Today “The Lockdown Sessions” is released, the Elton John album that collects the songs recorded during the Covid pandemic, at a distance, in the last 18 months, in collaboration with various artists of the world music scene. In March 2020, after the Farewell Yellow Brick Road Tour was suspended due to the pandemic, Elton John began working on several projects with artists he had met during his “Rocket Hour” show on Apple Music. Thus was born one of his most daring and interesting records, entitled ‘The Lockdown Sessions’.
Anticipated by the single ‘Cold Heart (Pnau Remix)’ with Dua Lipa, the album is a heady musical journey through different genres, directed with refined skill by one of the greatest musicians of our time. “The Lockdown Sessions” is more than just a collaborative album, it’s a collection of 16 tracks with 10 unreleased tracks that celebrates the desire for unity and sees Elton John collaborate with an unrivaled array of artists that only he could put together. More than 20 artists spanning an incredibly wide range of genres, generations, cultures, continents and more, each contributing a unique style to the album. Also In “The Lockdown Sessions” Elton John collaborates, in five songs, with producer Andrew Watt, already winner of a Grammy.
EltonJohn said: “The last thing I expected to do in isolation was make an album. But as the pandemic progressed, one-off projects kept popping up. Some of the recording sessions had to be done at distance, via Zoom, which of course I had never done before. Some sessions were recorded with very strict safety rules: working with another artist, but separated by glass screens. The certain thing is that all the tracks on which I have worked on were really interesting and different, stuff completely different from anything I’m known for, stuff that took me out of my comfort zone into whole new territory. And I realized that there was something strangely familiar about working in this. way. Early in my career, in the late 1960s, I worked as a session man. Working with different artists during the lockdown reminded me of this. I had come full circle: I was back a session man. And it was still a blast. ”