Elton John through the ages: From Rocket Man to his final Cork appearance
Elton John performing in London recently, as part of the same tour that'll take in Páirc Uí Chaoimh in Cork. Picture: Suzan Moore/PA Wire
Elton John is still standing. Having turned 75 in March, the veteran piano-man is back doing what he loves: sharing 50 glittering years of hits with fans. Thus far, it’s been a victory lap to savour.
Bennie and the Jets, Candle in the Wind and Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting are among the soft-pop classics he’s been belting out with gusto as his Goodbye Yellow Brick Road tour resumes after a two-year, pandemic-enforced absence. For Elton diehards counting down to the return of live music the wait has proved more than worth it.
Irish fans will have a chance to blast into pop heaven with rocketman Elton when he brings the show to Cork on Friday, July 1. And with the singer due to hang up his piano – or at least put it into storage – at the end of this marathon run of dates, this will be one of the final chances to see him in the flesh.
What a trip it’s been for the artist-born Reginald Dwight, who has overcome an early life marked by parental disapproval and chronic shyness to soar high as one of the great hit-makers of his generation. And as we count down to the Páirc Uí Chaoimh gig what better time to look back on a drama-packed career? Buckle up as we bring you the life and times of Elton John in 10 chapters.
The year was 1967 and 20-year-old aspiring singer Reg Dwight had just answered an advertisement placed by Liberty Records seeking an in-house writer. To his shock, he got the job and was introduced to another would-be hit-maker, Bernie Taupin.
They soon exited Liberty and struck out together as a writing duo. Dwight had by this time started using a stage name, inspired by the musicians Elton Dean and Long John Baldry (with whom he had played in the group Bluesology). He and Taupin initially worked as session players and writers for other artists, including Lulu and crooner Roger Cook.
But then, in 1970, John released his self-titled second album. It included the track Your Song, the lyrics to which Taupin scribbled on a notepad in the kitchen of Elton’s mother’s apartment in 1969. It’s a little bit funny but the tune became a sensation on both sides of the Atlantic – and anointed Elton John a pop star.
In August 1970, Elton John flew to Los Angles for a six-night residency at the iconic Troubadour venue. The gigs immediately went down in the annals for their star-making effect. He played eight shows in under a week, to an audience that included Neil Diamond (who introduced John on stage), Randy Newman, Crosby, Stills and Nash, Brian Wilson, Linda Ronstadt, Quincy Jones and the Eagles’ Don Henley.
Elton’s golden years had well and truly arrived by the time he released his seventh album, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in October 1973. It brimmed with instant classics: Bennie and the Jets, Saturday Night’s Alright For Fighting and Candle in the Wind.
Two years later, he had another worldwide hit with Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy – a biographical record about Elton and Taupin’s early adventures in music (Elton is Captain Fantastic, Taupin, the Brown Dirt Cowboy). It created history as the first record to be both certified “Gold” before release (indicating US preorders in excess of 500,000) and debut at number one in the American charts.
Having achieved fame, the once shy Reginald Dwight became Elton John the mega-star. He started dressing like one, going on stage variously kitted out as Donald Duck, Mozart and the Statue of Liberty. In 1975, he received a star in the Hollywood Hall of Fame. That October he played to a crowd of over 100,000 over two nights at Los Angeles’Dodgers Stadium.
“In October 1975, no one was bigger than Elton John,” recalled photographer Terry O’Neill, who snapped the show and was later interviewed for Elton John’s website. “He was like Elvis at the height of his career. It is impossible to try to explain to people today what it was like – numerous number one albums, touring non-stop, recording non-stop, media, press, television…he was everywhere.”
Dusk was settling over Los Angeles as the concert entered its home stretch. With night descending, Elton looked towards the horizon and launched into the first notes of Don’t Let The Sun Go Down On Me. It was peak 1970s – and peak Elton.
After seven number one US albums in a row, Elton John had seen his wildest dreams come true. Yet just below the mega-star surface was a shy young man from Pinner, in suburban London, unprepared for fame. His coping mechanism was to numb his feelings: he became lost in a whirlwind of drugs, sex, and alcohol – with one friend stating that Elton “went very Judy Garland on us”.
“I still dream, twice a week at least, that I’ve taken cocaine and I have it up my nose,” the singer would tell America public radio in 2012. “And it’s very vivid and it’s very upsetting, but at least it’s a wake-up call.”
Many rock stars have a debauched phase. However, Elton John’s spiralled into truly dark places – as he would acknowledge. “I’d stay up, I’d smoke joints, I’d drink a bottle of Johnnie Walker and then I’d stay up for three days and then I’d go to sleep for a day and half, get up, and because I was so hungry, because I hadn’t eaten anything,” he confessed to Piers Morgan. “I’m not being flippant when I say that, when I look back I shudder at the behaviour and what I was doing to myself.”
Out of rehab, Elton John went back to making hits. But by the 1980s, his writing was losing its spark. He was still bothering the charts. But I’m Still Standing and Nikita felt like saggy, soggy pastiches of older, better songs. It didn’t help that the MTV-era had dawned – an anathema to a performer who felt music should speak for itself.
“I hate f**king videos," he said at the time. "They are fucking loathsome. It’s probably because of my looks."
Away from the music, meanwhile, he became heavily involved in the fight against Aids in the late 1980s, raising awareness and being hands-on with funding various charities. By 1992, he had set up the Elton John AIDS Foundation, an organisation that has since dished out upwards of €350m.
The singer had struck up a friendship with Princess Diana when he was invited to Windsor Castle to play at the 21st birthday of, shudder, Prince Andrew. “When I arrived, there was no one there but the dance band and Princess Diana,” he said. “We danced the Charleston alone on the floor for 20 minutes."
Her death in August 1997 obviously devastated him. So much so he repurposed Candle In The Wind, off Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, tweaking lyrics that originally referred to Marilyn Monroe so that they instead read as a eulogy to Diana.
With production by the Beatles George Martin, the new recording spent five weeks at UK number one and remains the best-selling single of all time in British chart history. It also topped the charts in Ireland. Elton performed this new version, with Diana-specific lyrics, just once – at her funeral at Westminster Abbey in September 1997. All royalties from the single went to the Princess of Wales memorial fund.
Elton’s days as a daring young hitmaker were long way behind as the 1990s dawned. This is when he arguably was at his drippiest. True, Circle of Life – with lyrics by Andrew Lloyd Webber collaborator Tim Rice – became a huge smash. However, critics were not kind to the Lion King power-ballad (a gooey take on David Attenborough and the tooth and claw realities of nature). “Sad to relate…another rather unimpressive Elton John ballad, unable to stand comparison with much of his classic output,” said music writer James Masterson. How far Elton had travelled from Goodbye Yellow Brick Road.
Mega-rich and successful beyond imagining, in his later career John circled around to his glorious first 10 years as a hit-maker. In 2006 he and Taupin released a ‘sequel” to Captain Fantastic – The Captain & the Kid. Going back to their roots paid off as they received some of his best reviews in decades.
“Elton's gifts haven't deserted him,” said Rolling Stone. “The big surprise is how such a shameless navel-gazing exercise can actually end up being quite moving,” agreed the UK Independent. His status as an icon was further reinforced by a surrealistic 2019 biopic, Rocketman, starring Taron Egerton as Elton and Bryce Dallas Howard as his disapproving mother. And by collaborations with such credible younger artists as Dua Lipa and Rina Sawayama.
In January 2018, Elton announced he would retire from live performance, following a three-year victory lap tour. By that time frame, he should have taken his final bows at least six months ago. Then Covid happened and life got shunted back 24 months. Which is why Elton is now waving goodbye all over again – and why the Cork gig will be an opportunity for fans to say farewell in person. Hold on to your over-sized spectacles, it’s going to be emotional.
