are always welcome
When guitarist, backing vocalist and Music Director Davey Johnstone steps on to the stage at the SECC in Glasgow, Scotland (just about 52 miles from his home town of Edinburgh) Wednesday night, he will do so for a remarkable 2,000th time as a member of the Elton John Band.
No, that is not a typo.
Thirty-seven years, four months and five days after his first show on February 5, 1972, Davey will once again strap on his guitar and stand center stage, as he has done on an average of once a week over that stretch of time. To put it another way, if you worked five days a week and had three weeks off per year for vacation, you would have to show up to work every day for eight years to match Davey's attendance mark.
Two days before the milestone concert, Davey spoke with eltonjohn.com about his thoughts on the anniversary, his beginnings, and his role in Elton's career over the past thirty-eight years.
Here, in Davey's own words, is Part One of our two-part commemoration of the achievement, with Part Two to follow tomorrow. As a bonus, you can also now view the Davey Johnstone portion of the Rocket Club's Elton John Band Pages, by clicking here. 
And you can listen to Sir Elton John introduce Davey at his 2,000th show here. 
PART 1
Elton and I were laughing about this the other day, actually. He said, "2000?...It feels like we've done 2000 this year." It's funny, but it's true. It's a lot of shows. I just can't believe the amount of success we've had over the years with these live shows. Live is where it's at now. You can go out there and people will still come to see and hear the music that got them through their lives...that's a cool feeling. I know it sounds cliché, but it's a very cool thing.
We all have such a great time doing the gigs. It's a lot of fun. In fact, the other day I was walking down the hall after the last Face To Face gig we did, in Montreal, and I hear "Davey!" really loud and I turn around and it's Elton and he said "Excellent!" Excellent gig, you know? And when you hear that after all this time, something's working right.
The funny thing is nowadays, because we get so many people coming back to the concerts and bringing their kids and even bringing their grand-kids, it's quite obvious that the music touched them so deeply. It got them through parts of their lives, or reminds them of things that happened in their lives, and that's a testament to those early days, you know?
That's one of the nicest compliments you can get, when somebody says they grew up with your music. It's like, Wow." When I go out for a walk I may get stopped by a couple of people and they may say a couple of nice things...and that is great. I love that. But I don't need more than that, and I've never been looking for more than that.
I think maybe I had only three guitars, a banjo and a mandolin back at my first show with Elton...and I had to tune them up right there on the stage! A whole different kettle of fish than what I have now (laughs). I remember I was totally nervous that night at the Royal Festival Hall. I was not only doing the Elton-and-the-band set, when we were debuting Honky Chateau, but I was part of the orchestra part of the show as well. That was quite scary, sitting between (bassist) Herbie Flowers and (drummer) Barry Morgan at not quite twenty years old!
And then we played the band set, and I didn't have that much knowledge of electronics. We were doing Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters, and I turned around with my mandolin and, not thinking of it being an acoustic instrument, pointed it straight at the amplifier. And this enormous wall of feedback came screaming out. Eventually when I realized what it was, having deafening the audience, I turned back. Elton kind of looked over at me and we shared a bit of a giggle. It just sticks in my mind. I was thinking, "Well, I won't do that again!" And I guess, after so many gigs, it's something that I never did do again...unless I'm looking to find some really heavy feedback, which of course I do nowadays sometimes. But then it was like, "Ok, here's some feedback in the Royal Festival Hall." It was pretty funny.
I had played some electric guitar before working with Elton, but at the beginning there was more of an uncertainty knowing what would be the correct part to play. That was my forte on all the different acoustic instruments, but when it came to the electric guitar I really didn't know what was expected of me. At the time I felt like, "Well, does he want me to play like Caleb...does he want me to play like Jeff Beck...?"
I was a huge Beatles and Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin fan long before I joined Elton. I mean, Keith Richards influenced me so much. If you listen to The Bitch Is Back, that is an open G tuning that is similar to what Keith uses on Brown Sugar and other tracks. Anyway, it just took me a couple of years to really feel comfortable with the electric guitar. But if you play acoustic you can play electric...it just took me some time to develop my own style.
The one who really helped me more than anybody was Clive Franks (Elton's live sound engineer and then-member of the studio team). Clive basically walked in to the studio one time during Don't Shoot Me and said, "Davey, do you mind if I change the amp settings?" I said, "Go ahead," and he just turned everything full up. Everything. Every single knob went up to "11." And then we did Have Mercy On The Criminal, and that's what really made me aware of the possibilities...of where I could take it. Elton's a frustrated guitar player anyway (laughing). He wishes he was Pete Townshend, and do a giant arm-windmill...which he emulates on stage sometimes. He adores the guitar - and I think that's one reason why we're still together. We'll sit down with the piano and the guitar and he'll say "Well, do you like this chord...or do you like that chord...?" So, there's still very much a lot of collaboration that goes on.
Elton has often told the story of how we took the SS France to New York (during the writing for Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy) - and we had an hour every day in this room on the ship to write stuff for the album. So there was only a piano and an acoustic guitar, and it would be him and me for an hour in a very small room every day for the five days of the crossing. So when he was writing the song Captain Fantastic, he was playing the chords and he had this concept, and I just came up with the opening riff. Sometimes I'll come up with a guitar riff, or an idea for a part. But that's my job, you know? But other times, like on that guitar lick on Candle In The Wind...that was Elton's idea. That was so cool, when he sang to me what he heard; that little lick at the end of the chorus. He often has great ideas for riffs and parts that I can play. And sometimes I will play them note for note, and sometimes I will just develop them. The same will apply when he's writing something...I might say, "Try this chord instead of that chord there." But that's how it's done; it's very much a collaborative effort - it's always been that way, and I'm sure it's always going to be that way.
It's not always easy putting piano and guitar parts together. The inversions are very difficult. Piano players, if they're good, like Elton, tend to use a lot of black keys...which means you're playing in a lot of flat keys or sharp keys. And a lot of guitar players, they play in E, A, G, D, C...that's about it. But I've learned over the years to play in E-flat and B-flat and F-sharp...it's really rounded my playing off. It's made me work a lot harder on my playing, which I like. It's also given me cause to use obscure tunings. Like on Rocket Man, there's something like four acoustic guitar parts on that track, and they're all tuned to an open B-flat...which is really bizarre. But it's a really cool sound, and it really makes the chords sparkle. Suddenly, when the background and the acoustic guitar come in, you've got this great big sparkly sound. And that's one of the things that I brought to his music. Not just the "folk" kind of aspect, but the different colorations you get from an acoustic guitar. And the way I approached the electric guitar was different. I wasn't emulating anybody, I was just doing what came naturally to me.
My career with Elton sort of began a month or so before the Madman Across The Water sessions. (Producer) Gus Dudgeon brought me on to play on the album of Bernie's poetry. He said, "We're going to do this acoustic music while Bernie's speaking poetry, and it's kind of off the cuff stuff..." So that was great fun to do. And then that led to Madman...and the rest, as they say, is history.
It was amazing for me. I was getting a lot work in those days, and I think the same week I did Madman I did some tracks for Cat Stevens on one of his albums. And he was interested in having me work with him as well, but when I got the call from Elton it was like, "Now, this is a guy who I think has got an awful lot to offer." I just knew in my heart that there was going to be a long road ahead of us...and God, was I right about that!
Continue on to Part 2
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