Elton John, John Lennon Recorded at the Legendary Caribou Ranch 50 Years Ago This Summer

In the summer of 1974, John Lennon visited his friend Elton John at Caribou Ranch, outside Nederland. While there, Lennon worked on a version of "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," which John was recording at the now-legendary Colorado destination studio and released as a single later that year. Lennon's visit to the ranch, which was owned and run by musician, entrepreneur, director and producer Jim Guercio, made a lasting impression on everyone lucky enough to experience it, and contributed to the enduring legacy of the unique high-altitude recording facility.

"I think Jim was pretty blown away when Lennon showed up there," recalls Kenny Passarelli, a veteran Colorado musician and frequent Caribou Ranch guest. "Jimmy isn't easily intimidated. Here was John [Lennon] spending a little while in Colorado. He was very visible around Nederland while he was up at Caribou. He even went out and bought a pair of cowboy boots that he wore around. [Elton] and John were very close, and so John agreed to make a trip up to this ranch to sing backups on ['Lucy in the Sky'], which became a number-one hit."

The first band to record at Caribou Ranch was Barnstorm, which Passarelli co-founded as a bassist alongside six-string virtuoso Joe Walsh and talented drummer, flutist and synth player Joe Vitale. One of the trio's collaboratively written songs, the aptly titled "Rocky Mountain Way," helped put Guercio's studio-ranch on the musical radar in the early ’70s. Afterward, Caribou Ranch quickly started attracting big-name artists, including Earth, Wind & Fire, Chicago, Dan Fogelberg, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, the Beach Boys, Billy Joel, Supertramp, America and many others. Passarelli, who went on to play bass for Elton John's backing band from 1975 to 1976, says Lennon and John both stayed in the main guest cabin at the ranch, which, among other things, included an antique bed that had once belonged to President Grover Cleveland and a baby grand piano in John's bedroom.
"The story for how Elton discovered Caribou is that he was playing a show at McNichols [Arena], and he had heard about it because he was a consummate reader of liner notes," explains Passarelli. "He had a huge record collection. He could tell you what song was on the flip side of a 45. He was scary in his knowledge. When he was in Denver for a show, he had his management reach out to Caribou because he had read on the Barnstorm album that it was recorded there. He'd also heard the Rick Derringer album that was recorded at the ranch — the one that includes the hit 'Rock and Roll, Hoochie Koo' [1973's All American Boy]. Elton heard those records and had his management reach out. My friend John Carsello, who was the ranch manager, drove down and picked him up and took him and the band up there. Elton liked it. He was mostly attracted to the sound that was coming out of the studio. He was always a forward-thinking guy, and he was one step ahead of everybody."

Having been part of the first outfit to record at Caribou, and subsequently becoming a lifelong friend of Guercio's, Passarelli says he spent more time than any other musician at the ranch, which sits about 8,600 feet above sea level. Passarelli, Walsh and company first found their way to the sprawling alpine complex after Walsh, who had moved to Nederland to get a fresh start after leaving his band the James Gang in Cleveland, blew out a mixing board in his basement studio.

"Joe had a 24-track recorder in his house in Nederland, and it broke," recalls Passarelli, who turns 75 this October. "Joe was working with the producer Bill Szymczyk, who knew that Jim Guercio was building a new studio nearby, and Bill got him to agree to help us out."

The new studio at Caribou had been constructed inside an old barn on the property. Guercio was able to provide Barnstorm with a functioning, state-of-the-art mixing board as well as his nascent studio, agreeing to let the trio work at the facility and give it a test run.

"When we first got there, there were still horse stalls and dirt floors in the building," Passarelli remembers. "We had the first hit out of Caribou, and not long after that, Elton showed up. It was a trip. One day all these English guys appeared in the Colorado mountains."

Having grown tired of union restrictions that prohibited him from touching mixing boards at the coastal studios where he had cut his teeth (with bands including Blood, Sweat & Tears), Guercio built his dream setup in the Rockies in 1972, and the artists came. Elton John went on to record the albums Caribou, Captain Fantastic and Rock of the Westies on the ranch. His time at Caribou spawned a string of number-one hits for the Englishman, including "Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds," "The Bitch Is Back,"  "Island Girl," "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me," "Philadelphia Freedom" and "Someone Saved My Life Tonight."

"Jim wanted to be able to stand over and mix without having to tell someone else to do it," says Passarelli. "Another important thing when you're doing a recording session is your setup, and in a lot of situations, you'd have to tear down at the end of a session and then set everything up again the next day. At Caribou, you could set something up and walk away and go fishing and horseback riding and then come back at one in the morning or whenever and have it all just as you left it. It allowed for consistency."

The sheer beauty of the shimmering aspen and the towering Indian Peaks in the distance added to the appeal of Caribou. While a few more destination studios popped up during the ’70s in scenic locations around the globe, Caribou was the gold standard.

"The studio was incredible," says former manager Carsello, who now lives in his home state of Illinois. "Studios were kind of rare at the time. There were a few of them in New York and Los Angeles and some other locations, but Caribou got a reputation. We had the band Chicago, and they were making it big. Then the Beach Boys came, and then Elton. He really put the place on the map. There was a big article about Caribou in Billboard magazine, and it just took off. All the accommodations there were first-class. When you had people like Elton John showing up, you wanted to do it right. Elton booked it in 1974, and then Lennon came up over that long weekend to help with 'Lucy in the Sky.' He was just great and relaxed while he was there. He went down to town and had a beer at the Pioneer Inn. I remember that the weather was really good."

The cover of the classic Beatles song that the two musical legends worked on that summer had first appeared on the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in 1967. The original inspiration for the song came from Julian Lennon, who, at the tender age of three, showed his famous Beatle father one of his nursery school drawings. The young boy told his parents that the illustration was inspired by his classmate, Lucy O'Donnell, for whom he had an affection, and that it was called "Lucy — in the Sky With Diamonds." To avoid legal complications, Lennon used the pseudonym Dr. Winston O'Boogie for his contribution to John's Caribou-recorded single. The B-side of the release featured the song "One Day (at a Time)," written by Lennon for his 1973 album Mind Games.

Sadly, studio bookings eventually slowed at Caribou as the recording business evolved and changed. Then, in 1985, the studio control room was badly damaged in a fire. In the ’90s, Guercio sold parts of the ranch to Boulder County and the City of Boulder, with a portion becoming part of a conservation easement and another sold to a private party in 2014, which has just listed it for sale. Some of the land makes for a beautiful hike, but the area comprising the studio and artist cabins is on private property. However, Caribou Ranch remains embedded in the state's musical history: It was inducted into the Colorado Music Hall of Fame in 2017.

Fifty years after Lennon and John's magical time, the mystique of Caribou Studio lives on through its recordings and the natural majesty of the place itself.