Sleeping With the Past

For Elton John, the 1980s was a decade that resulted in several albums, with varying tone, consistency, and quality across the albums and often within them. For his 1989 album "Sleeping With The Past", he and lyricist Bernie Taupin decided to make an album consistent in tone and quality, based on the classic soul and R&B Records they both loved. To start with, Elton hired a new rhythm section of Romeo Williams on bass and Johnathan "Sugarfoot" Moffet on drums, veterans of various soul records recruited by guitarist Davey Johnstone specifically for their R&B backgrounds. Also new to the band was keyboard player Guy Babylon, a Johnstone recruit who would be a key figure in the Elton story until his death in 2009. The album was recorded at Puk Studios in Denmark over a period of 6 months, under producer Chris Thomas.

The album opens with "Durban Deep," a solid opener even if the heavily synthesized production dates it a little. Some nice electric guitar work from Davey Johnstone livens the song named for a mine in South Africa, which concerns the plight of construction workers. Next is the spiritually angled "Healing Hands," which starts just with Johnathan Moffet's drums before Elton's piano and Davey's guitar join in. It also features Elton's female backing vocalists at the time: Marlena Jeter , Natalie Jackson and Mortonette Jenkins. It has a really nice soulful chorus. While again the reliance on 80s synthesizers is distracting, it does not hurt the song that much; the song was in fact the first of four singles pulled from the record.

"Whispers" starts once again with Moffet's drums before the keyboards come in. Once again the overreliance on synthesizers keeps the song from being that memorable. It just sounds too hollow and dated to me.

The next cut, "Club At The End Of the Street," is a really good song and a quite successful single. Beginning with a great drum fill from Moffet, the song features a catchy chorus, exceptional background vocals, and a great saxophone solo by Vince Denham. By Elton's sales standards the song was a relatively minor hit but Elton liked the song enough to include it on his "Greatest Hits Live" (aka "One Night Only") album, which was recorded over two nights in 2000.

Next is the title track. Once again led off by a "Sugarfoot" drumfill, the track features prominent electric guitar from Davey Johnstone and more great, soulful work from the backing vocalists.

Another fill from "Sugarfoot" brings us into "Stones throw from Hurtin'," in which Elton sings in a rather unusual high-pitched voice: if you heard the song out of context, you probably would not know it was him. The song is patterned after Marvin Gaye's "I Heard it Through the Grapevine," but in reality it falls well short of the standard set by that great song. While it's got some nice guitar work from Davey , it's really not that memorable.

Up next and undoubtedly the album's highlight is (believe it or not) Elton's first solo UK Number 1 single "Sacrifice." (Solo because his Kiki Dee duet "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" also reached the UK top spot years earlier.) Lyricist Bernie Taupin described the theme of the song in this way: "If "Your Song" is the song describing the early beginnings of a relationship, "Sacrifice" is about the end of a relationship." Taupin was going through a divorce at the time he wrote it. While one could complain about the overly-synthesized instrumentation here, the song and lyric are strong enough that it is easily overlooked. It is simply one of the best songs in the John/Taupin canon--a point reinforced to me by the tremendous version done by Don Henley and Vince Gill on Restoration, one of two tribute albums to John/Taupin collaborations released with Elton and Bernie's blessing in 2018.

"I Never Knew Her Name" is an okay song with great guitar work from Davey and yet more strong work from the backing vocalists. Thematically it is similar to "Kiss The Bride" from Too Low For Zero in that it is about loving another mans wife.

Another "Sugarfoot" fill introduces "Amazes Me" which is a showcase for Elton's soulful female backing vocalists , Marlena Jeter, Natalie Jackson and Mortonette Jenkins . About halfway through the song Davey Johnstone is let loose for a masterful electric guitar solo.

Closing the album is "Blue Avenue," a worthy song that deals with a form of addiction, ironically enough. It ends the album and the decade on a high note for Elton, making it a bit easier to understand the path to his enormous successes of the 1990s. Where there had been some worry that Elton was indeed "sleeping in the past," this solid album showed that he still could find a path forward.