Bernie Tuapin Art at the Bill Lowe Art Gallery
Photo courtesy of Nib Lowe Gallery
In the blockbuster biopic Rocketman, Bernie Taupin's character is the English language wordsmith who met Elton John at a buffet in 1967 and became the stalwart friend who stood by his songwriting partner through decades of stardom and tumult. Atlantans too may recognize Taupin as the lyricist who wrote dozens of radio hits (from "Tiny Dancer" to "I'm Still Standing") with John, including the album, Peachtree Road, which was recorded in our city and celebrated at a legendary concert at the Tabernacle in 2004. The pair continues to interact, but Taupin has spent the by few years focused primarily on his artwork, which he creates at his studio in California and labels as "musical archaeology." His paintings and assemblages reference Americana, country music, the U.S. flag, and establish objects. Below, Taupin talks about his upcoming exhibition at Neb Lowe Gallery (which opens October 25), his writing process, and his friendship with John.
Y'all've written lyrics for Elton John since you were 17 and take pursued painting since the 1990s. Exercise you think creating art before you met Elton?
Not especially, simply I've had an appreciation of art since I was a kid sitting on my mother's knee, looking at a coffee tabular array book of J.M.Due west. Turner's nautical work and being fascinated by the colors and the storylines. My female parent was a driving force in everything artistic in my life. She was very Bohemian. When I was growing upwardly in the N of England during the 1950s, going to schoolhouse was a catapult to put kids on the line in factories. Anybody with aspirations beyond the mill was sort of frowned upon. My mother said, "Go ahead and do what y'all feel you need to exercise." So, I took my pb from her.
Your work is influenced by abstract expressionists including Anselm Kiefer, Jasper Johns, Hans Hofmann, and others. Is that partly a effect of being exposed to art while going on tour [with Elton] in the early days?
That commenced from the time I moved to London in the 1960s during the onslaught of popular art, which had a huge effect on me then, and fifty-fifty more than and then when I wound up in New York afterward. We always seemed to be in New York City when information technology was cold, so I would seek refuge in places similar MoMA and other art galleries. Those visits were the breeding footing for the art I'd somewhen brand after I stopped my transient lifestyle. I remember one huge Kiefer piece I'd stare at because of the storytelling in it. The dazzler of art, for me, is that it'south up to the viewers to come up with their own interpretations.
1 piece in your show is chosen "Evolution," and it's an aggregation of record sleeves, cassettes, and 8-runway tapes featuring familiar faces from Frank Sinatra and Paul Simon to Alice Cooper and Michael Jackson. Are you contrasting tangible analog objects with the virtual realm or is this work a statement almost how everything, including recorded music, is disposable?
My works are [not statements so much equally] reactionary ideas, momentary ideas. I don't necessarily pre-think things. Found objects are important for me; anything I feel could be useful becomes office of my own [art] smorgasbord. "Development" is not a cry for a simpler time, information technology's about the way music has developed and is heard. This piece is nearly the arc of [physical] music from vinyl to CD and back to vinyl over again. I only play vinyl at abode, because it's simply the best manner of listening to music. A piece of art is like a lyric. I allow people interpret it based upon what they experience. It's not that important what I feel … Whether it'south songwriting, any form of writing, production, or art, [the purpose] is to wake upward the mind. That'south why I've always loved abstract fine art because it made me think and instilled in me a desire to create.
Photograph courtesy of Bill Lowe Gallery
Many of your paintings feature the American flag [sometimes deconstructed or burned], forth with parts of musical instruments and bits of lyrics, including on the cover of the 2018 Restoration album, a compilation of yours and Elton'due south hits performed past today'due south tiptop state artists. Was creating this piece a total-circle moment for you, since your earliest idols were American country singers such as Johnny Cash [who wrote the 1974 vocal, "Ragged Erstwhile Flag"], Marty Robbins, and Johnny Horton?
I've said before that I was a closeted state fan [when I was immature] because country music was not cool. Back so, people [in England] were listening to American stone and roll, but Elvis didn't tell me stories. Merle Haggard was my Beatles. I loved the Beatles, just at the aforementioned time, I was listening to American blues, country, and folk, people like Woody Guthrie, Huddie Ledbetter [Lead Belly], Sonny Terry, and Brownie McGhee. It was like a history lesson. Horton's "The Battle of New Orleans," "Sink the Bismarck," "North to Alaska," Greenbacks singing about trains and the trials of [Native Americans], and Robbins's trail songs—they were like movies to me. That's what fabricated me want to write sort of "mini-movies" in songs and tell stories through my art.
You turned your childhood dream of being a cowboy into reality past buying a ranch in California and condign an American citizen in 1990. You also participated in charity projects for U.S. armed forces veterans. Has America met your expectations?
Kids of my generation were incredibly influenced by American culture, music, television, movies, books, whatever. My contemporaries wanted to emulate it. I wanted to go further than that. I ever felt I never belonged [in England], just that I belonged here [in America]. I came here in 1970 and never wanted to leave. So everything I do now, I think of myself as wholly American. I'm very passionate about that, and I remember it comes across in my work.
Elton has said your writing appealed to him in the beginning because you didn't structure songs in a typical verse/chorus/bridge format. Your phrases were wordier, which allowed him to sing more.
I think that's simply considering when I was younger I was flying past the seat of my pants [laughs]. I was really writing a sort of stream of consciousness. I wouldn't telephone call it poetry. If yous want to get my hackles upward, telephone call me a poet, because that'southward the final matter I am. I'm a lyricist. Back and then I was not musically trained. I was just trying desperately to be absurd and be in bear on with the times . . . I had to write more than in a pop vein considering I knew that writing the kind of country stuff that I was listening to was not gonna wing. But luckily after releasing a couple of albums [with Elton] and hearing American stone bands similar The Ring doing songs based on land, gospel, and blues, and inventing what is now known equally Americana music, that was a release to me. It was like, "Whoa, people tin can actually, nosotros can actually practise that?" So that was when I embraced my inner closeted country songwriter and we created [the 1970 Elton John album] Tumbleweed Connection.
In the Rocketman film, y'all [portrayed by Jamie Bong] try to accept back a sheet of paper containing the "Edge Vocal" lyrics from Elton [Taron Egerton], but it's too late because he says he's already set the words to music. Yous really wrote those words 2 years after you met Elton and the vocal was released on Elton's eponymous starting time album in 1970. Aretha Franklin did her own version of the vocal in 1972, too blending those Americana genres of country, gospel, and blues you admired. Today, one could read a lot into those verses, from the struggle of refugees to border walls, racism, political division, and more. Am I overthinking it?
Aye [laughs], I don't know. I'd have to become back and await at it. I don't spend a lot of time listening to our own music. I'm not David Crosby [laughs]. I've got way too much to do than to reconnect with sometime songs and try and effigy out where, when, and why I wrote them.
Photograph courtesy of Bill Lowe Gallery
Your lyrics span decades and mark very specific moments in our lives. For a Gen-Xer like me, Elton and George Michael performing "Don't Allow the Sun Become Downwards on Me" at Live Aid in 1985 and their reprisal of the song at the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation concert in 1992 brought cultural awareness nigh global poverty and the AIDS crisis. Elton's performance of your re-worked "Candle in the Air current" at Princess Diana's funeral in 1997 is also an enduring memory. Exercise you have whatever career moments where you're like, "Wow, we really got that right?"
No, I think you're e'er waiting for the peak, you know? The minute you stop looking for the summit, you lot might as well close up your case and go home. I'm not nostalgic at all. I'm always looking for the next best thing. Trying to recollect is really non important to me. Down the road, around the corner, in my studio right now, that'due south important. Connecting with Elton, the next concert I become to, or the next result I do . . . I'yard ever going frontward.
In a recent New York Times review of Elton John's new autobiography, Me, the critic wrote, "It's a gift to finally hear from someone who has delivered and so many of Bernie Taupin's words and and so few of his own." In what means does Elton singing your words tell the story of your life?
In the Eye Ages, he probably would have been the town crier. I don't desire to be complimentary, but without him, I wouldn't have a voice. It'due south one matter to tell a story and write the story. Only unless you embrace the story, melodically, with music that is interesting, tasteful, and appealing, it's not gonna mean a matter, and it's not going to reach the masses. Y'all know, I could just publish lyrics in a pamphlet and put information technology out, simply who's going to read that? No 1. And then he'south the messenger. Without him, I wouldn't accept a vocalisation. It's a beautiful thing, not something I want to overthink. It simply happened and it works.
If y'all go: Bernie Taupin: Lost & Found opens to the public on Fri, Oct 25th from 6-9 P.M., and runs through the stop of November at Beak Lowe Gallery in Miami Circle.
Source: https://www.atlantamagazine.com/news-culture-articles/bernie-taupin-on-writing-songs-for-elton-john-rocketman-and-his-upcoming-art-exhibition-in-atlanta/
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