Urpu Kallio has handed over the Listening Post column to a new independent writer, Miquel Sala. In Listening Post the views expressed are personal to the writer and might not be shared by eltonjohn.world editorial staff. This is Miquel’s inaugural column for eltonjohn.world

Sometimes the Elton world keeps expanding in unexpected ways. Not only through the musicians who once stood beside Elton John, but through the artists who grew up inside those records. Next guest is someone who was hooked by “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” after hearing it on a car radio back in the 1970s — ah! on the radio! — just like so many of us. But how does someone become an Elton fan in Tripoli, Libya, during the mid-70s? And how does that fascination slowly evolve from being an eltonite into becoming a musician himself?

For David Scott Crawford, music and distance seem deeply connected. During COVID, long drives across the American landscape became both escape and inspiration, listening to Tumbleweed Connection while crossing “places, mountains and deserts and plains and swamps and… everything,” as he recalls. Somewhere along those endless highways, the musical spirit behind The Penultimate Motel began to take shape.

And then came an almost impossible thought: if these songs deserved strings, why not dream big? Why not try to reach the architect behind some of Elton’s most cinematic recordings? “I actually called someone in Nashville and said: do you know how we can get ahold of Paul Buckmaster?” recalls Crawford. What happened next feels almost unreal. Buckmaster not only entered Crawford’s musical world, but became part of it. And he would not be the only figure connected to Elton’s universe to leave a mark on the album.

Matlock plays selections from the record, available on official platforms. One of those songs, Life Brought Me You, somehow says it all: how life, music, admiration and chance can unexpectedly cross paths.