They also made three unsuccessful singles, the first of which Reg sang vocals on before a mass personnel change saw Long John Baldry join and he had a No.
He’d also joined a local semi-pro beat group/R&B band called Bluesology who eventually eased into soul mode and backed the likes of Major Lance, Doris Troy, Patti LaBelle and Billy Stewart. He left school in March 1965, weeks before he was due to take his A levels, and worked as an office boy in the post room at Mills Music, a music publishing company in Denmark Street which in those days was the beating heart of the UK music business. While still at school he’d started playing semi-professionally – pub songs and pop hits of the day at the Northwood Hills Hotel – and a life in music seemed more and more inevitable. For there you will find, especially in Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only The Piano Playerand Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, a very special artist at the peak of his powers.īorn Reginald Dwight in the London suburb of Pinner in March 1947, Elton had pre-school piano lessons and his natural aptitude for the keyboards eventually won him a part-time scholarship at the Royal Academy of Music. His legacy of recorded music is staggering in volume, scope and quality and lucky is the person who, familiar with his recent work, is yet to navigate his 1970s recordings. Elton John is one of the very biggest names in popular music and everything he does is still newsworthy.