O/T - Elton John "Harmony"

EdisonLite wrote: I agree, too. Never understood why "Harmony" wasn't a single

I recall reading both "Candle In the Wind" and "Harmony" were potentially slated to be the follow up single to the hit song "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road". DJM Records in England generally made the decisions about single releases with Elton contributing a non-LP B-side to give more value to the 45 (Elton was admittedly a chart fan like all of us here).

Elton heard from USA MCA Records that "Bennie & The Jets" was getting unsolicited R&B/Soul airplay in select large markets. I suspect part of the charm was the spacey keyboards reminiscent of Bernie Worrell's work in Parliament/Funkadelic. I even recall a story from an ex-boss of mine who worked in a Philadelphia record store recalling he couldn't figure out why so many Black people were buying the double LP 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' album when the only two singles out were "Saturday Night's Alright For Fighting" & the title track (both cuts with limited appeal to Black audiences).

MCA asked Elton if they could release "Bennie" as a single to capitalize on the unsolicited R&B/Soul airplay and Elton authorized it because he was a big fan of R&B and he was impressed that the Black audience was digging one of his cuts.

That helps explain why "Bennie" did not have a non-LP B-side. Possibly MCA chose "Harmony" for the B-side to hedge against Pop radio not embracing the weird (& wonderful) "Bennie".

By the time "Bennie" was the next USA single, DJM England chose "Candle In The Wind", so MCA's plan was to issue "Candle In The Wind" as the set's 4th single, but MCA received word that a brand-new track ("Don't Let The Sun Go Down On Me") was almost ready to be pressed so that's why "Candle" wasn't worked in the USA.

I cannot recall where I received much of this information, but I suspect some of it came from reading Cashbox & Record World magazines at a record store (Apex Music Korner) when I was a kid.

Andy

I think Rosalie Trombley, the music director at CKLW in the Windsor/Detroit market, was also a big reason Bennie & The Jets was such a big song in the black community since CKLW was so huge not only in Detroit but as far east as Cleveland and here in Erie, PA. They, at one point in 1974 or so, had Elton on the air as a guest DJ one day.