Great musicians: Elliott Smith - The pianist

Time to continue my Great musicians series. One of the artistes who has absolutely meant the most to me in my life so far, is the brilliant Elliott Smith. Pages upon pages have been written about Elliott and his depression and possible suicide. But enough about that for now, instead I am going to focus on the extraordinary good musician he was and through a series of clips and blog posts I am gonna give you a peak into that.
I start the series up with giving you two clips that portrays Elliott the pianist and at the same time the positive Elliott, and that he could be very happy and cheerful. Among other things he does a brilliant moonwalk. He also play some Rachmaninov, famous as one of the hardest things to play on piano ever. Being a classically trained pianist myself, I am so impressed with his technique too. It just look so effortless. This is a man who as considered a child prodigy on piano, and you can tell. Turned out that he could do most other things in music too, he plays all of the instruments on his albums most of the time, but more of that in the next parts.
Here he is in the studio:



The songs he were playing here were the intro for a cover of the The Beatles song "Because", "Figure 8" and "Everything means nothing to me" Only the last one has been released. One of my favorites when it comes to great arrengments

And here he is playing Rachmaninov:

Great live clips and great lyrics: Elton John -Rocket Man

For years and years I have kind of hated Elton John, but since this song was on that before mentioned commercial I have really fallen in love with it. This is a great live version of Elton in 1976 sans wig or hat. But with big glasses and lovely pianoplaying.



I also have fallen totally in love with the lyrics:
She packed my bags last night pre-flight
Zero hour nine a.m.
And I'm gonna be high as a kite by then
I miss the earth so much I miss my wife
It's lonely out in space
On such a timeless flight

And I think it's gonna be a long long time
Till touch down brings me round again to find
I'm not the man they think I am at home
Oh no no no I'm a rocket man
Rocket man burning out his fuse up here alone

Mars ain't the kind of place to raise your kids
In fact it's cold as hell
And there's no one there to raise them if you did
And all this science I don't understand
It's just my job five days a week
A rocket man, a rocket man

And I think it's gonna be a long long time...