Offiziellecharts.de – Elton John – Jewel Box" (in German). GfK Entertainment Charts. Retrieved April 23, 2023. David Browne (12 November 2020). "Elton John's Eight-Disc 'Jewel Box' Rewrites the Story of His Epic Career". Rolling Stone.

Tom Skinner (17 September 2020). "Elton John announces extensive 50th anniversary boxset 'Jewel Box' ". NME. An in-depth exploration of Elton John and Bernie Taupin's extensive catalogue including early rarities and deep cuts personally curated by Elton. John already has one career-spanning boxed set behind him, the out-of-print To Be Continued…, but Jewel Box goes out of its way to be a very different, sometimes maddening beast. Its eight discs include a substantial chunk of unheard early material, like those Zippo tunes, but they sit alongside an even bigger batch of songs that have already been released in one form or another, either on albums or singles. Jewel Box doesn’t just clean out the closet but the whole house. Andy Greene (17 September 2020). "Elton John Announces Massive Career-Spanning Box Set 'Elton: Jewel Box". Rolling Stone.Elton’s debut album Empty Sky, released in June 1969, wasn’t a success at the time. But for those who listened, it contained definite signposts to his fast-blooming talents as a songsmith and piano player, and to Taupin’s as a lyricist of considerable culture. One of its best-known songs was the ballad “Skyline Pigeon,” featured in Jewel Box in its simple, piano-and-vocal demo recording which is in some contrast to the harpsichord-adorned LP version. For a further comparison, try the live version on the 1976 album Here and There, recorded two years earlier at the Royal Festival Hall. There, he describes it as “the first song Bernie and I ever really felt excited about that we wrote.” Elton and Bernie’s first co-write predated their meeting Disc 6 on Elton: Jewel Box includes 15 non-LP B’s from 1976 to 1984, most of which have only been available on vinyl up until now, as well as three songs sung in French – the only time Elton has recorded in a language other than English and a magnificent discovery for his casual fans. Elton John delves deep into his archive for a new 8CD box set called Elton: Jewel Box, which features an astonishing amount of rarities, deep cuts and B-sides. Disc 7 continues with 17 more 1980s B-sides, four of which are making their first appearance digitally. The rest of the disc showcases Elton’s B-sides from 1988 until 2005, most of which have so far only been available on UK CD-singles, leaving fans in the US and other parts of the world at the mercy of import establishments, or in the dark completely. Elton comes from the days when 45rpm, and later CD, singles, were the focal point of any mainstream artist’s profile. With the insane work schedule he always maintained, that meant a lot of singles, and a lot of B-sides. Like many artists in that era, his insatiable creativity and his desire (as a record buyer himself) to give value for money often meant that his big numbers were released with flipsides that never appeared on LP.

Elton has never stopped loving the music of the man who first turned him on to Americana in all its glory. Leon Russell was an immense influence on the young singer-songwriter, as he and Bernie began their songwriting adventures, and he was famously in the audience at Elton’s career-changingTroubadour shows of August 1970. The admiration was already mutual; Russell had tried to sign the young Englishman, just too late, to the Shelter label. A couple of months afterwards, Leon invited Elton to open for him at the Fillmore East. Elton: Jewel Box, the sumptuous box set collection of deep cuts, rarities and B-sides, is appropriately titled, because its subject is one of the true, enduring treasures in pop music history. Even those who think they know the recording make-up of Elton John inside and out will find a deeper understanding of his creative make-up within its array of 148 songs, which reach from his earliest recording in 1965 to Oscar-winning glory in 2019. Here are some of the facts to be learned by listening to these recovered jewels. A 1968 demo became the first John/Taupin coverStarting with those Regimental Sgt. Zippo songs, the jewels of the box are those pre-fame recordings from the late Sixties, which take up three discs. In those years, John was something of a pop mad scientist and a radio sponge, leaping from one style to the next to see which fit the best. As revealed by the over 50 songs he created and discarded, the sheer number of them is astonishing, but so is the quality. Instead of the homemade tapes that often fill up such collections, most of these are fully or largely realized takes cut with studio musicians and even string sections. Among other things, Elton John’s sprawling new box set answers a question most of us have never even pondered: Did he have his own version of Smile? A few years after Brian Wilson had tried and failed to complete his attempted masterpiece with the Beach Boys, John considering launching his career—after playing in bands and doing sessions—with a psychedelic album, which even sported a straight-outta-Spinal-Tap title, Regimental Sgt. Zippo. Discs six and seven are B-sides compiled together for the first time. These start from 1976 and go all the way through to 2005. Many of these are being offered on CD for the first time. Discs 3–5 contain early demos of previously unreleased material as well as original piano demos of songs from his earlier albums. On 17 September 2020, two months prior to the album's release date, a 1969 demo recording of "Sing Me No Sad Songs" was released for the very first time. This song, described as "a fascinating early taste of what was to come from Elton and Bernie", was used to promote the album. [2] Discs 6 & 7: B Sides 1976-2005 – Flipsides, never before compiled together. Those B-Side gems that are now given another chance to sparkle – many never previously available digitally.