John, Elton

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Elton John

Singer, songwriter, pianist

Elton John emerged in the 1970s as a hugely successful pop performer, the kind of star who often flies high but fades fast. John, however, has been able to maintain his career for nearly twenty years, largely because his music “has become the repository of a million escapist dreams,” to quote Time correspondent David DeVoss. Once a flamboyant feather-clad rocker with several hundred pairs of gimmick glasses, John has entered midlife as a more sober but no less artistic performer who still generates hit records and sellout concert crowds. He is one of the rare pop singers who is able to reach mainstream audiences while still earning the respect of rock critics; this is because John’s original compositions exhibit piano virtuosity and an easy familiarity with rockabilly, gospel, blues, and both soft and classical rock. DeVoss calls John an entertainer of “astonishing versatility” whose “appeal knows no demographic limits.” DeVoss also finds John “the symbol of the often battered, never completely shattered juvenile faith that no one is too short, too fat, too awkward or parentally despised to be transformed into someone who is not only famous and rich, but—infinitely more important—loved by the multitudes.” The critic concludes that the central appeal of John’s music is its “sweet, pensively expressed sense of sadness over human connections missed or lost.”

Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on March 25, 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, England. He recalls his childhood as cheerless; he was overweight, unpopular, and plagued at home by a repressive father who wanted him to be a banker. Young Reg Dwight had one solace—a love for music. He learned to play the piano at the age of four and earned a fellowship to the Royal Academy of Music at eleven. Predictably, his father banned pop and rock recordings from the home, but his mother smuggled them in anyway. “I couldn’t believe how great they were,” John told Circus magazine. “From then on rock ‘n’ roll took over. I used to play Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard on the piano and just thump them out.” At seventeen John dropped out of school to become a professional musician. He played piano for several bands in the London area, the most notable of which was Bluesology, the group that backed singer John Baldry. It was during this time that Reginald Dwight became Elton John by combining the two first names of performers he admired—Baldry and saxophonist Elton Dean. “Changing the name helped me a lot,” John told Circus. “I’m still the same person as Reg Dwight, but Elton John gave me a feeling of confidence.”

“Nobody expected Reg to become anything big,” Baldry told Time. “He was a shy person, almost introverted onstage.” Bespectacled and obese, John had few illusions about his potential as well. Still, in 1967, he answered a trade paper ad for songwriters and composers

For the Record…

Full name, Elton Hercules John; name originally Reginald Kenneth Dwight; born March 25, 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, England; son of Stanley (a Royal Air Force squadron leader) and Sheila Eileen Dwight; married Renate Blavel, February 14, 1984 (divorced, 1988). Education: Attended Royal Academy of Music, 1959-64.

Member of group Bluesology, 1965-66; began writing songs with lyricist Bernie Taupin, 1967; solo performer, 1967—; recording artist, 1969—; concert performer, 1970—. Appeared in film “Tommy,” 1975; subject of television documentary, “Say Goodbye, Norma Jean,” 1974.

Awards: Named to Playboy Jazz and Pop Hall of Fame, 1975; winner (with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder; under name Dionne & Friends) of Grammy Award for best pop performance by a duo or group with a vocal, 1986, for “That’s What Friends Are For.”

Addresses: Office —c/o John Reid Enterprises, 51 Holland St., 2nd Floor, London W8 7JB, England.

and received a call from a record company executive. The executive had matched John’s melodies with lyrics by an equally unknown writer, Bernie Taupin. John and Taupin were not offered a contract, but they went into partnership anyway. Eventually they were hired by Dick James, a music publisher who helped the Beatles early in their career. For some months John and Taupin labored unsuccessfully to churn out commercial jingles and songs for Englebert Humperdinck and Lulu. They tired of this quickly and, in 1969, they began to produce their own songs—with John doing vocals and piano—in a London basement. Their first album, Empty Sky, was a modest success in England, and their second, Elton John, crossed the ocean and caught on in the American market. The catalyst in John’s success was ultimately the singer himself. Having finally shed his excess weight, he also lost his reluctance to give live performances. His 1970 American debut at the Troubador Club in Los Angeles found him clad in outrageous clothing and clowning joyously onstage—in effect making up for the dull childhood he had endured. Quickly he was hailed as the harbinger of a new era in rock—a performer whose “high-talented, low-keyed protest-free approach to life and sound [would] appeal equally to the flower child in the young and the gardener of verses in the old,” to quote Time contributor William Bender.

Indeed, as the 1970s progressed, Elton John seemed to epitomize the “me generation” that replaced flower children in the so-called youth market. His excesses were legion—fleets of luxury cars, diamond-studded glasses, shopping sprees on several continents, lavish homes in London and Los Angeles, brief love affairs with men and women. His antics may have amused some, but his music appealed to nearly all, just as Bender predicted. From 1973 until 1977 he dominated the pop charts with a string of hits most notable for their variety—and for the fact that few people could sing John’s songs the way he could. His work included old-style rockers like “Crocodile Rock,” and “Saturday Night’s Alright for Fightin’,” and “The Bitch Is Back,” fantasy outings like “Rocket Man,” and “Bennie and the Jets,” message music such as the gospel “Border Song” and the whistful “Goodbye Yellow Brick Road,” and love ballads like “Your Song” and “Tiny Dancer.” The John-Taupin partnership was responsible for more than a dozen gold records before it dissolved in 1977. John set a punishing pace for himself in the early 1970s—he toured America ten times between 1970 and 1976—and finally the toll began to tell. In 1978 he announced his retirement, claiming “there was no burning spark left.”

If John’s retirement decision was short-lived (he returned to concert touring in 1979), some fundamental changes in his lifestyle were not. The 1980s have seen a less flamboyant Elton John, one who has eschewed the glittering costumes and onstage acrobatics. His best known 1980s hits, with the exception of the defiant “I’m Still Standing,” reflect a greater interest in the blues and ballad forms and a more mellow vocal sound. According to Jim Gladstone in the Philadelphia Inquirer, however, John’s live performing talents “remain in bloom after 20 years.” In People magazine, John suggested that diversity is the key to a long career in entertainment. He said: “I can see myself singing at 50 and 60 and hope I will always have something to contribute.”