We’re very excited to announce that the ATL Collective is back on Thursday, November 14th at 8pm (doors at 6:30) to revive Sir Elton John’s Tumbleweed Connection. This is the Collective’s first presentation of anything by the flamboyant and prolific knight (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, incidentally), and we’re all pretty pumped up about it (feel a little like rocket men ourselves thinking about). Mr. Nathan Angelo will curate the show, and we can think of no one better to match Elton’s intensity and energy, or his style for that matter.

Recorded in March of 1970 at London’s Trident Studios and released on October 30, 1970, Tumbleweed Connection is a concept loosely about the American west, the frontier, the land of the buffalo and the cowboy. It’s not necessarily the image most of us of have of Sir Elton, but he pulls it off. That’s thanks in a large part to the lyrics written by his longtime writing partner Bernie Taupin. The two penned all the songs on the album, except for “Love Song.”

The arrangements are soaring. Strings and horns. Piano, of course. And Elton’s massive vocals. Perhaps “Amorenna” is the most enduring song on the collection. It appeared in the opening credits of Pacino’s Dog Day Afternoon. But the album also contains “Burn Down the Mission,” “Ballad of a Well-Known Gun,” “Where to Now St. Peter” and “Son of Your Father.”

Lineup

• Nathan Angelo
• The Shadowboxers