Elton John and Leon Russell are seeing chart popularity that they haven't had since the 70's as The Union debuts on the Billboard Album chart at number 3.
While that might seem surprising for John, the fact is that he has not been that high on the chart since 1976's Blue Moves which also peaked at number 3. Moves was the followup to Elton's Rock of the Westies, the last of his seven number 1 albums.
For Russell, it has been even longer, all the way back to 1972's Carney which went up to number 2. The Union becomes the second highest charting album of Leon's career if you don't count his appearances on the Mad Dogs and Englishmen and Concert For Bangladesh albums.
The other veteran artists debuting high this week is Rod Stewart with Fly Me to the Moon: The Great American Songbook Volume 5. The album starts at number 4 with sales of 79,000, one thousand less than John and Russell. That equals the first volume of the series and is lower than the starts for volumes 2 (#2), 3 (#1) and 4 (#1).
The Union has also helped Russell secure a new co-publishing deal with Universal Music Publishing Group. Universal now reps all three of the principals who worked on the album (Bernie Taupin being the third).
"Representing three of the greatest songwriters who have ever lived, on one project, is a once in a lifetime opportunity. It doesn't get any better than this and we intend to do everything we can, here at Universal Music Publishing Group, to make this an incredibly successful project around the world," said Evan Lamberg, Executive VP of Creative, East Coast, Universal Music Publishing Group.
