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Elton John
Musical artist

Sir Elton Hercules John, CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is a multiple Grammy- and Academy Award-winning English pop/rock singer, composer and pianist.

Accomplishments

Inforces in the rock world during the 1970s, with a string of seven consecutive #1 records on the U.S. album charts, 23 Top 40 singles, 16 Top 10 ones, and six #1 hits. His success had a profound impact on popular music, and contributed to the continued popularity of the piano in rock and roll. Key musical elements in John's success included his melodic gifts matched with the contributions of his lyricist partner Bernie Taupin, his rich tenor and gospel-chorded piano, aggressive string arrangements, and his flamboyant fashion sense and on-stage showmanship. In 2004, Rolling Stone Magazine ranked Elton John #49 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He continues to be a major public figure, and has been heavily involved in the fight against AIDS since the late 1980s. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994 and was knighted in 1998, and has remained an enduringly successful artist. Elton is also a champion of gay rights.


Personal life

File:Civil partnership elton john.jpg
Document of Civil Partnership

John has had a complicated personal history in both his sexual orientation, as well as personal battles with drugs, depression, bulimia, baldness, and spending.

Sexual orientation and extended relationships

In a 1976 Rolling Stone interview he announced that he was bisexual. He stated his belief that everyone is bisexual to a degree. On rigid notions of macho gender expression, he cited Shirley MacLaine: "Shirley MacLaine said the right thing to Tom Snyder on TV. She said, 'Oh c'mon, Tom. Let's stop all this stupid macho business. It really is a bit passé now.'".

John married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on Valentine's Day, 1984, but they divorced four years later. John later renounced his bisexuality and came out as a homosexual instead.

He met his partner David Furnish, a former advertising executive and now film maker, in 1993. On 21 December 2005, they entered into a civil partnership. A low-key ceremony with their parents, photographer Sam Taylor-Wood and her husband Jay Jopling, and John and Furnish's dog Arthur in attendance was held at the Guildhall, Windsor, followed by a lavish party at their Berkshire mansion. Many famous guests were invited, but were delayed just outside John's Windsor household in a traffic jam of guests waiting to get inside.

John does not have any children, but does have ten godchildren as of March 2006. Besides the aforementioned Sean Ono Lennon, these include Elizabeth Hurley's son Damian Charles and David and Victoria Beckham's son Brooklyn.

Within the music industry, Elton is sometimes known as "Sharon", a nickname originally given to him by good friend Rod Stewart. In return, Elton calls Rod "Phyllis".

Drugs, alcohol and health

Throughout his career, John has battled addictions to alcohol and cocaine. By 1975, the pressures of stardom began to take a serious toll on the musician. During "Elton Week" in Los Angeles that year, John suffered a drug overdose. He also battled the eating disorder bulimia. In a CNN Interview with Larry King in 2002, King asked if John was aware of Princess Diana's eating disorder. John replied, "Yes, I did. We were both bulimic. I was also a bulimic."

He is also rumoured to have struggled with significant financial difficulties caused by his profligate spending. In the mid-late 1990s, John formed a friendship with pop singer Michael Jackson, who later dedicated his 1997 album Blood on the Dance Floor to him for the support John had given him during his struggle with addiction to prescription painkillers.

In 1987 he had an operation to remove polyps from his vocal cords. Physicians speculated that John's heavy use of marijuana may have contributed to the formation of the polyps..

After many years of struggling with drug and alcohol addiction, John finally checked himself into a rehabilitation clinic in 1990. He has cited the highly-publicised case of Ryan White, who died that same year of complications from AIDS (and at whose funeral John performed), as a major motivating factor in his decision to enter rehab.

In July 1999, he was fitted with a pacemaker due to an irregular heart beat.

Residence

Aside from his main home in Windsor, England, John splits his time in his various residences in Atlanta, Georgia; Nice, France; Holland Park in London; and Venice, Italy. Elton John is a noted art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

Spending

During the 2000 court case, where John sued both his former manager John Reid, the CEO of Reid's company and accountants Price Waterhouse Coopers, he admitted spending £30 million in just under two years - an average of £1.5 million a month, the High Court in London heard. The singer's lavish lifestyle saw him spend more than £9.6m on property and £293,000 on flowers between January 1996 and September 1997. John accused the pair of being negligent, and PWC of failing in their duties. Mark Hapgood QC for defendants PWC suggested that John went "spending mad" following a £42m deal with recording company Polygram in February 1996. When quizzed by Mr Hapgood about the £293,000 spent on flowers, John said: Yes, I like flowers. John stated that the terms of the contract, whereby John paid Reid 20% of his gross earnings, were agreed in St Tropez in the summer of 1984 - but that he could not remember the exact occasion on which the deal was made. After losing the case, he faced an £8 million bill for legal fees.

Elton John decided with his fleet manager John Newman to sell 20 of his collection of 28 cars at Christie's - including several Ferraris, Aston Martins, and six post-war Bentleys. His reason for selling them was stated as: I do not find enough time to drive them. The sale raised £2 million The cars sold included:

  • 1993 Jaguar XJ220 - the most expensive car in the collection, with a 213mph top speed and only 852 miles on the clock - sold for £234,750. The auction room was told how Sir Elton's chauffeur refused to drive the car after he "twitched it" on a flyover and was scared by its power.
  • 1978 Aston Martin V8 Vantage Coupe - known as "The Beast", because of its roar, went for £80,750. The car was painted in black, red and yellow; the colours of Sir Elton's favourite Watford Football Club.
  • Two Ferraris - a 1992 512 Testarossa and a 1987 Testarossa given to John by MCA Records on the occasion of his 40th birthday. Rod Stewart had been among a group of friends who had ridden in the car.
  • 1973 Rolls-Royce Phantom VI - Lawrence Cohen from Hertfordshire spent over twice as much on a car valued at £110,000. It was fitted with a 36-speaker stereo system which cost £28,000. It was so powerful that it once blew out the rear window, after which the glass in the car had to be reinforced.
  • 1985 Bentley Continental Convertible - in Tudor Red, the car used in the video for Nikita. The car's body was specially crafted by coachbuilder Mulliner Park Ward of Harlesden, and a long list of special fitments include colour-coded radiator veins and parchment trim piped in red.
  • 1969 Rolls-Royce Silver Cloud Mk3 - supplied new in Arizona, it was a purchase by John in Atlanta and named Daisy after the film Driving Miss Daisy which was filmed close to his Atlanta home. Flown to the UK in 1994 by KLM, it spent two years being restored at the cost of £100,000. It sold for £90,000.

In 2003, Elton John sold the contents of his Holland Park home in a bid to create more room for his collection of contemporary art. The auctioneer's Sotheby's catalogue had a list of more than 400 items, expected to fetch £800,000, including: Biedermeier furniture; early 16th and 17th century items including an Edward Bower estimated at £20,000-£30,000 and a portrait of Elizabeth Honeywood from the circle of William Larkin, which was estimated at £30,000-£40,000. John's bedroom featured a painting by 19th-century French artist Jacques-Noël-Marie Frémy, which was exhibited at the 1814 Paris Salon, and is estimated at £12,000-£18,000 .

Sports and other interests

  • In 1976, Elton John became involved in Watford Football Club and fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming its chairman and director. He invested large sums of money and the club rose into the First Division after a number of key acquisitions. He sold the club to Jack Petchey in 1987, but remained their life-long president. In 1997 he re-purchased the club from Petchey and once again became chairman. He stepped down in 2002 when the club needed a full-time chairman although he continued as president of the club. Although no longer the majority shareholder, he stills holds a significant financial interest. In June 2005 he held a concert at Watford's Vicarage Road ground, donating the funds to the club.
  • A longtime tennis enthusiast, Elton wrote the song "Philadelphia Freedom" in tribute to longtime friend Billie Jean King and her World Team Tennis franchise of the same name. John and King also co-host an annual pro-am event to benefit AIDS charities, most notably John's own Elton John AIDS Foundation, for which King is a chairperson.

Charity

John has long been associated with AIDS charities after the deaths of his friends Ryan White and Freddie Mercury, raising large amounts of money and using his public profile to raise awareness of the disease. For example, in 1986 he joined with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder to record the single "That's What Friends Are For", with all profits being donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The song won Elton and the others the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (as well as Song of the Year for its writers, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager). In April 1990, John performed "Skyline Pigeon" at the funeral of White, a teenage hemophiliac he had befriended.

John founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 as a charity to fund programmes for HIV/AIDS prevention, for the elimination of prejudice and discrimination against HIV/AIDS-affected individuals, and for providing services to people living with or at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS. This cause continues to be one of his personal passions. In early 2006, Elton donated the smaller of two bright-red Yamaha pianos from his Las Vegas show to auction on eBay to raise public awareness and funds for the foundation. For his AIDS charity, John has hosted annually a glamorous White Tie and Tiara Ball, to which many famous celebrities are invited.

Every year since 2004, he has opened a shop (this year in Manhattan, before in London and Atlanta), selling his second hand clothes. Called "Elton's Closet" the sale this year of 10,000 items was expected to raise $400,000

Musical style and voice

In the 1970s, Elton John's sound immediately set him apart from most others by being piano-based in a rock 'n' roll world dominated by guitars. Another early characteristic was a set of dynamic string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster. Coupled with Taupin's often opaque but emotionally resonant lyrics, the results were unique in the history of music. Songs in this style included "Sixty Years On", "Burn Down the Mission", "Take Me to the Pilot", "Levon", "Madman Across the Water", and the best-known of these, "Tiny Dancer".

"Your Song", one of his earliest popular hits, incorporates some other features found in many of his songs:

John also has a distinctive vocal style. In particular, his phrasing is often a bit metronomic and sometimes has a curiously off-kilter, "rushed" quality especially at the end of lines (example: the phrase "like a puppy child" in the song "Amoreena"). He also, at least in his classic period in the 1970s, would sometimes sweep up from his normal tenor into a Four Seasons-like falsetto.

Elton John underwent throat surgery to remove potentially cancerous nodules from his vocal cords in January 1987 while on tour, a necessity he originally said was due to an infection, but later said was the result of excessive drug abuse.

The problems with his voice can clearly be heard in his raspy singing on the Live In Australia album (released 1987). He made a full recovery from the surgery, but he continued to indulge in illegal drugs until 1990. The surgery in 1987 also had an after-effect on John's voice, and he found that he could no longer sing in falsetto as well as he previously could, and that he now sang in a lower range. During an interview with James Lipton, John had claimed to embrace this new tone, feeling it gave a more "masculine" quality that contrasted with his earlier work.

The change in Elton John's voice has been largely played down, though he stated, commenting fifteen years after the surgery, that he was "singing better than ever." Studio effects were evidently added to his voice on his first UK number 1 hit "Sacrifice" (1990). The release of Songs From The West Coast, his 2001 album, showed very clearly how different his voice is to his prime.

Elton John continues to inspire musicians today, particularly Rufus Wainwright, Ben Folds, Adrian Evans, and Ryan Adams, however, more unlikely artists like Thom Yorke (Radiohead), Billie-Joe Armstrong (Green Day) and even Axl Rose (Guns N' Roses) are said to be fans. Final Fantasy music composer Nobuo Uematsu was also greatly influenced by him throughout his life, claiming "no one writes a melody like him."

Awards

Discography

For a complete album discography, see Elton John discography.

Singles

For a complete singles discography, see Elton John singles discography.

Band members

Current members
Previous band members

See also

References and notes

  1. This middle name, after the horse named Hercules on the British sitcom Steptoe and Son, appears little used (it only receives 801 Google results as of 27/05/06), however The Columbia Encyclopedia, 6th ed. uses the name in its entry. It is officially part of his name, as reflected in this certificate notifying the change of name of a company director (Elton John).
  2. He was made a CBE in 1996 - In the 1998 New Year's Honours list he was made a Knight Bachelor
  3. "Elton John". Billy Joel. Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
  4. "The Immortals: The First Fifty". Rolling Stone Issue 946. Rolling Stone.
  5. http://www.classicbands.com/eltonjohn.html
  6. http://www.rollingstone.com/artists/davidbowie/articles/story/8718858/elton_john_its_lonely_at_the_top
  7. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/showbiz/showbiznews.html?in_article_id=372279&in_page_id=1773
  8. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/4546670.stm
  9. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/opinion/main.jhtml?xml=/opinion/2003/11/02/do0210.xml&sSheet=/opinion/2003/11/02/ixop.html
  10. "Elton John", Biography Channel, 2005
  11. CNN.com: "Larry King Live: Interview With Elton John Aired January 25, 2002"
  12. http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/11352004.htm
  13. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/1024745.stm
  14. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/showbiz/1283409.stm
  15. http://www.forbes.com/2001/06/04/0604vow.html
  16. http://www.findaproperty.com/story.aspx?storyid=4831
  17. http://www.theage.com.au/news/people/elton-john-turns-rags-to-riches-for-charity/2006/04/11/1144521337887.html
  18. http://www.femalefirst.co.uk/celebrity/11352004.htm

External links

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