Elton John is an English singer, pianist, and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His tribute single “Candle in the Wind 1997”, rewritten in dedication to Diana, Princess of Wales, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club’s home stadium.
Raised in the Pinner area of London, John learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology. John met his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years they wrote songs for other artists, including Lulu, and John also worked as a session musician for artists such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969 his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970 a single, “Your Song”, from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US, his first hit single. After decades of commercial chart success, John has also achieved success in musical theatre, both in the West End and on Broadway, composing the music for The Lion King (film and musical), Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical.
He has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his “lasting impact on British culture”, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists (third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna). He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. He was knighted by Elizabeth II for “services to music and charitable services” in 1998. John has performed at a number of royal events, such as the funeral of Princess Diana at Westminster Abbey in 1997, the Party at the Palace in 2002 and the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert outside Buckingham Palace in 2012.
He has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. In 1992, he established the Elton John AIDS Foundation and a year later began hosting the annual Academy Award Party, which has since become one of the highest-profile Oscar parties in the Hollywood film industry. Since its inception, the foundation has raised over US$200 million. John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005, and after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014, wed Furnish on 21 December 2014. On 24 January 2018, it was announced that John would be retiring from touring and would soon embark on a three-year farewell tour, which began in September 2018
Early life
Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, the eldest child of Stanley Dwight (1925–1991) and only child of Sheila Eileen (née Harris; 1925–2017), and was raised in a council house by his maternal grandparents, in Pinner. His parents married in 1945, when the family moved to a nearby semi-detached house. He was educated at Pinner Wood Junior School, Reddiford School and Pinner County Grammar School, until the age of 17, when he left just prior to his A-Level examinations to pursue a career in the music industry.
When he began to seriously consider a career in music, Elton John’s father, who served as a flight lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, tried to steer him toward a more conventional career, such as banking. John has stated that his wild stage costumes and performances were his way of letting go after such a restrictive childhood. Both of John’s parents were musically inclined, his father having been a trumpet player with the Bob Millar Band, a semi-professional big band that played at military dances. The Dwights were keen record buyers, exposing John to the popular singers and musicians of the day, and John remembers being immediately hooked on rock and roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets in 1956.
Elton John started playing the piano at the age of three, and within a year, his mother heard him picking out Winifred Atwell’s “The Skater’s Waltz” by ear. After performing at parties and family gatherings, at the age of 7 he took up formal piano lessons. He showed musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, and gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of 11, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. According to one of his instructors, John promptly played back, like a “gramophone record”, a four-page piece by George Frideric Handel that he heard for the first time.
For the next five years, he attended Saturday classes at the Academy in central London, and has stated that he enjoyed playing Frédéric Chopin and Johann Sebastian Bach and singing in the choir during Saturday classes, but that he was not otherwise a diligent classical student.
Pub pianist to staff songwriter (1962–1969)
At the age of 15, with the help of his mother and stepfather, Reginald Dwight became a weekend pianist at a nearby pub, the Northwood Hills Hotel, playing Thursday to Sunday nights. Known simply as “Reggie”, he played a range of popular standards, including songs by Jim Reeves and Ray Charles, as well as songs he had written himself. A stint with a short-lived group called the Corvettes rounded out his time.
In 1962, Dwight and his friends formed a band called Bluesology. By day, he ran errands for a music publishing company; he divided his nights between solo gigs at a London hotel bar and working with Bluesology. By the mid-1960s, Bluesology was backing touring American soul and R&B musicians like the Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and the Bluebelles. In 1966, the band became musician Long John Baldry’s supporting band, and played 16 times at the Marquee Club.
In 1967, Dwight answered an advertisement in the British magazine New Musical Express, placed by Ray Williams, then the A&R manager for Liberty Records. At their first meeting, Williams gave Dwight an unopened envelope of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad. Dwight wrote music for the lyrics, and then posted it to Taupin, beginning a partnership that still continues. When the two first met in 1967, they recorded what would become the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song: “Scarecrow”. Six months later Dwight was going by the name “Elton John” in homage to two members of Bluesology: saxophonist Elton Dean and vocalist Long John Baldry. His name was legally changed to Elton Hercules John on 7 January 1972.
The team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin joined Dick James’s DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, among them Roger Cook and Lulu. Taupin would write a batch of lyrics in under an hour and give it to John, who would write music for them in half an hour, disposing of the lyrics if he couldn’t come up with anything quickly. For two years, they wrote easy-listening tunes for James to peddle to singers. Their early output included a contender for the UK entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, for Lulu, called “I Can’t Go On (Living Without You)”. It came sixth of six songs. In 1969, John provided piano for Roger Hodgson on his first released single, “Mr. Boyd” by Argosy, a quartet that was completed by Caleb Quaye and Nigel Olsson. Elton John was also a session musician for other artists including playing piano on the Hollies’ “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother” and singing backing vocals for the Scaffold.
Debut album to Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1969–1973)
On the advice of music publisher Steve Brown, John and Taupin started writing more complex songs for John to record for DJM. The first was the single “I’ve Been Loving You” (1968), produced by Caleb Quaye, former Bluesology guitarist. In 1969, with Quaye, drummer Roger Pope, and bassist Tony Murray, John recorded another single, “Lady Samantha”, and an album, Empty Sky. For their follow-up album, Elton John, John and Taupin enlisted Gus Dudgeon as producer and Paul Buckmaster as musical arranger.
Elton John was released in April 1970 on DJM Records/Pye Records in the UK and Uni Records in the US, and established the formula for subsequent albums – gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads. The first single from the album, “Border Song”, made into the US Top 100, peaking at Number 92.
The second single, “Your Song”, reached number seven in the UK Singles Chart and number eight in the US, becoming John’s first hit single as a singer. The album soon became his first hit album, reaching number four on the US Billboard 200 and number five on the UK Albums Chart.
John and Taupin then wrote the soundtrack to the obscure film Friends and then the album Madman Across the Water, the latter reaching number eight in the US and producing the hit songs, “Levon”, and the album’s opening track “Tiny Dancer”.
In 1972, Davey Johnstone joined the Elton John Band on guitar and backing vocals. Released in 1972, Honky Château became John’s first US number one album, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, and began a streak of seven consecutive US number one albums.
The album reached number two in the UK, and spawned the hit singles “Rocket Man” and “Honky Cat”.
The pop album Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player came out at the start of 1973 and reached number one in the UK, the US, Australia among others.
The album produced the hits “Crocodile Rock”, his first US Billboard Hot 100 number one, and “Daniel”, which reached number two in the US and number four in the UK.
Both the album and “Crocodile Rock” were the first album and single, respectively on the consolidated MCA Records label in the US, replacing MCA’s other labels including Uni.
Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, released in October 1973, gained instant critical acclaim and topped the chart on both sides of the Atlantic, remaining at number one for two months.
It also temporarily established John as a glam rock star. It contained the US number 1 “Bennie and the Jets”, along with other hits, “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road”, “Candle in the Wind”, “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting” and “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding”.
The Rocket Record Company to 21 at 33 (1974–1979)
John formed his own label named The Rocket Record Company (distributed in the US by MCA and initially by Island in the UK) and signed acts to it – notably Neil Sedaka (“Bad Blood”, on which he sang background vocals) and Kiki Dee – with whom he took a personal interest. Instead of releasing his own records on Rocket, he opted for a US$8 million dollar contract offered by MCA. When the contract was signed in 1974, MCA reportedly took out a US$25 million insurance policy on John’s life. In 1974, MCA released Elton John’s Greatest Hits, a UK and US number one which is certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 16 million copies in the US
In 1974, a collaboration with John Lennon took place, resulting in Lennon’s appearance on Elton John’s single cover of the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”, the B-side of which was Lennon’s “One Day at a Time.”
In return, John was featured on “Whatever Gets You thru the Night” on Lennon’s Walls and Bridges album. Later that year in what would be Lennon’s last major live performance, the pair performed these two number 1 hits along with the Beatles classic “I Saw Her Standing There” at Madison Square Garden in New York.
Lennon made the rare stage appearance with John and his band to keep the promise he made that he would appear on stage with him if “Whatever Gets You Thru The Night” became a US number one single.
Caribou was released in 1974, becoming John’s third number one in the UK, and topping the charts in the US, Canada and Australia. Reportedly recorded in two weeks between live appearances, it featured “The Bitch Is Back” and the orchestrated “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me”. “Step into Christmas” was released as a stand-alone single in November 1973, and appears in the album’s 1995 remastered re-issue.
Pete Townshend of the Who asked John to play a character called the “Local Lad” in the film adaptation of the rock opera Tommy, and to perform the song “Pinball Wizard”.
Drawing on power chords, John’s version was recorded and used for the movie release in 1975. The song charted at number 7 in the UK. Bally subsequently released a “Captain Fantastic” pinball machine featuring an illustration of John in his movie guise.
The 1975 autobiographical album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy debuted at number one in the US, the first album ever to do so, and stayed at the top for seven weeks.
Elton John revealed his previously ambiguous personality on the album, with Taupin’s lyrics describing their early days as struggling songwriters and musicians in London. The lyrics and accompanying photo booklet are infused with a specific sense of place and time that is otherwise rare in his music. “Someone Saved My Life Tonight” was the hit single from this album and captured an early turning point in John’s life.
The album’s release signaled the end of the Elton John Band, as an unhappy and overworked John dismissed Olsson and Murray, two people who had contributed much of the band’s signature sound and who had helped build his live following since the beginning.
