Chords for James Newton Howard - Elton John Story

I had been, I guess I [Bb] was 22, _ _ _ 23,
[E] and I'd been [G] playing with Melissa Manchester,
who [E] at that time was kind of this Greenwich Village [Bb] folk,
[G] great, great [Bbm] songwriter, and we were traveling
around the [E] country in a station wagon,
and I was in New York, [N] and I _ think there was
a Rolling Stone article, the Rolling Stone article
was that Elton had decided to break up his band,
and he was quoted in Rolling Stone, I was sitting there,
you know, I was making like [F] $125 [E] a week,
and I was sitting there reading Rolling Stone,
and it said, there was a part where it talked about
how Elton wanted to add a keyboard player,
_ and I was thinking, wow, what a gig that would be. _
I threw it away, six months later, my phone [Bbm] rings,
and it's [Em] my manager at the time saying,
ah, [G] well, would you be interested in _ _ [E] auditioning
for Elton John's band?
_ And I said, yeah, [G] you know, he was the biggest artist
in the world, and so I flew back, [D] somehow got back to LA,
and I mean, I was really dirt poor, [Gb] and I drove up,
and [C] I got there, and they said, okay,
[Ab] go to the hamburger [E] hamlet on Doheny and Sunset,
_ _ [D] and look for a purple [G] Rolls Royce, which I did,
and I went up there, and sure enough,
there's a purple [Em] Rolls Royce pulled up in front of it,
and the [G] guy gets out, the bearded guy gets out,
comes over, he says, follow me,
so I followed him up into the hills.
We're going up into all these crazy mansions,
you know, and I'm just, I'm driving this really beat up,
you know, _ [Ab] we get to this place up on [F] Gilchrest,
I think was the name of the [E] street,
and we walk into this huge,
looked like the Beverly Hillbillies mansion,
it was just this big place, and they bring me up,
and I'm just sitting there like this,
and in walks Elton, who had to be, I guess, 25, 26,
and he'd just been, he was in his tennis clothes,
he was playing [G] tennis, _ and [E] I noticed on the coffee table,
I had done this [Eb] really obtuse, kind of obscure [G] solo album. _
It sold about four copies, and he had three of them,
they were in, they were sitting on the coffee table there,
and he was very shy, and I was very shy,
and we barely even spoke a word,
_ _ [E] and he played me the Captain Fantastic album,
because it hadn't come [G] out yet, _ _ _
and after it was over, there's this pregnant pause,
and we're both kind of sitting there,
and he said, I'll never forget it,
[E] I'll never forget the words, he said,
well, you've got the gig if you [Bb] want it. _
[Db] I went, yeah, okay, great.
He said, [Ab] _ we're [G] _ leaving for Amsterdam in four days,
we're gonna rehearse for two weeks,
and then we have a concert [Gb] at Wembley Stadium
in front of 80,000 [E] people,
the Eagles and the Beach Boys opening [Bb] for us,
so I said, oh, okay, [E] and he said, here's a set list,
and he [Ab] wrote out 35 [G] songs,
which I had to learn in [N] three days, which I did.
_ [G] And I walked out, and on my way out,
somebody [E] in his management company says,
okay, you're gonna be paid such and such,
which was like [Gm] 55,000 times what I was getting paid,
and I said, okay, and I went outside,
and I just screamed my heart out.
[Gb] I mean, I couldn't believe it, I could not believe it.
I got in [G] my car, _ drove home, and stayed up for four [Ab] days,
learning the songs, and then four days later,
I was on a plane, a [G] Lufthansa flight,
in first class with Elton, Amsterdam, _ and that was it. _
That's crazy.
[A] But I remember the whole [Gb] week leading up to it,
I was so _ [Bb] _ _ _ _ _ [G] _
afraid that it wasn't real.
I kept _ calling Lufthansa airline,
and to see if my name was,
if they had a reservation for my name,
of course they didn't, [E] and I thought,
oh, man, so right up to the bitter end,
I always thought the [Gb] whole thing was a fantasy,
it wasn't gonna happen.
_ [N] _ _