BIOGRAPHICAL DETAILS
Full Name: Reginald Kenneth Dwight
Description: Vocalist, Composer, UK
Known For: Hit song “Crocodile Rock”and “Daniel” 1973
Instruments: Piano, Voice
Music Styles: Rock
Location: United Kingdom
Date Born: 25th March 1947
Location Born: Pinner, United Kingdom
CONTACT DETAILS
Web Site:eltonjohn
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BIOGRAPHICAL PROFILE
Sir Elton John
An English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist.
an English rock singer-songwriter, composer, pianist and occasional actor. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriter partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.
In his five-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records, making him one of the most successful artists of all time. His single “Candle in the Wind 1997” has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, and is the best selling single in the history of the UK Singles Chart and the US Billboard Hot 100. He has more than 50 Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 56 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10, four No. 2 hits, and nine No. 1 hits. He has received six Grammy Awards, four Brit Awards, an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time.
John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. Having been named a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1996, John received a knighthood from Queen 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 $200 million.
John entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005 and continues to be a champion for LGBT social movements. In 2008, Billboard magazine ranked him as the most successful male solo artist on “The Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists” (third overall, behind only The Beatles and Madonna).
Early life
John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947, the eldest child of Stanley and only child of Sheila Eileen Dwight (née Harris) and was raised in Pinner, Middlesex in a council house of his maternal grandparents. His parents did not marry until he was 6 years old, 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 age 17, when he left just prior to his A Level examinations to pursue a career in the music industry.
When John began to seriously consider a career in music, his 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.
John started playing the piano at the age of 3, 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 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 Chopin and Bach and singing in the choir during Saturday classes, but that he was not otherwise a diligent classical student. “I kind of resented going to the Academy”, he says. “I was one of those children who could just about get away without practising and still pass, scrape through the grades.” He even claims that he would sometimes skip classes and just ride around on the Tube. However, several instructors have testified that he was a “model student”, and during the last few years he was taking lessons from a private tutor in addition to his classes at the Academy.
John’s mother, though also strict with her son, was more vivacious than her husband, and something of a free spirit. With Stanley Dwight uninterested in his son and often physically absent, John was raised primarily by his mother and maternal grandmother. When his father was home, the Dwights would have terrible arguments that greatly distressed their son. When John was 14, they divorced.
His mother then married a local painter, Fred Farebrother, a caring and supportive stepfather whom John affectionately referred to as “Derf”, his first name in reverse. They moved into flat No. 1A in an eight-unit apartment building called Frome Court, not far from both previous homes. It was there that John would write the songs that would launch his career as a rock star; he would live there until he had four albums simultaneously in the American Top 40.
Pub pianist to staff songwriter (1962–1969)
See also: Bluesology
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 for £35 a week and tips. 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 1964, 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, Billy Stewart, Doris Troy 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.
After failing lead vocalist auditions for King Crimson and Gentle Giant, Dwight answered an advertisement in the New Musical Express placed by Ray Williams, then the A&R manager for Liberty Records. At their first meeting, Williams gave Dwight a stack of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad. Dwight wrote music for the lyrics, and then mailed 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 Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.
The team of John and Taupin joined Dick James’s DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, like 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 British entry for the Eurovision Song Contest in 1969, for Lulu, called “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 recording, the single “Mr. Boyd” by Argosy, a quartet that was completed by Caleb Quaye and Nigel Olsson.
During this period, 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.
In 2000, John and Tim Rice teamed again to create songs for DreamWorks’ animated film The Road to El Dorado. In August 2003, John scored his fifth UK number one single when “Are You Ready for Love” topped the UK Charts. Returning again to musical theatre, John composed music for a West End Theatre production of Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005 with playwright Lee Hall. John’s only theatrical project with Bernie Taupin so far is Lestat: The Musical, based on the Anne Rice vampire novels. However it was slammed by the critics and closed in May 2006 after 39 performances.
John was named a Disney Legend for his numerous outstanding contributions to Disney’s films and theatrical works on 9 October 2006, by The Walt Disney Company. In 2006 he told Rolling Stone magazine that he plans for his next record to be in the R&B/hip-hop genre. “I want to work with Pharrell [Williams], Timbaland, Snoop [Lion], Kanye [West], Eminem and just see what happens.”
In March 2007 he performed at Madison Square Garden for a record breaking 60th time for his 60th birthday, the concert was broadcast live and a DVD recording was released as Elton 60 – Live at Madison Square Garden; a greatest-hits compilation CD, Rocket Man – Number Ones, was released in 17 different versions worldwide, including a CD/DVD combo; and his back catalogue – almost 500 songs from 32 albums – became available for legal download.
On 1 July 2007, Elton John appeared at the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium in London, in honour of Diana, Princess of Wales, on what would have been her 46th birthday. John opened the concert with “Your Song”, and then closed the concert with his second performance, with “Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting”, “Tiny Dancer”, and “Are You Ready For Love”.
In a September 2008 interview with GQ magazine, John said: “I’m going on the road again with Billy Joel again next year,” referring to “Face to Face,” a series of concerts featuring both musicians. The tour began in March and will continue for at least two more years.
In October 2003, John announced that he had signed an exclusive agreement to perform 75 shows over three years at Caesars Palace on the Las Vegas Strip. The show, entitled The Red Piano, was a multimedia concert featuring massive props and video montages created by David LaChapelle.
Effectively, he and Celine Dion share performances at Caesars Palace throughout the year – while one performs, one rests. The first of these shows took place on 13 February 2004.
On 21 June 2008, he performed his 200th show in Caesars Palace. A DVD/CD package of The Red Piano was released through Best Buy in November 2008. A two-year global tour was sandwiched between commitments in Las Vegas, Nevada, some of the venues of which were new to John. The Red Piano Tour closed in Las Vegas in April 2009.
Elton John performed a piano duet with Lady Gaga at the 52nd Grammy Awards. On 6 June 2010, John performed at the fourth wedding of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for a reported US$1 million fee. Eleven days later, and 17 years to the day after his last previous performance in Israel, he performed at the Ramat Gan Stadium; this was significant because of other then-recent cancellations by other performers in the fallout surrounding an Israeli raid on Gaza Flotilla the month before.
In his introduction to that concert, Elton John noted he and other musicians should not “cherry-pick our conscience”, in reference to Elvis Costello, who was to have performed in Israel two weeks after Elton did, but cancelled in the wake of the aforementioned raid, citing his [Costello’s] conscience.
John released The Union on 19 October 2010. John says his collaboration with American singer-songwriter and sideman Leon Russell marks a new chapter in his recording career, saying: “I don’t have to make pop records any more.
Elton John began his new show “The Million Dollar Piano” at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas on 28 September 2011. John will be performing the show at Caesars for the next three years. John performed his 3000th concert on Saturday 8 October 2011 at Caesars. In 2011, John performed vocals on Snowed in at Wheeler Street with Kate Bush for her 50 Words for Snow album. On 3 February 2012, Elton John visited Costa Rica for the first time when he performed at the recently built National Stadium.
It was announced in March 2012 that Elton had recently completed work on his thirty-first album entitled The Diving Board. The album was produced by T-Bone Burnett and was originally set for release in autumn 2012. The album’s release has been pushed back multiple times and is currently set for September 2013.
On 4 June 2012, Elton John performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace, performing a repertoire including “Your Song”, “Crocodile Rock” and “I’m Still Standing”. On 30 June, Elton performed in Kiev, Ukraine at a joint concert with Queen + Adam Lambert for the Elena Pinchuk ANTIAIDS Foundation.
An album containing remixes of songs that John recorded in the 1970s called Good Morning to the Night was released in July 2012. The remixes were conducted by Australian group Pnau and the album reached No. 1 in the U.K. charts, the first of Elton John’s albums to do this for 22 years.
At the 2012 Pride of Britain Awards on 30 October, Elton John, along with Michael Caine, Richard Branson, Simon Cowell and Stephen Fry, recited Rudyard Kipling’s poem If— in tribute to the 2012 British Olympic and Paralympics heroes.
In 2013, Elton John collaborated with American rock band Queens of the Stone Age on their sixth studio album, …Like Clockwork, contributing piano and vocals on the song “Fairweather Friends”. He stated that he was a fan of frontman Josh Homme’s side project, Them Crooked Vultures, and had contacted Homme via phone call, asking if he could perform on the album.
Songwriting
John has written with his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin since 1967 when he answered an advertisement for talent placed in the popular UK music publication, New Musical Express, by Liberty records A&R man Ray Williams. The pair have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.
The 1991 film documentary Two Rooms described the writing style that John and Taupin use, which involves Taupin writing the lyrics on his own, and John then putting them to music, with the two never in the same room during the process. Taupin would write a set of lyrics, then mail them to John, wherever he was in the world, who would then lay down the music, arrange it, and record. John is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA).
Sexuality and family
In the late 1960s, John was engaged to be married to his first lover, secretary Linda Woodrow, who is mentioned in the song “Someone Saved My Life Tonight”. He married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on 14 February 1984, in Darling Point, Sydney, with speculation that the marriage was a cover for his homosexuality. John had come out as bisexual in a 1976 interview with Rolling Stone, but after his divorce from Blauel in 1988 he told the magazine that he was “comfortable” being gay.
In 1993, John began a relationship with David Furnish, a former advertising executive and now filmmaker. John and Furnish entered a civil partnership on 21 December 2005. They held a low-key ceremony at the Windsor Guildhall, followed by a lavish party at their Berkshire mansion, thought to have cost £1 million. Their son, Zachary Jackson Levon Furnish-John, was born to a surrogate mother on 25 December 2010 in California. John and Furnish chose Lady Gaga, magazine editor Ingrid Sischy, and Sischy’s partner Sandy Brant as Zachary’s godmothers. A second son, Elijah Joseph Daniel Furnish-John, was born to the couple by the same surrogate mother on 11 January 2013.
In September 2009, John announced his intention to adopt a 14-month-old boy, Lev, from an AIDS orphanage in Ukraine, but he was denied due to his age and marital status. Furnish stated they would continue to financially support Lev and his brother and would campaign for a change in Ukrainian law. John has ten known godchildren, including Sean Lennon, David and Victoria Beckham’s sons Brooklyn and Romeo, Elizabeth Hurley’s son Damian Charles, and the daughter of Seymour Stein.
Albums include
ELTON JOHN – 1970
TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION – 1971
FRIENDS – 1971
MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER – 1971
HONKY CHATEAU – 1972
DON’T SHOOT ME, I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER – 1973
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD – 1973
CARIBOU – 1974
GREATEST HITS – 1974
EMPTY SKY – 1975
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY – 1975
ROCK OF THE WESTIES – 1975
HERE AND THERE – 1976
BLUE MOVES – 1976
GREATEST HIT’S VOL II – 1977
A SINGLE MAN – 1978
VICTIM OF LOVE – 1979
21 AT 23 – 1980
THE FOX – 1981
JUMP UP – 1982
TOO LOW FOR ZERO – 1983
BREAKING HEARTS – 1984
LIVE IN AUSTRALIA – 1988
REG STRIKES BACK – 1988
SLEEPING WITH THE PAST – 1989
Noted hits
YOUR SONG – 1970
ROCKET MAN – 1972
HONKY CAT – 1972
DANIEL – 1973
CROCODILE ROCK – 1973
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD – 1973
BENNIE AND THE JETS – 1973
DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME – 1974
THE BITCH IS BACK – 1974
SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD – 1976
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS – 1977
DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART – 1977 (With Kiki Dee)
I GUESS THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES – 1983
SAD SONGS (SAY SO MUCH) – 1984
I DON’T WANNA GO ON WITH YOU LIE THAT – 1988
Further information can be obtained at the web sites listed on the Links button above
WORKS
Albums include
ELTON JOHN – 1970
TUMBLEWEED CONNECTION – 1971
FRIENDS – 1971
MADMAN ACROSS THE WATER – 1971
HONKY CHATEAU – 1972
DON’T SHOOT ME, I’M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER – 1973
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD – 1973
CARIBOU – 1974
GREATEST HITS – 1974
EMPTY SKY – 1975
CAPTAIN FANTASTIC AND THE BROWN DIRT COWBOY – 1975
ROCK OF THE WESTIES – 1975
HERE AND THERE – 1976
BLUE MOVES – 1976
GREATEST HIT’S VOL II – 1977
A SINGLE MAN – 1978
VICTIM OF LOVE – 1979
21 AT 23 – 1980
THE FOX – 1981
JUMP UP – 1982
TOO LOW FOR ZERO – 1983
BREAKING HEARTS – 1984
LIVE IN AUSTRALIA – 1988
REG STRIKES BACK – 1988
SLEEPING WITH THE PAST – 1989
Noted hits
YOUR SONG – 1970
ROCKET MAN – 1972
HONKY CAT – 1972
DANIEL – 1973
CROCODILE ROCK – 1973
GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD – 1973
BENNIE AND THE JETS – 1973
DON’T LET THE SUN GO DOWN ON ME – 1974
THE BITCH IS BACK – 1974
SORRY SEEMS TO BE THE HARDEST WORD – 1976
LUCY IN THE SKY WITH DIAMONDS – 1977
DON’T GO BREAKING MY HEART – 1977 (With Kiki Dee)
I GUESS THAT’S WHY THEY CALL IT THE BLUES – 1983
SAD SONGS (SAY SO MUCH) – 1984
I DON’T WANNA GO ON WITH YOU LIE THAT – 1988
FILMOGRAPHY AS ACTOR
$ellebrity (11-Mar-2012) · Himself
Troubadors (Jan-2011)
Brüno (25-Jun-2009) · Himself
The Country Bears (21-Jul-2002) · Himself
The Road to El Dorado (31-Mar-2000) · Narrator [VOICE]
Spice World (15-Dec-1997) · Himself
Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert (20-Apr-1992) · Himself
Live Aid (13-Jul-1985) · Himself
Tommy (19-Mar-1975)
Born to Boogie (18-Dec-1972) · Himself
LINKS: