“I’ve been in a band with Elton John since I was 13, but he only just found out,” Brandi Carlile joked in an interview with CBS last month. As a Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975) superfan, the Grammy-winning singer-songwriter from Washington (whose solo work has spanned everything from indie-folk to country-rock) has the British icon’s style embedded in her bones. So on Who Believes in Angels? she leans comfortably into the paternal bombast of his bluesy-boppy AOR, her rich, clear (and higher) vocals adding melodic boosters to the Rocket Man’s deep, earnest rumble. You’ll probably have heard their wholesome, interlocking power balladry in action on the radio-friendly single “Never Too Late”, hymning the carpe diem joys of “a slow dance on a carousel/ A walk in the snow.”
The pair have been friends for two decades – taking family holidays together with their spouses and kids – and last collaborated on John’s 2021 duets album, Lockdown Sessions. Previous sessions, however, saw them writing and recording separately. For Who Believes in Angels?, they holed up together in a studio for 20 days with John’s brother-in-arms lyricist Bernie Taupin and producer Andrew Watt (who was behind the desk for “Hold Me Closer”, John’s 2021 hit with Britney Spears). Carlile got to see John’s famous temper as he smashed up an iPad and tore up some of her lyrics in frustration: “Predictable! Cliche! F*** off, Brandi!”. It’s all on camera, the first time John has allowed an album’s entire recording process to be filmed. Taupin, inured to such outbursts, apparently had to take Carlile out for whiskey sours to destress the woman John believes has brought him back to musical life.
