Elton John: Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (MCA)

IT WASN'T UNTIL I watched a black restaurant worker make it through his shift singing ‘Bennie and the Jets’ to himself that I began to understand Elton John's potential power. After all, his appeal as a purveyor of bland-seeming pop songs had been certain from the start. With the singer-songwriter wing carefully tucked away, Elton was then able to reveal the drive of a closet rocker with parodies like ‘Crocodile Rock’ and stage shows that unleashed an uninhibited extrovert: not just a record artist, but an entertainer.