Enjoy a Bluegrass Performance of Elton John’s 1972 Hit, “Rocket Man”

Last fall, our read­ers loved watch­ing Iron Horse, a blue­grass band from Alaba­ma, per­form­ing a most unusu­al ver­sion of Metal­li­ca’s “Enter Sand­man.” The band’s take on Metal­li­ca’s anthem was orig­i­nal­ly record­ed on the 2003 album, Fade to Blue­grass: Trib­ute to Metal­li­ca, where Iron Horse — with Tony Robert­son on man­dolin, Vance Hen­ry on gui­tar, Ricky Rogers on bass, and Antho­ny Richard­son on ban­jo — played Metal­li­ca hits in blue­grass fash­ion — “or at least as blue­grass as it’s pos­si­ble for Metal­li­ca songs to be.”

This Jan­u­ary, the quar­tet released a new video, this time cov­er­ing “Rock­et Man.” Sung by Elton John in ’72, writ­ten by Bernie Taupin, and inspired by a Ray Brad­bury sto­ry, Rock­et Man has been covered/performed by Cold­play, Kate Bush, My Morn­ing Jack­et and many oth­ers. But, if you have a score­card, you’ll almost cer­tain­ly give Iron Horse top marks for cre­ativ­i­ty and orig­i­nal­i­ty. Hope you enjoy.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

A Blue­grass Ver­sion of Metallica’s Heavy Met­al Hit, “Enter Sand­man”

Robert Plant and Ali­son Krauss Sing Coun­try Ver­sions of Zeppelin’s “Black Dog” & “When the Lev­ee Breaks”

Pak­istani Musi­cians Play Amaz­ing Ver­sion of Dave Brubeck’s Jazz Clas­sic, “Take Five”