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ELTON JOHN NEWS ARCHIVE: January 2007

"ELTON: The Biography" - exclusive extract
Wednesday, January 31 2007

"ELTON: The Biography" by David Buckley will be published in February 2007. Read an exclusive extract here!

Following is an exclusive extract from the book (to be published in February 2007) which deals with the era of Elton's 50th birthday in March 1997:

But it was in March that Elton would grab the headlines with the most over-the-top outfit of his career. For his fiftieth birthday party, he decided to go eighteenth century. With its three-feet high silver wig and 15-foot feather train, his astonishing costume would have put even the Sun King himself to shame. The problem was that the dress was simply too ambitious, as John Jorgenson reveals: ‘His fiftieth birthday was a fancy dress party. Brian May dressed as Dame Edna, Davey Johnstone went as a pirate, and Elton’s mum, Sheila, came as the Queen. There was a giant entryway and a red carpet and the venue itself was very classy. Elton had a huge wig, on top of which was a Spanish galleon that shot smoke out of the cannons.

‘It got to the point where he was supposed to make a grand entrance and he wasn’t there. I remember asking his PA, Bob Halley, where he was, and he had this look of, “Don’t even ask, it’s really bad” on his face. Because the wig was so big, Elton couldn’t fit into a normal vehicle, so they had had to get a lorry. They decorated it as a throne room and they had two thrones, one for Elton and one for David, but it didn’t have any windows or anything. The truck got stuck for 45 minutes or an hour in traffic, and Elton had this 50lb wig on. There was nothing he could do. So, by the time he got to the party, he was really hot and sweaty and in a bad mood. He quickly made his entrance and then took the wig off and put on a smaller wig for the rest of the party.’

According to reports, Elton spent Ł120,000 on catering for the evening, including Ł6,000 on the cake alone. He later donated his costume to charity. In return, of course, he got some suitably unusual gifts from his celebrity friends. Elton had bought Rod Stewart a Zimmer frame for his fiftieth birthday 18 months earlier, and Rod retaliated in suitable style. ‘He sent me one of those old-fashioned ladies’ hairdryers you sit underneath with the message: “The only thing I forgot to buy was the hair to go with it.” It’s like a Joan Crawford/Bette Davis relationship. Rod’s never lost his vicious British humour, and that’s why I adore him.’

The fans also queued up to pay tribute to Elton. A week after his fiftieth birthday, Elton met Stephan Heimbecher, the founder in May 1988 of Rocket Fan, an Elton John fan club that, under the name of Hercules, subsequently became the biggest in the world. ‘We named a star after him and Bernie,’ says Heimbecher. ‘It was one of the last stars visible with the naked eye from Earth which had yet to be named. It’s now called “Elton Hercules John and Bernie Taupin”. I also presented him with a leather ledger full of messages, drawings, photos and kisses from 300 fans from around the world. He seemed genuinely touched to be remembered by the fans.’

Elton cut another studio album in 1997, The Big Picture, a record that saw him reunited with Chris Thomas after a gap of five years. The album was not one much loved by its co-creator, Bernie Taupin: ‘The production is abysmally cold and technical,’ was his assessment. ‘It’s a dark album, introspective and ballad-oriented,’ says Charlie Morgan, who also worked on the record. ‘But the chord progressions are innovative on some of the tracks. “The River Can Bend” was an inspirational gospel tune, whilst “Love’s Got A Lot To Answer For” was really sarcastic.

‘“Live Like Horses”, the duet with Pavarotti, was originally a cut from Made In England. That song had a great Bernie lyric about the death of his father and him being released from the shackles of life. Bernie really had something meaty to get his teeth into, and the death of his father during Made In England was a real catalyst. The problem was that there were far too many slow tracks selected for the final running order of the record, and the lead-off single, “Something About The Way You Look Tonight”, was just Elton by rote.’

‘I remember whenever Elton was writing songs there would be this place in the song where there would be this chord change that sounded so classic Elton John,’ says John Jorgenson. ‘He would try every other chord he could think of to get away from that sound. But at the end of the day he would always go back to whatever the first one was. It was just interesting to see him go through the process; he wouldn’t just take what came along. He was going to try out everything.’

During the recording, the dynamic in the studio seemed to change. Charlie Morgan reports that he and John Jorgenson were favoured by Chris Thomas. ‘Elton would write a lot of the songs to a drum loop,’ says Jorgenson. ‘He would ask Charlie to give him a loop at a certain tempo and work from that. Davey and I did a lot of our guitar parts together actually because Chris was a hard taskmaster and we felt more confident doing it together. He could be intimidating.’

Thomas also saw fit to challenge Elton. ‘I remember Chris Thomas daring to say something was substandard, which resulted in Elton storming out of the studio,’ says Morgan. ‘Chrissie Hynde was in the next studio, and Elton barged past her and almost pinned her to the wall, shouting, “Not only is he a fucking bastard, he’s a deaf one too.” And Chrissie looked at me as if to say, “Oh, well, nothing’s changed then,” and walked back into the studio.’

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Wednesday, January 17 2007 at 05:52:13