Elton John: Ten fun facts about pop singer’s colourful life and career

One of the world’s most successful pop singers has just called time on his international touring career after more than five decades of performing for millions of fans around the world.

Elton John’s Farewell Yellow Brick Road, which started in September 2018 in Pennsylvania, US, ended in Stockholm, Sweden on July 8, 2023.

The 76-year-old who has been on the road since he was 18, performing 4,600 shows around the world, said he would “never be touring again”, but may do a “one-off thing” in future.

The stocky bespectacled pianist with an outrageous sense of fashion is one of the most recognisable stars in the world.

His songs have been the soundtrack to the lives of different generations: from 1970s hits, Rocket Man, Your Song and Daniel to 80s anthems, I’m Still Standing, Nikita and Sacrifice.

Can You Feel the Love Tonight captured the spirit of Disney’s 1994 animated classic The Lion King and a rewritten version of Candle in the Wind unified a world in grief after the passing of Diana, Princess of Wales, in 1997.

Even Gen Zs have been introduced to the music of Elton John through his collaboration with Dua Lipa, Cold Heart, a number-one song in 13 countries and among the top 10 streamed songs on Spotify in 2022.

Here are 10 fun facts from a man whose life, on and off stage, has been colourful, controversial and quirky.

The name: His official name was Reginal Dwight “That was not a pop star’s name” Elton writes in Me his 2019 autobiography.

He “pinched” the names of his bandmates in Bluesology, a group he played in at the beginning of his career in the 1960s: English jazz musician Elton Dean and bandleader Long John Baldry. He legally changed the name to Elton Hercules John in 1971.

The piano: He was playing his grandmother’s piano from a young age and started lessons at age seven.

“I was just born with a good ear, the way some people are born with a photographic memory,” he writes. “If I heard something once, I could go to the piano and, more or less, play it perfectly.”

Love for detail: He describes himself as an “anorak”. As a child, he would write down details of every new single released in the UK in a notebook, a habit carried into adulthood as he still receives charts for music, film and plays.

He says, “When I am talking to artists, I know more about how their single is doing than they do which is crazy.”

The glasses: The glasses were prescribed for reading the blackboards in school, but he wore them all the time under the impression that they made him look like 1950s rock star Buddy Holly.

As a consequence, he ruined his eyesight and has had to wear them all the time since then.

Short fingers: Elton John attended weekly classical music classes at the Royal Academy of Music, London for five years from the age of 11.

He didn’t like the regimented nature of classical but also admits that he didn’t think he was good enough to become a classical musician and that his fingers were too short for a concert pianist.

Aston Martin: The first luxury item he ever bought was an Aston Martin, after trading in his Ford Escort. He bought the purple DB6 from Maurice Gibb of the Bee Gees in 1970 and painted the car yellow with a red and black stripe down the middle, the colours of the English football club Watford (he bought the club from 1976 to 1990).

The collector: “Ever since I was a kid, owning things had always made me feel happy, he writes. 2,000 items from the collection of art, paintings, lamps and furniture were auctioned off in 1988 raising over $8 million.

His personal vinyl collection of 46,000 singles, and 20,000 albums was auctioned in 1993 to an anonymous bidder for $270,000. He then turned his passion to collecting photography.

Addiction: After a 20-year battle with drug and alcohol addiction, he checked into rehab in 1990. As part of his recovery from addiction over three years, he attended meetings of Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Anorexics Anonymous and Bulimics Anonymous.

Some of his friends joked that “he was now addicted to going to meetings about addiction.”

Outrageous: The world will miss his bizarre stage costumes. He wore a costume inspired by the cartoon character Donald Duck while performing before 500,000 people in New York’s Central Park in September 1980.

During a 1987 tour of Australia, he appeared on stage wearing different wigs, including a giant pink Mohican wig with leopard skin sides, and a giant wig aping the hairstyle made famous by Tina Turner.

Tina Turner clash: The planning for a tour headlined by Elton John and Tina Turner in 1998-99 aborted. She didn’t like his hair, the colour of his piano and his clothes.

“You wear too much Versace, and it makes you look fat – you have to wear Armani,” he quotes Tina telling him on the phone.

→ [email protected]