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Elton John
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Elton John Biography
"If there is a starting point to Elton's ascension, it's definitely Los Angeles in 1970," recalls his longtime friend and writing partner Bernie Taupin.
The locale was Doug Weston's fabled Troubadour, capacity 450. Located in West
Hollywood, the small club was already legendary as the site where Bob Dylan, James Taylor and Joni Mitchell first brought their brilliance to Los Angeles. That fateful night in August Neil Diamond, another singer/songwriter already well down his path of success, introduced John to his waiting audience.
By the time they arrived in Los Angeles, John and Taupin were three years into their magical writing partnership; Taupin provides the often emotional and poignant lyrics to John's intricate, beautiful melodies. The two met musically months before they ever came face to face when a record executive - who had declined to sign John, by the way - gave him sheets of lyrics written by Taupin. The pair later signed with Dick James' publishing company, and subsequently, his label. To this day, they continue to write apart.
John muses at the serendipity of it all: "Two people who had never known each other from different parts of the world by accident met each other in someone's office by someone giving a pile of lyrics to me and here we have this incredible life together."
Indeed, in their wildest dreams the young boys from Middlesex (John) and Lincolnshire (Taupin) couldn't have imagined the fame and fortune and the attendant drama that was to come their way over the next 40 years. With Taupin by his side, John is the topselling British artist in the U.K. and U.S. and has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. The staggering numbers are surpassed only by John's singular career longevity. He is the only artist to place a song or album on the U.K. and U.S. charts every year from 1971 to 1999.
But John's earliest career indicators didn't point to any success-short or long-term. His first album, 1969's "Empty Sky," failed even to reach the bottom rungs of the British albums chart. But the prognosis changed dramatically with the release of John's second, self-titled album, which contained the gentle, unassuming "Your Song." With the opening lines "It's a little bit funny this feeling inside/I'm not one of those who can easily hide," John's world-and ours-changed forever. Almost 40 years later, the tune remains his signature song and concert closer.
It took more than a year and three more studio albums for John to have another hit single, but in the intervening months, he was creating songs that would become just as beloved as his chart toppers. For example, John's fourth studio album, "Madman across the Water," peaked at No. 41 on the British charts and had no songs that charted on the U.K. singles tally. However, time has been very kind to that album as opening track "Tiny Dancer" has become one of his most enduring tunes and received new life after director Cameron Crowe featured an endearing band sing-along in his 2000 film "Almost Famous." Additionally, the album's "Indian Sunset" topped the charts some 34 years after its initial release when it was sampled on 2Pac's posthumous "Ghetto Gospel."
John almost reached the summit himself in 1972 with "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to be a Long, Long Time)" As the years went by, the haunting lyrics took on new meaning for John as a metaphor for the isolation his own stratospheric fame brought him. "The loneliness of being a rocket man [and] the loneliness of being a rock star are kind of similar. It was for me, anyway, until I sorted myself out," he says. "[The] stage was the only place you kind of wanted, felt at home. And you came offstage and you didn't know what to do with yourself. The curse of the performer is finding the balance between the fabulous onstage life that you have and the private life and trying to get a happy medium between the two."
In 1973, John released "Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player." The album started a spectacular run of four consecutive sets to top the British album charts. The LP was bolstered by two of John's biggest hits that couldn't have been more diametrically opposed in tempo: "Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel." But thematically, both deal with loss. "Crocodile Rock's" toe tapping, upbeat pace belies the sad, nostalgic lyrics of a chap looking back on a bygone, happier time. "Daniel" is a poignant farewell to a brother sung by the sibling staying behind. Lore has it that Taupin's last verse, cut by John, reveals that Daniel is a scarred Vietnam Vet.
By now, no sooner would a song from John disappear off the chart before a new one shortly appeared. John and Taupin were tremendously prolific, often releasing two albums a year. So it came as no surprise when toward the end of 1973, John released a double album that many consider his masterpiece, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Rolling Stone rated it No. 91 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time." If there were any doubt that Mr. John had arrived as a global superstar, it was erased with this album.], spurred on by the title track, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," "Bennie and the Jets," and the now iconic "Candle in the Wind." Oddly, "Bennie and the Jets" wasn't a chart hit in the U.K. until 1976. (By then, John had left James' label and formed Rocket Records, but James still had the right to release the single).
The poignant "Candle in the Wind," written about Marilyn Monroe, rose to No. 11 on the British singles charts in 1974, but found its true calling in 1997 following the death of Princess Diana. John reworked the lyrics, including changing the opening line from "Goodbye Norma Jean" to "Goodbye England's Rose" to perform at the Princess's funeral. With proceeds from its sale going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, a commercial version of "Candle in the Wind 1997" sold more than 33 million copies worldwide, making it the top-selling single of all time. In a touching sign of respect, John never performs the 1997 version live.
Less than a year after "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (and with that album still on the charts for many more months to come), a seemingly indefatigable John released "Caribou." Considered one of his lesser efforts, the album nonetheless contained one of his most dramatically orchestrated hits, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me." John is rumoured to have hated the song when he first cut it. The song went to No. 16 on its original release, but like "Candle," it had a second life. Another version, recorded live on John's 44th birthday when he joined George Michael in concert, went to No. 1 in 1991.
In a meteoric rise, John had gone from club troubadour to a worldwide superstar. For his next album, John and Taupin looked back at a time that already seemed foreign to them. "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" - John and Taupin - was a concept album that revisited their lives together from their meeting in 1967 to arriving in America in 1970.
"`Captain Fantastic' was written from start to finish [in order]," recalls John. "I wrote it on the boat from Southampton to New York. It was the first album that really included me as a subject matter, and I found that very easy to write to."
The album includes the sensational "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The "Someone" is Long John Baldry, the British blues musician for whom John took his last name when he morphed from his birth name of Reginald Dwight to Elton John in the `60s (Elton comes from sax player Elton Dean). John played in Baldry's band in the mid-60s. The song is allegedly about Baldry helping a despondent, suicidal John by talking him out of getting married in 1969.
Although largely autobiographical, the album's exception is "Philadelphia Freedom," an irrepressibly upbeat song written for tennis great Billie Jean King and her team, the Philadelphia Freedoms by John, an avid tennis fan and player.
By the mid-'70s, John was one of the world's top concert draws selling out stadiums around the globe. His live show was renowned for its high energy, superior musicianship and his outrageous costumes. The audience never knew if John would come out as Donald Duck, the Statue of Liberty or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The outfits either added to the entertainment value or demeaned the music, depending upon whom you asked. "There were times when Bernie disapproved of my outfits and disapproved of my behaviour," John says. "He never said it to me directly but I could tell by his mood."
But it seemed that nothing could stop the hit train for John in the `70s. In 1976, he released "Blue Moves," an appropriately named title for an often somber album. The platter's biggest hit was "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," a heartbreakingly plaintive plea for love. In a rare instance, the lyrics for the song were written largely by John instead of Taupin. Twenty-five years after its initial release, John re-recorded the song with boy band Blue - and the song shot straight to the top.
The songwriter in John remains thrilled to this day when someone covers one of his tunes. "When I get into an elevator and I hear a Muzak version, I get excited," he says. "The greatest compliment [is] someone recording one of our songs. It's still, for me, the biggest kick."
Not surprisingly, after such a prodigious output, John and Taupin needed to take a break from each other by the late `70s. Taupin worked on other projects, while John turned to Gary Osbourne as a lyricist for his next album. But the hiatus was short-lived. By the time "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" reached the top 5 in 1983, the two had long reunited. Featured on "Two Low for Zero," the track was quickly followed by the jaunty, resilient "I'm Still Standing."
For John, even after all these years, the arrival of new Taupin lyrics is cause for celebration, signifying the start of a new adventure. "That is one of the most sacred things in our relationship, to actually get the new set of lyrics for whatever album it is," John says. "I still find that as exciting as I did when I did `Your Song' or I did `Come Down in Time' or `Skyline Pigeon.' It's that same thrill, and it's still the same thrill as when I finish the track and I play it to him because he hasn't heard it. That part of our relationship has never gone stale."
Like "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word," "Sacrifice" was another track to get a second chance at life. When first released in 1989, the low-key ballad about infidelity stalled at No. 55 on the singles chart. A few months later, it was repackaged with "Healing Hands" and climbed to No. 1 in 1990. Remarkably, it was John's first No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart as a solo act. His 20-year ascent to the summit included one other chart topper, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" in 1976, but that was a duet with Kiki Dee.
1990 was instrumental for John in a much more significant way. After years of substance abuse, he entered a rehab clinic in the U.S. and got clean and sober, a condition he has maintained ever since.
"Life for me started again in a big way when I got sober," John says. "I went to a facility for six weeks. Then I took a year off and I did a lot of work. I'd gone so far away from reality. my life was just on a track to hell." Indeed, John says he was so removed from ordinary life that "I couldn't work a dishwasher; I couldn't work a washing machine. I was completely dependent upon other people." Following rehab, he says, at 43, "I lived on my own for the first time in my life... I had to learn to be on my own."
John spent much of the `90s working on theatrical projects, including massive success "The Lion King," for which he and lyricist Tim Rice wrote the global smash "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "Circle of Life." The two collaborated again on "Aida," which went on to win the Tony for Best Original Score. John has subsequently worked on two other plays, "Billy Elliot" and "Lestat."
He also established the Elton John AIDS Foundation in the 90s. So far, the organization has raised more than $100 million. For the artist, his music and his message "go hand in hand. Without having my musical legacy, I couldn't do my philanthropic work," he recently told Paul Sexton for a BBC Radio 2 documentary. "I can play at any event and people will come and part with large sums of money for the AIDS Foundation or breast cancer. Without that, I would have a hard job. By being Elton John, it's a huge advantage to be able to call on people for favours."
The `90s were also a decade that saw John recognized for his musical, philanthropic and cultural contributions. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. The Queen named him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 with the press now dubbing him Sir Elton.
John's hit streak continued into the new millennium with "I Want Love" from 2001's underrated "Songs From the West Coast." The beautiful ballad of yearning was enhanced by its video which featured actor Robert Downey Jr. lip-syncing the tune in one long continuous shot.
In 2004, John turned to Las Vegas. For several weeks of out of the year, he fills in for Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace in a hit-driven show accompanied by lush, provocative short films created by noted photographer David LaChapelle. While John knew he would draw inevitable comparisons to another flamboyant showman, the late Liberace, he also suspected they would end once people saw the show. "The show I do in Vegas is not the normal Vegas show, and I enjoy it every night. There's a [scene] in `Someone Saved My Life Tonight' where someone's vagina catches fire. It's hardly family material. We've had no complaints. We've had complaints about Pamela Anderson's tits, but none about the smoking vagina."
In 2005, John reached another milestone: he and his longtime partner David Furnish married in a civil ceremony in England. The pair makes their home in Atlanta. The same year, he co-wrote with the Scissor Sisters, one the hippest pop dance bands of the moment (who themselves harbor a genuine affection and utter irreverence for Elton and his catalogue) Together, they hit the top of the chart in 2006 with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'."
John displays an unquenchable thirst for discovering developing artists. He remains the biggest music fan on the planet and proudly laughs about going to his local record shop in Atlanta every week on release day to snap up the latest arrivals: "I go in there at 9:30. I go before it opens, when they're still wheeling out the new releases. I can go through them, one by one, `cause I know what I want. It's one of my things I look forward to every week." He also loves calling artists to tell them how much he appreciates their work: "I remember phoning Fountains of Wayne when `Utopia Parkway' came out. I found them in Europe somewhere. And they thought it wasn't me on the phone, but it was!"
In 2006, he and Taupin released "The Captain and the Kid," a follow-up to the original "Captain Fantastic." The 10-song set was an emotional, autobiographical look at the past 35 years, unflinchingly recalling the years of excess, as well as the days of glory. "Sometimes the story of the struggles and the struggle was just as enjoyable as the success," John says.
2007 sees the release of "Rocket Man - The Definitive Hits" album. Achieving the almost impossible task of placing the best of Elton on one CD, this will feature 18 tracks, including the afore-mentioned "Tiny Dancer," as deployed in "Almost Famous."
This new anthology closes with "Tinderbox," a song from "The Captain and the Kid" - a cautionary tale about John and Taupin being in the vortex while chaos swirled around them. " `Tinderbox' is about being with each other on the road all the time, seeing and being with each other every day," John says. "If we'd stayed together much longer the whole thing could have gone up in flames. Then we would have argued, and we would have rowed and thank God that never happened."
Indeed, John and Taupin not only survived the tough times, they have thrived by allowing each other a long tether, remaining forever connected, yet free to pursue outside interests. "One of the things I'm most proud of in my life is the relationship I've had with Bernie," John says.
With over 200 million albums sales to his credit, Elton shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, although the pace may change. "Well, David is going to kill me if I don't [slow down]," John says. "This year is pretty full, obviously. I would like to slow down a little bit and not do so many shows, not travel as much. But there's always something. Somebody will phone up and ask you to do something you haven't done before, a challenge you haven't met that you want to rise to."
And, as John is the first to admit, at 60 he is having too much fun to stop: "It's a great life I have," he says, with tremendous gratitude. "I have the most fantastic life. I really love it so much."
And somehow, that doesn't seem like such a funny feeling inside at all.
By the time they arrived in Los Angeles, John and Taupin were three years into their magical writing partnership; Taupin provides the often emotional and poignant lyrics to John's intricate, beautiful melodies. The two met musically months before they ever came face to face when a record executive - who had declined to sign John, by the way - gave him sheets of lyrics written by Taupin. The pair later signed with Dick James' publishing company, and subsequently, his label. To this day, they continue to write apart.
John muses at the serendipity of it all: "Two people who had never known each other from different parts of the world by accident met each other in someone's office by someone giving a pile of lyrics to me and here we have this incredible life together."
Indeed, in their wildest dreams the young boys from Middlesex (John) and Lincolnshire (Taupin) couldn't have imagined the fame and fortune and the attendant drama that was to come their way over the next 40 years. With Taupin by his side, John is the topselling British artist in the U.K. and U.S. and has sold more than 200 million albums worldwide. The staggering numbers are surpassed only by John's singular career longevity. He is the only artist to place a song or album on the U.K. and U.S. charts every year from 1971 to 1999.
But John's earliest career indicators didn't point to any success-short or long-term. His first album, 1969's "Empty Sky," failed even to reach the bottom rungs of the British albums chart. But the prognosis changed dramatically with the release of John's second, self-titled album, which contained the gentle, unassuming "Your Song." With the opening lines "It's a little bit funny this feeling inside/I'm not one of those who can easily hide," John's world-and ours-changed forever. Almost 40 years later, the tune remains his signature song and concert closer.
It took more than a year and three more studio albums for John to have another hit single, but in the intervening months, he was creating songs that would become just as beloved as his chart toppers. For example, John's fourth studio album, "Madman across the Water," peaked at No. 41 on the British charts and had no songs that charted on the U.K. singles tally. However, time has been very kind to that album as opening track "Tiny Dancer" has become one of his most enduring tunes and received new life after director Cameron Crowe featured an endearing band sing-along in his 2000 film "Almost Famous." Additionally, the album's "Indian Sunset" topped the charts some 34 years after its initial release when it was sampled on 2Pac's posthumous "Ghetto Gospel."
John almost reached the summit himself in 1972 with "Rocket Man (I Think It's Going to be a Long, Long Time)" As the years went by, the haunting lyrics took on new meaning for John as a metaphor for the isolation his own stratospheric fame brought him. "The loneliness of being a rocket man [and] the loneliness of being a rock star are kind of similar. It was for me, anyway, until I sorted myself out," he says. "[The] stage was the only place you kind of wanted, felt at home. And you came offstage and you didn't know what to do with yourself. The curse of the performer is finding the balance between the fabulous onstage life that you have and the private life and trying to get a happy medium between the two."
In 1973, John released "Don't Shoot Me, I'm Only the Piano Player." The album started a spectacular run of four consecutive sets to top the British album charts. The LP was bolstered by two of John's biggest hits that couldn't have been more diametrically opposed in tempo: "Crocodile Rock" and "Daniel." But thematically, both deal with loss. "Crocodile Rock's" toe tapping, upbeat pace belies the sad, nostalgic lyrics of a chap looking back on a bygone, happier time. "Daniel" is a poignant farewell to a brother sung by the sibling staying behind. Lore has it that Taupin's last verse, cut by John, reveals that Daniel is a scarred Vietnam Vet.
By now, no sooner would a song from John disappear off the chart before a new one shortly appeared. John and Taupin were tremendously prolific, often releasing two albums a year. So it came as no surprise when toward the end of 1973, John released a double album that many consider his masterpiece, "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road." Rolling Stone rated it No. 91 in its list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time." If there were any doubt that Mr. John had arrived as a global superstar, it was erased with this album.], spurred on by the title track, "Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting," "Bennie and the Jets," and the now iconic "Candle in the Wind." Oddly, "Bennie and the Jets" wasn't a chart hit in the U.K. until 1976. (By then, John had left James' label and formed Rocket Records, but James still had the right to release the single).
The poignant "Candle in the Wind," written about Marilyn Monroe, rose to No. 11 on the British singles charts in 1974, but found its true calling in 1997 following the death of Princess Diana. John reworked the lyrics, including changing the opening line from "Goodbye Norma Jean" to "Goodbye England's Rose" to perform at the Princess's funeral. With proceeds from its sale going to the Diana, Princess of Wales Memorial Fund, a commercial version of "Candle in the Wind 1997" sold more than 33 million copies worldwide, making it the top-selling single of all time. In a touching sign of respect, John never performs the 1997 version live.
Less than a year after "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" (and with that album still on the charts for many more months to come), a seemingly indefatigable John released "Caribou." Considered one of his lesser efforts, the album nonetheless contained one of his most dramatically orchestrated hits, "Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me." John is rumoured to have hated the song when he first cut it. The song went to No. 16 on its original release, but like "Candle," it had a second life. Another version, recorded live on John's 44th birthday when he joined George Michael in concert, went to No. 1 in 1991.
In a meteoric rise, John had gone from club troubadour to a worldwide superstar. For his next album, John and Taupin looked back at a time that already seemed foreign to them. "Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy" - John and Taupin - was a concept album that revisited their lives together from their meeting in 1967 to arriving in America in 1970.
"`Captain Fantastic' was written from start to finish [in order]," recalls John. "I wrote it on the boat from Southampton to New York. It was the first album that really included me as a subject matter, and I found that very easy to write to."
The album includes the sensational "Someone Saved My Life Tonight." The "Someone" is Long John Baldry, the British blues musician for whom John took his last name when he morphed from his birth name of Reginald Dwight to Elton John in the `60s (Elton comes from sax player Elton Dean). John played in Baldry's band in the mid-60s. The song is allegedly about Baldry helping a despondent, suicidal John by talking him out of getting married in 1969.
Although largely autobiographical, the album's exception is "Philadelphia Freedom," an irrepressibly upbeat song written for tennis great Billie Jean King and her team, the Philadelphia Freedoms by John, an avid tennis fan and player.
By the mid-'70s, John was one of the world's top concert draws selling out stadiums around the globe. His live show was renowned for its high energy, superior musicianship and his outrageous costumes. The audience never knew if John would come out as Donald Duck, the Statue of Liberty or Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. The outfits either added to the entertainment value or demeaned the music, depending upon whom you asked. "There were times when Bernie disapproved of my outfits and disapproved of my behaviour," John says. "He never said it to me directly but I could tell by his mood."
But it seemed that nothing could stop the hit train for John in the `70s. In 1976, he released "Blue Moves," an appropriately named title for an often somber album. The platter's biggest hit was "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word," a heartbreakingly plaintive plea for love. In a rare instance, the lyrics for the song were written largely by John instead of Taupin. Twenty-five years after its initial release, John re-recorded the song with boy band Blue - and the song shot straight to the top.
The songwriter in John remains thrilled to this day when someone covers one of his tunes. "When I get into an elevator and I hear a Muzak version, I get excited," he says. "The greatest compliment [is] someone recording one of our songs. It's still, for me, the biggest kick."
Not surprisingly, after such a prodigious output, John and Taupin needed to take a break from each other by the late `70s. Taupin worked on other projects, while John turned to Gary Osbourne as a lyricist for his next album. But the hiatus was short-lived. By the time "I Guess That's Why They Call it the Blues" reached the top 5 in 1983, the two had long reunited. Featured on "Two Low for Zero," the track was quickly followed by the jaunty, resilient "I'm Still Standing."
For John, even after all these years, the arrival of new Taupin lyrics is cause for celebration, signifying the start of a new adventure. "That is one of the most sacred things in our relationship, to actually get the new set of lyrics for whatever album it is," John says. "I still find that as exciting as I did when I did `Your Song' or I did `Come Down in Time' or `Skyline Pigeon.' It's that same thrill, and it's still the same thrill as when I finish the track and I play it to him because he hasn't heard it. That part of our relationship has never gone stale."
Like "Sorry Seems to be the Hardest Word," "Sacrifice" was another track to get a second chance at life. When first released in 1989, the low-key ballad about infidelity stalled at No. 55 on the singles chart. A few months later, it was repackaged with "Healing Hands" and climbed to No. 1 in 1990. Remarkably, it was John's first No. 1 on the U.K. singles chart as a solo act. His 20-year ascent to the summit included one other chart topper, "Don't Go Breaking My Heart" in 1976, but that was a duet with Kiki Dee.
1990 was instrumental for John in a much more significant way. After years of substance abuse, he entered a rehab clinic in the U.S. and got clean and sober, a condition he has maintained ever since.
"Life for me started again in a big way when I got sober," John says. "I went to a facility for six weeks. Then I took a year off and I did a lot of work. I'd gone so far away from reality. my life was just on a track to hell." Indeed, John says he was so removed from ordinary life that "I couldn't work a dishwasher; I couldn't work a washing machine. I was completely dependent upon other people." Following rehab, he says, at 43, "I lived on my own for the first time in my life... I had to learn to be on my own."
John spent much of the `90s working on theatrical projects, including massive success "The Lion King," for which he and lyricist Tim Rice wrote the global smash "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" and "Circle of Life." The two collaborated again on "Aida," which went on to win the Tony for Best Original Score. John has subsequently worked on two other plays, "Billy Elliot" and "Lestat."
He also established the Elton John AIDS Foundation in the 90s. So far, the organization has raised more than $100 million. For the artist, his music and his message "go hand in hand. Without having my musical legacy, I couldn't do my philanthropic work," he recently told Paul Sexton for a BBC Radio 2 documentary. "I can play at any event and people will come and part with large sums of money for the AIDS Foundation or breast cancer. Without that, I would have a hard job. By being Elton John, it's a huge advantage to be able to call on people for favours."
The `90s were also a decade that saw John recognized for his musical, philanthropic and cultural contributions. He was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1992. The Queen named him a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1995 with the press now dubbing him Sir Elton.
John's hit streak continued into the new millennium with "I Want Love" from 2001's underrated "Songs From the West Coast." The beautiful ballad of yearning was enhanced by its video which featured actor Robert Downey Jr. lip-syncing the tune in one long continuous shot.
In 2004, John turned to Las Vegas. For several weeks of out of the year, he fills in for Celine Dion at Caesar's Palace in a hit-driven show accompanied by lush, provocative short films created by noted photographer David LaChapelle. While John knew he would draw inevitable comparisons to another flamboyant showman, the late Liberace, he also suspected they would end once people saw the show. "The show I do in Vegas is not the normal Vegas show, and I enjoy it every night. There's a [scene] in `Someone Saved My Life Tonight' where someone's vagina catches fire. It's hardly family material. We've had no complaints. We've had complaints about Pamela Anderson's tits, but none about the smoking vagina."
In 2005, John reached another milestone: he and his longtime partner David Furnish married in a civil ceremony in England. The pair makes their home in Atlanta. The same year, he co-wrote with the Scissor Sisters, one the hippest pop dance bands of the moment (who themselves harbor a genuine affection and utter irreverence for Elton and his catalogue) Together, they hit the top of the chart in 2006 with "I Don't Feel Like Dancin'."
John displays an unquenchable thirst for discovering developing artists. He remains the biggest music fan on the planet and proudly laughs about going to his local record shop in Atlanta every week on release day to snap up the latest arrivals: "I go in there at 9:30. I go before it opens, when they're still wheeling out the new releases. I can go through them, one by one, `cause I know what I want. It's one of my things I look forward to every week." He also loves calling artists to tell them how much he appreciates their work: "I remember phoning Fountains of Wayne when `Utopia Parkway' came out. I found them in Europe somewhere. And they thought it wasn't me on the phone, but it was!"
In 2006, he and Taupin released "The Captain and the Kid," a follow-up to the original "Captain Fantastic." The 10-song set was an emotional, autobiographical look at the past 35 years, unflinchingly recalling the years of excess, as well as the days of glory. "Sometimes the story of the struggles and the struggle was just as enjoyable as the success," John says.
2007 sees the release of "Rocket Man - The Definitive Hits" album. Achieving the almost impossible task of placing the best of Elton on one CD, this will feature 18 tracks, including the afore-mentioned "Tiny Dancer," as deployed in "Almost Famous."
This new anthology closes with "Tinderbox," a song from "The Captain and the Kid" - a cautionary tale about John and Taupin being in the vortex while chaos swirled around them. " `Tinderbox' is about being with each other on the road all the time, seeing and being with each other every day," John says. "If we'd stayed together much longer the whole thing could have gone up in flames. Then we would have argued, and we would have rowed and thank God that never happened."
Indeed, John and Taupin not only survived the tough times, they have thrived by allowing each other a long tether, remaining forever connected, yet free to pursue outside interests. "One of the things I'm most proud of in my life is the relationship I've had with Bernie," John says.
With over 200 million albums sales to his credit, Elton shows no signs of stopping anytime soon, although the pace may change. "Well, David is going to kill me if I don't [slow down]," John says. "This year is pretty full, obviously. I would like to slow down a little bit and not do so many shows, not travel as much. But there's always something. Somebody will phone up and ask you to do something you haven't done before, a challenge you haven't met that you want to rise to."
And, as John is the first to admit, at 60 he is having too much fun to stop: "It's a great life I have," he says, with tremendous gratitude. "I have the most fantastic life. I really love it so much."
And somehow, that doesn't seem like such a funny feeling inside at all.
