Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

"Elton John meets Edith Piaf" is how Allison Crowe’s tagged in an early newspaper feature – the young Canadian musician interviewed by scribe Clodagh O’Connell when she first ventured from her birth-place on Vancouver Island to mainland North America.

Many seas and seasons later, Allison pays tribute to Sir Elton (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight) and his poetic songwriting partner Bernie Taupin in a live performance of their song “Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters” – the duo’s paean to the great city of New York and its people. (Taupin’s lyrics for this joyous tune off 1972’s “Honky Château” EJ album give a bow to the Ben E. King hit and its line “there is a rose in Spanish Harlem”.)

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters from Allison Crowe on Vimeo.

1940s NYC is on parade in this film footage from the Prelinger Archives ( http://archive.org/details/prelinger  )

This bootleg audio is captured “hot” from "Tunnel" - a legendary Musikkeller in Vienna, Austria. Founded by Engineer Fayez Chlache in 1981, the year Allison's born, the subterranean music venue and above-ground restaurant + gallery, was nurtured lovingly by Chlache who made it feel “als gäbe es Tunnel schon seit immer" – there has always been “Tunnel”. Upon his passing in 2011 Fayez’s daughter, Magda, maintains Wien’s living room for bon vivants of all ages.

#8 of 16 Songs