March 25, 1947—Reginald Kenneth Dwight was born in a
council house in Pinner, Middlesex, England to a former communications clerk on
an RAF base and the pilot she married. The latter’s attempt to instill
military-style discipline into his shy, sensitive, piano-playing son backfired.
Not only did the marriage fail, but the son embraced Little Richard and Jerry
Lee Lewis as his idols and, for the longest time, personal hedonism as his
preferred lifestyle. It’s a pretty safe bet that Stanley Dwight would have been
astonished to know that, when his first-born turned 50, he would be
knighted, under the show-biz nom de plume
he had taken for himself years before: Elton John.
The reaction against his father’s sartorial
strictures (no Hush Puppies allowed, for instance) might have been nearly a
decade tardy after the Dwights’ 1962 divorce, but when it finally came, it was
enacted with spectacular force and for all the world to see. John might have
entered the commercial stratosphere at the height of Glitter Rock, but I’d be
hard-pressed to think of another musician who could match him as the Liberace
of Rock, what with his endless varieties of eyewear, platform shoes, top hats, soccer
outfits, Ziegfeld showgirl plumes—add what you will, because there’s a fair
chance John wore it.
His show business name derived from Elton Dean,
saxophonist for the pop pianist’s Sixties band Bluesology, and blues singer
Long John Baldry. But more startling than the Christian name and surname he
came up with was his middle name: Hercules.
It might seem an affectation oddly macho for him, but like the Greek
mythological hero, he had to endure a series of labors (starting with his authoritarian
dad) before passing into legend:
· * The rough pub where he cut his musical
teeth as a teenager;
· *
A manic, fame-spurred lifestyle of
outrageous spending and crazy demands that, for sheer insanity, might have
climaxed when, frightened by turbulence in the air, he demanded that the pilot
of his plane “Stop the wind!”;
· *
The engagement in his twenties that put
him on the brink of suicide (a situation chronicled in the hit “Someone Saved
My Life Tonight”);
· *
Revealing his sexual orientation when
rock ‘n’ roll was at its most homophobic;
·
* The breakup of his marriage in the late
Eighties;
·
* Addictions to alcohol and drugs that it
took him more than a decade to shed;
· *
A protracted, painful court battle over
musical copyrights with his mentor, Dick James;
·
* A rancidly erroneous report by the
British tabloid The Sun that the star kept several guard dogs with larynxes
removed so he didn’t have to hear them bark (sparking a libel lawsuit ending
with the paper retracting its claims);
· *
A throat-cancer scare.
If you’re a baby boomer like myself, Elton was
nearly inescapable in the early-to-mid Seventies, with seven consecutive albums
that went number-one in America. He might as well have been given an entire
portion of the radio dial all to himself in those years. That’s the level of
commercial success that Warner Brothers record executive Joe Smith had in mind
when, for the famous October 27, 1975 Newsweek cover story on Bruce Springsteen, he wondered what level of success The Boss
could achieve, let alone sustain: “He's a hot new artist now, but he's not the
new messiah and I question whether he will establish an international mania.
He's got a very long way to go before he does what Elton has done, or Rod
Stewart or The Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin."
We know what happened to The Boss, but we also know
what happened to Elton: perhaps not the supernova phenomenon he had, but
certainly sustained, consistent success (save for a brief dip in the late
Seventies) since then, even in the musical theater (The Lion King, Aida, Billy Elliott). And, for all the
differences in persona between himself and Springsteen, the two have this in
common: they are virtually without peer as live performers. (Elton’s flamboyance
in concert might have a more desperate quality to it: he was once quoted as
saying that the stage was “about the only place where I feel safe.”)
A few more points about Sir Elton:
·
* How many can match him for the number
and range of his duet partners—to name a few, John Lennon, Billy Joel, Kiki
Dee, Tina Turner, Shania Twain, Leon Russell, even Luciano Pavarotti?
· *
How many can match him for the number
and range of his feuding partners—Madonna, George Michael, Keith Richards,
Simon Cowell? (See this "Daily Beast" post.)
·
* Besides the hundreds of songs he has
written over the years, in collaboration with Bernie Taupin and, more recently,
Tim Rice, he has also either released or performed in concert some interesting
cover tunes, including by Fleetwood Mac (“Don’t Stop”), Jerry Lee Lewis (“Whole
Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On”), George and Ira
Gershwin (“But Not For Me”), and Johnny
Mercer and Henry Mancini (“Moon River,” in this You Tube video, to a French audience).
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