Sir Elton John ... He's Still Standing... by David Harrison Levi





On the basis of the charts alone the most popular artist of the '70s, Elton John (b. Reginald Kenneth Dwight, March 25, 1947, Pinner, Middlesex, England), is a master showman whose electrifying performances and nonstop stream of hit records have made him an international superstar of the highest caliber. But the charts also tell another, even more impressive story: Beginning with his first American hit "Your Song" in 1970, the singer/pianist has so far amassed an astounding total of over 50 top 40 hits in his still-fruitful career. In 1993, he surpassed Elvis Presley for the most consecutive years of top 40 hits on Billboard's Hot 100, and became the only artist in pop history to have reached the top 30 for 24 uninterrupted years; since then, incredibly, he's done it every year as well. With his status as a hot artist still very much intact, John looks likely to break many more records--in both senses of the word--before he finally hangs up his (formerly platform) rock 'n' roll shoes and heads off to the Great Player Piano in the sky.


Young Reggie Dwight began playing piano at an early age and studied at the Royal Academy of Music before making his move into rock 'n' roll in the mid-'60s. He began playing with an R&B group called Bluesology in 1964, backing American R&B artists such as Major Lance and Patti LaBelle & the Blue Belles, and Billy Stewart before working full-time behind lanky U.K. singer Long John Baldry . In June, 1967, he answered a Liberty Records advertisement seeking talent he'd seen in England's New Musical Express; the roundabout result was a songwriting partnership at music publisher Dick James Music with lyricist Bernie Taupin, who'd responded to the same ad, that would last into the '90s. Initially assigned to write songs for the likes of Tom Jones and Engelbert Humperdinck --which they attempted to do, but were unsuccessful--the pair were told by a company executive to stop trying to write "hits" and simply write music they themselves liked. "We basically went home and started writing what we felt like writing," Taupin later told writer Michael Amicone, "and those songs became the nucleus of our first album, Empty Sky."

In the U.S., 1969's Empty Sky would not see release until 1975, short months after Elton John's Greatest Hits had concluded its 10-week run as America's No. 1 album. Instead, the domestic debut of Elton John--a moniker Dwight had constructed by combining the names of Long John Baldry and Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean--would be 1970's Elton John. To help launch the album, the singer had flown to Los Angeles to give a now-legendary show at the Troubadour. "People just went crazy," John later recalled to British DJ Andy Peebles, "and a guy called Robert Hilburn from the Los Angeles Times gave me the rave review of all time, and it spread across America and I became an overnight sensation." Bolstered by the top 10 success of "Your Song," the album indeed soared to the top 5 and spent a year on the charts; by the end of 1971, no fewer than four other Elton John albums had been released--Tumbleweed Connection, Friends (a film soundtrack recorded in 1970), 11-17-70 (a live New York City concert that had been broadcast on WPLJ-FM), and Madman Across The Water. All entered the top 40; all but the concert set were certified gold.

John and Taupin were a brilliant team; the pianist was a captivating singer with a powerful voice, able to wring nuances out of even the most vague of Taupin's image-laden lyrics. John excelled as a balladeer, particularly when emoting on such surrealistic songs as "Levon"--which, some suggested, with its odd storyline about a man who "wears his war wound like a crown" and "calls his child Jesus," needed whatever help could be brought to it. From 1972's top 10 hit "Rocket Man," through 1976's "Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word," the singer produced a nonstop series of 16 top 20 singles, 12 of which had entered the top 5. John's commercial enormity was unprecedented; in the same period, three of his albums (Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy, Elton John's Greatest Hits, and Rock of The Westies) entered the album charts at No. 1, giving him a grand total of seven No. 1 albums in only a three-year span.

If lyricist Taupin needed any reassurance about the value of his contributions to John's songs, it came immediately after 1976's Blue Moves--the last album on which he'd work full-time with the singer until 1983's Too Low For Zero, and also the last top 10 Elton John album for 16 years. Beginning with 1978's A Single Man, the singer began collaborating with other lyricists including Gary Osborne, Tom Robinson, Judie Tzuke, and Tim Rice. Coinciding with that period was noticeable drop in the popularity of his singles; where the singer had previously typically charted in the single digit-range, beginning with 1978's "Ego," which peaked at No. 34, double-digits were more often the rule rather than the exception.

The singer spent much of the late '70s and mid-'80s appearing in a variety of new contexts. He released the three-song EP The Thom Bell Sessions, produced and arranged by Philly soul specialist Thom Bell, in 1979; its "Mama Can't Buy You Love" was one of the John's few top 10 hits of the period. Scant months later he appeared on the extremely curious "disco album" Victim of Love, which featured a cover of "Johnny B. Goode" and a plethora of non-originals by producer Pete Bellotte; the album sold poorly and is generally considered a failed experiment. Additionally, he appeared on Dionne & Friends' 1985 No. 1 hit "That's What Friends Are For" with Dionne Warwick , Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder , and sang on Jennifer Rush's top 40 hit "Flames Of Paradise" in 1987.

By the mid-'80s, Elton John began a three-stage comeback of sorts: 1) He began hitting the top 10 again with singles such as 1986's "Nikita," "I Don't Wanna Go On With You Like That," and a remake of "Candle In The Wind"; 2) He returned to MCA Records, after being at Geffen for seven years; and 3) Critics, who in recent years had often tended to dismiss him as a talented but ultimately lightweight sales phenomenon, began looking fondly at him, perhaps realizing his artistic consistency was much more of a phenomenon than the number of units he shipped. Beginning with 1987's Live In Austrailia With The Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, his MCA albums took on a renewed sales vigor, and by 1989's Sleeping With The Past, he scored his first all-new platinum album in 11 years. And with 1992's The One, again platinum, John had his first top 10 album since 1976's Blue Moves. Perhaps helping spur that success along was 1991's Two Rooms: Songs of Elton John & Bernie Taupin, a special tribute album to the songs of John and Taupin that featured top-line guest stars such as Eric Clapton, Kate Bush, Phiol Collins, Rod Stewart, Tina Turner, and Sting, among others.

Within four years, the singer and his reactivated Rocket Records label would move to PolyGram's Island Records division; the first product of that shift came via 1995's well-received Made In England. An exciting, generous artist whose fan base seems on the increase even in the '90s, Elton John is one of pop music's true giants.


Sir Elton John ... He's Still Standing... by David Harrison Levi