Elton John & Boz Scaggs' Similar 70s Songs

I like Boz Scaggs’ hit song “Lido Shuffle”. I’ve noticed it sounds like an Elton John song and mentioned that when it was featured in my article “Ten Great Songs Featuring David Paich”. David is the keyboardist and co-writer of the song and would co-found the rock band Toto soon afterwards. Elton is a hero and an influence of David’s. I decided to write an article comparing it to an Elton John song, which is “Elderberry Wine”. That is the Elton song that comes to mind when I think of “Lido Shuffle” being like Elton’s music. Elton’s song comes from his album “Don’t Shoot Me, I’m Only the Piano Player” (1973) and Boz’s song comes from his album “Silk Degrees” (1976). I’m embedding both songs with a paragraph about each one followed by a comparison of them.

Elderberry Wine (1973)

Elderberry Wine opens with Elton’s piano accompanied by drums and is soon joined by all instruments. The horns come in during the chorus and enhance this song. Elton sings with passion. The song closes with Elton singing the song title over and over again with Davey Johnstone’s guitar riffs in between them. This is a fun, melodic rocker.

Lido Shuffle (1976)

Lido Shuffle opens with bass and drums. Boz sings over it and all instruments soon come in. Just before the chorus, the horns start to appear and are most prominent in the choruses. David Paich plays all the keyboards on this song including both piano and synth. David’s piano provides a solid musical base and he provides creative synth work in parts of the song. Boz sings passionately. This is an iconic 70s rock hit.

Comparison

These are two 1970s pop rock songs featuring horns and piano. In my view, the melodies on both tracks sound alike. Elton and Boz sound similar including the way they sing. Elton’s song is more piano driven, although it does have a similarity in its opening. Elton’s song is opened with piano and drums and Boz’s song is opened by bass and drums. In both of them, this is followed with all the instruments coming in. Lido Shuffle’s horns are featured in more of the song than “Elderberry Wine”.

Both songs have similar runtimes with “Elderberry Wine” being 3:34 and “Lido Shuffle” being 3:43. It’s interesting that the number of seconds in Boz's song is the inverse of Elton’s song. One song (“Lido Shuffle”) is a hit song, while the other song (“Elderberry Wine”) is an album track. Elderberry Wine is connected with one of Elton’s hits as it was the B-Side to “Crocodile Rock”. In both cases, the singer wrote the song with a collaborator. Elton wrote it with his lyricist Bernie Taupin and Boz wrote it with David Paich who was the keyboardist of his “Silk Degrees” album. I consider them both to be great songs.