Bon Jovi recalls how he got Elton John and Jeff Beck to play on his solo album

The singer, songwriter and guitarist Jon Bon Jovi formed his own band Bon Jovi in 1983 and in the following years the group became one of the most successful ones from that decade. In 1990, he ended up recording his first solo effort, which was the soundtrack of the Western “Young Guns II”, released that same year.

Jon wrote all the songs of the album except for “Guano City”, which was written by Alan Silvestri, who was one of the producers. But obviously, the big hit of the record, which became one of the most famous songs of his career was “Blaze of Glory”, which simply had the late legendary guitarist Jeff Beck on lead and slide guitar. He also had Elton John playing on that album and in an interview with Howard Stern (Transcribed by Rock and Roll Garage), Bon Jovi recalled how he got both of those artists to play on the record with him.

Bon Jovi recalls how he got Elton John and Jeff Beck to play on his solo album

At the time the actor Emilio Estevez asked for Bon Jovi to use the song “Wanted Dead or Alive” in the movie and then the musician told him that he would do the soundtrack of the movie.

“It wasn’t that I wasn’t always capable of doing it on my own (without the band), but I loved and I still love being with those guys performing on stage. It’s very much a cohesive band unit. I did (called Jeff Beck at the time to invite him). I pretty much asked him to perform on the whole album and he was kind enough to agree,” Jon Bon Jovi said.

Stern then asked if he told Jeff Beck what he wanted guitar-wise for the songs. He then replied:

“No! (laughs) I asked him if he likes sugar in his coffee and if that cheeseburger was prepared well enough. You get out of the way when Jeff Beck touches a guitar. The album came really quickly. It was my first foray into writing soundtracks for film and the script is the basis of the lyrics. So here is your story line and you write ten songs that fit the movie. The band on that record was Jeff Beck, Elton John, Kenny Aronoff, Danny Kortchmar, Waddy Wachtel. I mean, that was a crazy band,” Jon Bon Jovi said.

About inviting Elton John the musician said: “I simply asked him. We had met a couple of times. At that junction he just happened to be in L.A. He came over and he played on a song and he said: ‘Do you want me to sing on it as well?’ I said: ‘Uh, yes please’. So he sang in a song called ‘Dyin’ Ain’t Much of a Livin’. He plays the piano, when I needed a great piano player Elton came in,” Jon Bon Jovi said.

“Blaze of Glory” became a worldwide hit and peaked at number one on the Billboard Hot 100 and also in countries like Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

Besides Beck and Elton, that record also had many other famous guests. Some of them were Little Richard, Aldo Nova, Randy Jackson and Lou Diamond Phillips.