From “I Remember When Rock Was Young,” an 11.25 N.Y. Times piece by Jennifer Finney Boylan:

“Linda Ronstadt remembers that night: “He came onstage and the place just exploded. He was so dynamic and he was so charismatic and he was so good. And he just ripped the hell out of that piano and sang his ass off.”

It was Aug. 25, 1970, the night Elton John became a star, at the Troubadour club in Los Angeles. In the audience were Ronstadt, Brian Wilson, Mike Love, Randy Newman, Don Henley, David Crosby, Stephen Stills and Graham Nash.

“Ronstadt: ‘We were all hanging out in the balcony. He came on and it was like a flash of explosives. And we were hanging over the balcony screaming our guts out.’

“If you want to hear what Elton John was actually like in those young days, you might listen to the album ‘11-17-70,’ which turned 50 years old last Tuesday.”

Strange but ture: In my 37 years of living in Los Angeles (and 30 of them in West Hollywood), I have never once been to the Troubadour.