Paul Buckmaster, arranger for Elton John, Rolling Stones, dies

Los Angeles — Paul Buckmaster, the arranger and orchestra conductor who provided the atmospheric backdrop and sonic flourishes for Elton John, David Bowie, the Rolling Stones and other titans of rock over the decades, has died at 71.

Buckmaster worked extensively during his long and prolific career with John, providing the orchestral arrangements for radio favorites such as “Tiny Dancer” and “Your Song,” and teamed with the Rolling Stones on darker fare like “Moonlight Mile” and “Sway” on the group’s “Sticky Fingers” album. And when Bowie recorded “Space Oddity,” Buckmaster helped give it an ominous depth with his arrangement.

“So heartbroken. He helped make me the artist I am,” John said in a tweet. “A revolutionary arranger who took my songs and made them soar.”

Buckmaster died Tuesday, his representatives, McDaniel Entertainment, announced on Twitter. A cause of death was not given, nor was it disclosed where he died. He had been living in Los Angeles for decades.

Born in London on June 13, 1946, Buckmaster started playing the cello when he was 5 and spent a month — at the urging of his mother, a concert pianist — in Italy auditioning for a scholarship to a music conservancy in Naples. His future spoke of classical music, not rock ’n’ roll.

But when he was approached to lead a small orchestral group and back up the Bee Gees during a two-month concert tour in 1968, an unexpected career path opened.

Soon he was in the studio with other musicians before being asked to do the arrangement for John’s second album, which produced the hit “Your Song.” Buckmaster said he accepted the job eagerly, gliding over the reality that he had no practical experience as an arranger.

He later won a Grammy Award in 2002 for best instrumental arrangement for his work on “Drops of Jupiter,” a song by the rock group Train.