The Captain & the Kid is the twenty-eighth studio album by British musician Elton John, released in 2006. It is his second autobiographical album with lyricist Bernie Taupin, picking up where Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975) left off. The Captain & the Kid chronicles the events in their lives over the intervening three decades.
The Captain & the Kid reached No. 6 on the UK Albums Chart, a considerable improvement over the performance of John's preceding Peachtree Road in 2004, which peaked at No. 21. Captain reached No. 18 on the US Billboard 200, before quickly falling off the charts. At concerts in early 2007, John made clear his dissatisfaction with Interscope Records' promotion of the album, having threatened to terminate his contract with the label and because of that, John did not release a solo album again until 2013's The Diving Board.
Contents
Background
According to Bernie Taupin, Elton John's manager at the time, Merck Mercuriadis, suggested in 2005 that John and Taupin write a follow-up to Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy.
Interscope Records announced that there would be no physical single released from this album as the emphasis was on presenting the album as a body of work, making the album his third after Tumbleweed Connection and Leather Jackets to lack any Top 40 singles on the UK singles chart (as John, during that time, still hit the Top 40 in the US Adult Contemporary chart).
However, a radio single would be released in "The Bridge". The album's booklet has photos of John and Taupin all throughout their career, and in the lyrics section, two songs are included, "Across the River Thames" and "12", which do not appear on the album. "Across the River Thames" was available as a free download to anyone who played the CD on a computer. The song "And the House Fell Down" is based (metaphorically) on the story The Three Little Pigs. This is the first album recorded by John and Taupin to show them together on the front cover.
It was also the last studio album to feature Guy Babylon on keyboards; he died in 2009. This was also Bob Birch's last appearance on any of John's solo studio albums before his own death in August 2012 (Birch last appeared on the Gnomeo and Juliet soundtrack).
Personnel
Musicians
Elton John – vocals, acoustic piano
Guy Babylon – keyboards, arrangements
Davey Johnstone – guitars, banjo, mandolin, harmonica, backing vocals, musical director
Bob Birch – bass, backing vocals
Nigel Olsson – drums, backing vocals
John Mahon – percussion, backing vocals
Matt Still – backing vocals
Arthur – "woof-bells"
Producer Matt Still noted during an interview that in "Just Like Noah's Ark", John's black and white spaniel dog Arthur "barked in the middle of [the recording], because John Mahon was playing a cowbell, and the cowbell freaked him out. So he ran over to John and started barking at him right in the middle of a take. It's funny, just randomly he happened to hit the beats and he barked in time. So I recorded it and we actually kept him in there."
The sampled "woof-bells" can be heard in place of the cowbell on the track.
Production
Elton John – producer
Matt Still – producer, recording, mixing
Tom Rickert – assistant engineer
Dan Porter – assistant mix engineer
Bob Ludwig – mastering at Gateway Mastering (Portland, Maine)
Adrian Collee – studio coordinator
Bob Halley – director of Ops
Rick Salazar – guitar technician
Chris Sobchack – drum technician
Andy Williams – piano tuner
John Antenucci – studio manager for Center Stage
Lucy Lawler – studio administrator
Kent Smith – production manager
Ryan McGinley – cover photography
David Costa – art direction, design
Keith Bradley – management
Merck Mercuriadis – management
Frank Presland – management