''Wonderful Crazy Night'' is the thirtieth studio album by English musician Elton John. It was released on 5 February 2016. It is John's first album since 2006's '' The Captain & the Kid'' to feature the Elton John Band and was written and recorded in 17 days. John's long-standing percussionist, Ray Cooper, makes his first appearance on any of John's albums since '' Made in England'' in 1995. This is
Kim Bullard
Kim Bullard is an American keyboardist, songwriter, record producer, and film composer. He has been making music since the 1970s and has performed extensively as a keyboard player with musical acts such as Elton John and Crosby, Stills, & Nash.
...
's first appearance on keyboards, replacing
Guy Babylon
Guy Babylon (December 20, 1956 – September 2, 2009) was an American keyboardist/composer, most noted for his work with Elton John.
Babylon was born in New Windsor, Maryland. He attended Francis Scott Key High School before moving on to the ...
, and when Matt Bissonette replaced Bob Birch on bass. The album debuted at number eight on the U.S ''Billboard 200'' with sales of 58,000 album-equivalent units sold.
Critical reception
''Wonderful Crazy Night '' received generally positive reviews from music critics. At
Metacritic
Metacritic is a website that aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created by Jason Dietz, Marc ...
, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream critics, the album received an average score of 70, which indicates "generally favorable reviews", based on 17 reviews.
Accolades
Track listing
Personnel
* Elton John – acoustic piano, lead vocals
*
Kim Bullard
Kim Bullard is an American keyboardist, songwriter, record producer, and film composer. He has been making music since the 1970s and has performed extensively as a keyboard player with musical acts such as Elton John and Crosby, Stills, & Nash.
...
– keyboards
*
Davey Johnstone
David William Logan Johnstone (born 6 May 1951) is a British rock guitarist and vocalist, best known for his long-time collaboration with Elton John as a member of the Elton John Band.
Career
Johnstone's first work was with Noel Murphy in ...
Nigel Olsson
Nigel Olsson (born 10 February 1949) is an English rock drummer and singer best known for his long-time affiliation with Elton John. A dynamic drummer and backing vocalist, Olsson helped establish the Elton John sound as a member of the Elton J ...
– drums, harmony vocals
* John Mahon – percussion, harmony vocals
* Ray Cooper – tambourine (3, 5, 8, 9)
* Tom Peterson – baritone saxophone
* Joe Sublett – tenor saxophone
* Jim Thomson – tenor saxophone
* John Grab – trombone
* Nick Lane – trombone
* William Roper – tuba
* Allen Fogle –
French horn
The French horn (since the 1930s known simply as the horn in professional music circles) is a brass instrument made of tubing wrapped into a coil with a flared bell. The double horn in F/B (technically a variety of German horn) is the horn most ...
* Dylan Hart – French horn
* Gabe Witcher – horn arrangements and conductor
*
Ken Stacey
Ken Stacey (born in Los Angeles, California) is an American lead singer, guitarist, songwriter, session vocalist and backing vocalist.
Stacey has worked with Michael Jackson, Phil Collins, Johnny Hallyday, Natalie Jackson, Richard Marx, and P ...
– harmony vocals
Production
* Producers – Elton John and T Bone Burnett
* Associate producer – Kylie Kempster
* Recorded and mixed by Jason Wormer
* Second engineers – Gabriel Burch, Jeff Gartenbaum, Vanessa Parr and Alex Williams.
* Additional engineer – Vanessa Parr
* Digital editing – Mike Piersante
* Mastered by