Master musical arranger Paul Buckmaster died last month. I only got to know about it when his obituary appeared in the Guardian. I first knowingly encountered Buckmaster’s work on Elton John’s second album Elton John but I had heard it before on David Bowie’s Space Oddity.

Buckmaster’s importance to the overall sound of that eponymous album is most to the fore on Sixty Years On. I hadn’t heard anything like that on a pop record before (not even from The Beatles) except possibly for the orchestral backing to Simon and Garfunkel’s Old Friends on the Bookends album.

Elton John: Sixty Years On

Elton’s next two studio albums Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water also used Buckmaster’s arrangements to great effect as did his film score for Friends but his presence was missing on Honky Chateau. Elton turned to Buckmaster again with the stunning Have Mercy on the Criminal from Don’t Shoot me I’m Only the Piano Player.

Elton John: Have Mercy on the Criminal

Paul John Buckmaster: 13/6/1946 – 7/11/2017. So it goes.

Another of the good lady’s favourites. I bought the album Too Low For Zero for her Christmas that year on the basis of this.

The track is an almost perfect latter day popular song, with a great Stevie Wonder harmonica solo. I especially liked the lyrical echoes of Amoreena from Tumbleweed Connection.

It’s also unusual in the John canon for giving a writing credit to Elton’s long time guitarist Davey Johnstone.

Elton wears a wig with a quiff in this. It suits him!

Elton John: I Guess That’s Why They Call it the Blues