John Reid

---

maybe He has started to sing cover versions went on cheap compilation albums, but Elton John , the fifth-highest-selling recording artist of all Time .

He was The First musician to enter the American album charts at Number One . He won a Brit award for outstanding performance Three Times . And he has six gold, 38 platinum, and diamond albums.

None of this, however, impressed with his father.

Stanley Dwight , a flight attended lieutenant in The Royal Air Force , never one of Elton 's shows, and never expressed pride in his son's success. Their relationship was strained until his death from heart disease in 1991.

Writing in his new autobiography, Me, Elton admits he spent his whole career ", trying to show my dad what I'm made of".

"It's crazy, but I just wanted his approval," The Star told the BBC, in the only print interview about his book. "I'm still trying to prove to him that what I'm doing is right - and he's been dead for almost 30 years. "

Strikingly, however, The Star harbors no grudge, describes his father as a "product of his Time " - Uptight , emotionally stunted and trapped in an unhappy marriage.

"Although he's not really so don't come to the shows, or write me a letter to say 'well done', I think that he knew how," he explains.

Elton John and his father could not see eye-to-eye, Born Reginald Dwight, and grew up in Pinner, in the vicinity of Wembley stadium in North-west London, Elton was often on the receiving end of his parents ' frustration. He spent his formative years in a state of high alert" in the midst of the arguments and "clobberings" from his mom.

"My parents were like oil and water. You should never get married," he says. "As you get older, you can see, much clearer, what you've been through, what you tried to do to me at the expense of your happiness. "

'all hell broke loose'His salvation came in the rock and roll.

his parents were musically inclined - Stanley was a trumpet player with the Bob Miller band, while his mother, Sheila, to bring home to pay for new records every week of the day. One Day , they came home, clutching an Elvis Presley 's" Heartbreak Hotel ", a disc which is turned in Reggie's world on its head.

"I grew up in the 1950s, that was a very conservative old - People looking behind The Curtains , as very judgmental," he says.

"I knew nothing about sex, it was not even mentioned to me. If a girl got pregnant they were sent away, and no one spoke about it. It was a very different place.

"Then Elvis Presley came onto The Scene and revolutionized things, musically and socially, And Then the 60s happened and all hell broke loose".

First of all, the teenager will not engage in, observed these developments as an outsider - in love with The Music , but is forbidden to.

"I was very shy," he says. "I grew up not able to wear what I wanted. Winkle picker shoes? No, they were too disgusting. The mods wore chisel toe shoes and anoraks. I couldn't wear those either.

"So, if I changed my name and became Elton John , I went off like an Exocet missile, and I had a great Time . I lived my years as a teenager, in my 20s, basically. "

The Star offset behind a piano, through the creation of ever more elaborate stage in The history of costumes told a thousand times: The miraculous encounter with lyricist Bernie Taupin , a blue-touch-paper-occurs in LA's Troubador club and an unbeatable run of hit albums.

Between 1970 and 1975, there were generated 11 in all, a surprisingly productive purple patch that the classic single like Saturday Night 's Alright For Fighting, Tiny Dancer and Rocket Man - the latter unexpectedly Elton into a sex symbol.

"It was a surprising Time ," he laughs. "I mean, I was David Bowie , I was Marc Bolan , I was sitting at The Piano . But all of a sudden I was, you know, the object of screaming girls. I don't know why. "

Encouraged by the success, Elton John 's outfits were always suits more egregious: Satin capes and winged boots, mohawk wigs, shimmering top hats and peacock were adorned with feathers and sequins - the kind of thing that Liberace worn would have, if he'd had the courage to really extravagant.

Elton 1970 shows at the Troubador club in his name. "He goes to a rock-the biggest and most important stars," said the LA Times. His Imperial phase culminated with two sold out shows at LA's Dodger Stadium in October 1975. A combined audience of over 100,000 fans, you were one of the biggest concerts ever staged by a single artist.

"He was like Elvis at The Height of his career," said the photographer Terry O'neill, the recording of the gigs. "It is impossible to try to explain to People today what it was like. "

But Elton knew how he played, showing that he would never reach that peak again.

"I was smart enough to know it could be the last. It is impossible. You just have to accept that there is someone greater than you. "

There is a sense of the perspective of other artists is missing, he says.

"As Michael Jackson said, 'I sell more records than Thriller', I thought, "Oh Boy , you're in for a big fall'. Because Thriller was a classic record. It has sold 40 million albums, which was huge. You can't Time a plate comes in at Number One in the whole. "

Sure enough, Elton would have to wait until 1990 before he returned to The Top of The Charts . The wilderness years, while barely hit saw free him temporarily with Bernie Taupin and record an ill-advised disco album, victim Of love.

Behind the scenes, his drug and alcohol use was out of control. In his memoirs he describes with seizures and a witness to his voice, "haywire", as his "incredible appetite" for cocaine is becoming stronger.

The drug had originally seized him, a "shock of confidence and euphoria," but, like addiction, he was unpredictable and violent. In 1983, after filming the video I ' m Still Standing , he woke up with his hands throbbing, not aware of the fact that The Night before, he'd Stripped Naked , beaten, his manager John Reid and methodically demolished his hotel room.

Although the recent biopic Rocketman shows, I'm Still Standing , as Elton John 's anthem to sobriety, it took really for him another seven years to kick the habit.

The Turning Point came when his former friend Hugh Williams checked into rehab, extra-Elton two-weeks-long cocaine and whiskey drinking. Finally, he pulled into The Clinic , where Williams confronted him on his behavior.

"are you a drug addict, you are an alcoholic, you are a food addict and a bulimic," he said. "You're a sex addict. You're co-dependent".

"Yes," said Elton , "Yes, I Am ," and he started to cry.

So, on the 29. In July 1990, he entered rehab to deal with in Chicago three addictions "all at once".

In his book, Elton emphatically a moving break-up letter he wrote to "the white lady" during his treatment. "I don't want you to, and I have the same grave," it reads.

He kept his word: The Singer has now been clean for 29 years, during which Time he resumed his career, is married to Film Producer David Furnish , revives The Hit song written soundtrack to The Lion king launched the stage version of Billy Elliot and father, Two Children , Zachary and Elijah.

He says, the autobiography was written for you: A document that could be read after he is gone, the unvarnished truth would say.

"I want you to know that your father was honest, and he made something of his life, after a few hiccups on the way," he says.

Elton John and his husband David Furnish and their sons Zachary and Elijah, It was Elton John 's sons, which led him to tours.

"My children were only to grow at once," he writes in the memoirs. "Music was The Most beautiful thing, but it still does not sound as good as Zachary's in the Chat about what was to happen in football practice. "

With typical grandiosity, Elton ' s farewell tour is planned for three years, with the last show for 17 December 2020, in London's O2 Arena.

But this is definitely not the end. Last week, Bernie Taupin written, a photo of yourself at a Desk, writing. Can confirm Elton , you are destined for him?

"Yes, you are," he says. "I told Bernie, 'I'm going around The World for three years, why can't I write?

"you know, I wrote the whole Captain Fantastic " album on the Ss France , sailing from Southampton to New York , and I had a tape-recorder. So I remembered everything I wrote in my head: The chord changes, the processes, everything.

"And I said," I would love to go back and do, rather than to the studio and write to the point". It can not be successful, but I just want to give it a try. "

What's more, he can cook too, plans to play concerts, after the farewell tour.

His "dream-thing" is a theatrical residency, in the style of Kate Bush 's Before The Dawn spectacle in the year 2014.

elton john, music

Source of news: bbc.com