Pop · Rock · Piano
A piano, a one-of-a-kind partnership, and a melody for every mood — nobody owned the seventies quite like Elton John.
The piano at the centre of the seventies
Born Reginald Dwight in Pinner, Middlesex, in 1947, Elton John grew up with a piano and a remarkable ear. A junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music gave him classical training; weekend work with the band Bluesology gave him rhythm and blues. In 1967 he answered a Liberty Records advertisement seeking songwriters and was paired with Bernie Taupin, a lyricist from Lincolnshire. The partnership they formed that year — Taupin writing the words, John setting them to music, usually in well under an hour — became one of the most productive in popular music.
After the modest debut Empty Sky in 1969, the self-titled Elton John album of 1970 carried “Your Song” into the American Top 10 and announced a major new voice. What followed was an extraordinary run: Tumbleweed Connection and Madman Across the Water in 1971, Honky Château and “Rocket Man” in 1972, Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player and the double album Goodbye Yellow Brick Road in 1973. By the mid-seventies John was the biggest pop star on the planet — filling stadiums in costumes that turned every concert into theatre — while the records kept coming: Caribou, Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy, and Rock of the Westies.
The second half of the decade showed his range: the ache of “Someone Saved My Life Tonight,” the Motown bounce of “Philadelphia Freedom,” and the joyful duet “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” with Kiki Dee, a transatlantic number one in 1976. The eighties brought a second wind — “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues,” “I’m Still Standing,” “I Don’t Wanna Go On with You Like That” — and a gradual shift from spectacle toward the seasoned performer he remains.
Through it all, the method never changed: Taupin’s lyrics arrived, and John’s piano found the tune almost at once. The five stories in this collection trace that arc from the intimacy of “Your Song” to the shared delight of “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart” — five ways of listening to a catalog that helped define what seventies pop could be.