Sir Elton John

Sir Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight; 25 March 1947) is an English singer, pianist, and composer. He has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriting partner since 1967; they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date. In his five-decade career Elton John has sold more than 300 million records, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world. He has more than fifty Top 40 hits, including seven consecutive No. 1 US albums, 58 Billboard Top 40 singles, 27 Top 10, four No. 2 and nine No. 1. For 31 consecutive years (1970–2000) he had at least one song in the Billboard Hot 100. His tribute single "Candle in the Wind 1997", rewritten in dedication to Princess Diana, sold over 33 million copies worldwide and is the best-selling single in the history of the UK and US singles charts. He has also composed music, produced records, and has occasionally acted in films. John owned Watford Football Club from 1976 to 1987, and 1997 to 2002. He is an honorary Life President of the club, and in 2014 had a stand named after him at the club's home stadium.

Raised in the Pinner area of London, John learned to play piano at an early age, and by 1962 had formed Bluesology. John met his songwriting partner, Bernie Taupin, in 1967, after they had both answered an advert for songwriters. For two years they wrote songs for other artists, including Lulu, and John also worked as a session musician for artists such as the Hollies and the Scaffold. In 1969 his debut album, Empty Sky, was released. In 1970 a single, "Your Song", from his second album, Elton John, reached the top ten in the UK and the US, his first hit single. After decades of commercial chart success, John has also achieved success in musical theatre, both in the West End and on Broadway, composing the music for The Lion King (film and musical), Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical.

He has received five Grammy Awards, five Brit Awards – winning two awards for Outstanding Contribution to Music and the first Brits Icon in 2013 for his "lasting impact on British culture", an Academy Award, a Golden Globe Award, a Tony Award, a Disney Legends award, and the Kennedy Center Honors in 2004. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of 100 influential musicians of the rock and roll era. In 2013, Billboard ranked him the most successful male solo artist on the Billboard Hot 100 Top All-Time Artists (third overall behind the Beatles and Madonna).[10] He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, is an inductee into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and is a fellow of the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors. Having been named a Commander of the British Empire in 1996, John was made a Knight Bachelor by 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 US$200 million. John, who announced he was bisexual in 1976 and has been openly gay since 1988, entered into a civil partnership with David Furnish on 21 December 2005, and after same-sex marriage became legal in England and Wales in 2014, wed Furnish on 21 December 2014. On 24 January 2018, it was announced that John would be retiring from touring and would soon embark on a three-year farewell tour, which is set to begin in September 2018.

• From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elton_John, accessed 24 May 2018.

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British singer, composer, and pianist Elton John was one of the most popular entertainers of the late 20th century, famous for his flashy clothes and string of hit records. In his four-decade career John has sold more than 250 million records. His single "Candle in the Wind 1997" has sold over 33 million copies worldwide, and is the best selling single in Billboard history. In October 1975, John became the 1,662nd person to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame for his contribution to the recording industry. John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. In 1998 he was knighted by Queen Elizabeth II. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked him Number 49 on its list of the 100 greatest artists of all time. More recently, he's become a humanitarian with a particular interest in supporting AIDS charities.

He was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on March 25, 1947, the eldest child of Stanley and only child of Sheila Eileen (née Harris) Dwight. John was overweight and wore glasses. He was afraid of his father, a squadron leader (a ranking officer) with the Royal Air Force, whom he described as "very snobbish and sort of stiff." His mother Sheila, on the other hand, brought home records that introduced him to rock music. John taught himself to play the piano at the age of four.

A child prodigy on the piano, John was awarded a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music at 11. Gravitating toward pop after discovering rhythm and blues, he joined Bluesology, later John Baldry's backing band, in the mid-1960s. He met his major songwriting collaborator, Bernie Taupin (b. May 22, 1950, Sleaford, Lincolnshire), after both responded to an advertisement in a trade magazine, and his first British recording success was with “Lady Samantha” in 1968. His first American album, Elton John, was released in 1970 and immediately established him as a major international star.

Throughout his career John demonstrated a supreme talent for assimilating and blending diverse pop and rock styles into a propulsive, streamlined sound that was extroverted, energetic, and somewhat impersonal. His recordings were among the first to homogenize electric guitar and acoustic piano with synthesized instrumentation. His vocal style, with its Southern accent and gospel inflections, was strongly American-influenced, as was his pianism, an ornate, gospel-flavoured elaboration of the stylings of Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. His first American hit, “Your Song,” in 1970, was a love ballad that combined the introspective mood of the era's singer-songwriters with a more traditional pop craftsmanship. John's early 1970s recordings paid homage to country rock and folk rock models such as the Band and Crosby, Stills and Nash.

By 1973 John was one of the world's best-selling pop performers. His typical compositions, written with Taupin, were affectionate parodies and pastiches of everything from the Rolling Stones (“The Bitch Is Back” [1974]%29 to Frank Sinatra ballads (“Blue Eyes” [1982]) to 1950s rock and roll (“Crocodile Rock” [1972]) to Philadelphia soul (“Philadelphia Freedom” [1975]). He also demonstrated deeper musical ambitions in longer works such as “Burn Down the Mission” on Tumbleweed Connection (1971) and “Funeral for a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” on Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (1973).

Beginning in 1976 with the album Blue Moves, his rock influences became less pronounced, and a more churchlike English pop style emerged in ballads like “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word” (1976), which typified the staid declamatory aura of his mature ballads. In the late 1970s and '80s, as he experimented with other collaborators, his music lost some of its freshness and his popularity dipped a bit, but he remained an extremely popular mainstream entertainer who brought into the pop arena an old-fashioned gaudily costumed flamboyance reminiscent of the Las Vegas piano legend Liberace. In the 1990s John was the first male pop star to declare his homosexuality, suffering no noticeable career damage. With lyricist Tim Rice he also wrote songs for the film The Lion King (1994), which was adapted into a Broadway musical in 1997. The same year, a new version of his 1973 song “Candle in the Wind,” revised by Taupin to mourn the death of Diana, princess of Wales, became the most successful pop single in history, selling more than 30 million copies.

From 2003 to 2009 John had an open engagement at Caesars Palace in Las Vegas. The show, titled Elton John and the Red Piano, was a multimedia retrospective of his career, with visuals provided by photographer David LaChapelle. During that time John composed the score for Billy Elliot, a stage adaptation of the popular film. That musical premiered on London's West End in 2005 and made its Broadway debut in 2008. The following year it won 10 Tony Awards, including best musical.

Source: Wikipedia, Biography, Notable Biographies