Davey Johnstone, Nigel Olsson, Guy Babylon, Bob Birch and John Mahon. They're not household names, no -- but they're the longtime, steadfast supporting crew to one of the most legendary singer-songwriter-performers rock 'n' roll has ever claimed as its own.
Elton John is much more than a pianist. He's a pop icon, a rock 'n' roll prodigy, an enduring celebrity who charted a top 40 hit every year from 1970 to 1996. Anyone who has seen The Red Piano, the Elton John- and David LaChapelle-created show, knows John's immense talent and even greater catalog of material that has been subtly seeping into the human consciousness for more than 35 years. But nobody knows John's talent as well as his band.
"I've known him since 1971 when I first worked on his records, and he's just a very generous person, a very shy person -- although he's also incredibly smart, loud and brash," said Johnstone, the band's music director and guitarist. "We all try to protect him a little bit because of the way he is. When you're as creative as he is, you tend to get hurt."
When the proposition of a semi-permanent Las Vegas residency first surfaced for John and his band, most of whom are based in Los Angeles, the group met it with resistance and hesitance.
"We were all a little terrified," Johnstone said. "Until we went there, a lot of acts thought of Vegas as the graveyard, where you go at the end of your career. But we decided to make it a bit more pecial, and that's where David LaChapelle came in. He made some films and designed some props, and we picked the songs that would be best for this type of show, and it's a phenomenal show to do from our point.
"The crowds are great, the theater is great and the sound is solid."
Added his bandmate Olsson, Elton's drummer since the singer-songwriter's first dates in the recording studio in 1968, "I love the Vegas thing. It's so cool. The shows have been great, and we're out of there by 9 p.m., so we can go to a great restaurant, have a nice bottle of wine and go to bed early."
John's connection to Vegas goes further than his current temporary residence at Caesars. Just as Las Vegas has discovered musical theater in a big way in the last decade, bringing in musicals such as Hairspray and The Phantom of the Opera for permanent runs, so has John. The songwriter adapted his work in Disney's film version of The Lion King for the Broadway musical of the same name in 1998, and he also handled Disney's Aida in 2000 with lyricist Tim Rice, for which they received the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.
Most recently, John premiered his stage version of Billy Elliot on London's West End and continues his work on The Vampire Lestat, a musical based on the Anne Rice novels.
"That's yet another side of his mad career," Johnstone said. "It's one of the many aspects that make up Elton John these days.
"We help Elton when he's writing the songs. He tends to rely on us for confirmation that, 'Yeah, this song is good.' 'What about that one, you like that one?' 'Yeah, it's f-ing great.' Then we proceed to orchestrate it."
Olsson remembers the singer-songwriter's early days in the business, and he said John's current place in the pop canon makes perfect sense to him. They were rehearsing for a gig in the late '60s, but John was emphasizing the songwriting aspect of his career -- and definitely not performance or touring.
"But he did a gig at the Roundhouse in London," Olsson remembered, "and we helped him out with it, and eight bars into the first song we rehearsed, we knew that it was real and we needed to put a band together, and that this was going to be much more than just a songwriting gig for him." Added Johnstone: "He's a very special guy. And it's been a pleasure making this a career."