Iver, Decemberists and Wolf Parade. Nuff said...