TRIBUTE TO MY HERO : ELTON JOHN

British pianist, singer, and songwriter who rose to popularity in the 1970s. It would be unfair, when talking about Elton John, to forget Bernie Taupin, since songs like Crocodile rock, Daniel, Candle in the wind, I guess that's why they call it the blues, I'm still standing or Nikita, which have done worldwide famous to the singer, were composed with his participation. Many years after the beginning of popularity, Elton John continues to increase his fame and prestige and the number of songs in his repertoire.

The son of an Army officer, Elton John was a precocious musician. At the age of four he began to study piano; at 11 he received a scholarship from the Royal Academy of Music in London, where he studied from 1959 to 1963. At 16 he dropped out of school and began playing the piano at night in a hotel. In 1961 he joined the band Bluesology, whose members included British blues pioneer Long John Baldry (vocals and guitar) and saxophonist Elton Dean, for whom he would take his stage name, Elton John.

In March 1968 he published his first single, I've been loving you too long. That same year he met lyricist Bernie Taupin, with whom he composed the most brilliant of his production and with whom he formed one of the most prolific duos in the world of pop music. Both got fifteen of their songs to occupy the first position in the North American charts: Your song, Sorry seems to be the hardest word or Nikita are some of them. In 1969 he released his first LP, Empty Sky, which was followed by Elton John, in which he played rock with the lyricism of the great symphonies, thanks to his knowledge of classical music. In the following years he published a total of eleven albums.

In 1974 he signed a contract valued at eight million dollars with MCA and wrote with John Lennon Whatever gets you through the night, who also sang with the former leader of The Beatles at Madison Square Garden in New York. At the end of the 1970s, he broke up with his collaborator Bernie Taupin, with whom he would work again in 1980. The downturn caused by this breakup and his drug problems led him to attempt suicide. In 1987 he underwent surgery on his vocal cords in Sydney, Australia, and in 1988 he reappeared with Reg strikes back.

In 1992 he founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation, one of the largest non-profit organizations for the eradication of AIDS, to which he dedicates part of the profits from the sale of his records. By then he had already manifested his homosexuality, long after, in the mid-sixties, he declared himself bisexual. In 1993 he published the album The one, with which he won a double platinum record. In 1994 he composed the soundtrack for one of the most brilliant productions of the studio founded by Walt Disney, The Lion King, with which he won a Grammy, a Golden Globe and an Oscar for best original song for Can you feel the love tonight, shared with Tom Rice, author of the lyrics. With Made in England (1995) he celebrated his 25th anniversary in the world of music. The murder of his friend Gianni Versace and the death of Princess Diana of Wales, in 1997, dealt him two hard blows. At Lady Di's funeral, he sang a new version of Candle in the wind, originally written in memory of Marilyn Monroe. **This tribute to his friend Lady Di broke all sales records, becoming the best-selling single in music history, with 33 million copies worldwide in just three months. **Elton John gave the benefits of the album to the NGOs in which Diana collaborated. For this song he won the Grammy for best male pop singer in 1998.

In September 1997, he released The Big Picture, a tribute to Gianni Versace, and in 1999, together with Tim Rice, he recorded Elton John and Tim Rice's Aida, a pop version of Giuseppe Verdi's opera that premiered on Broadway in March 2000. and for which he received the Grammy for Best Musical in 2001. He also composed the songs for the musical Billy Elliot, a show based on the film of the same name and released in November 2004. In 2005 he participated with Bernie Taupin in the creation of the musical Lestat, based on the Vampire Chronicles by writer Anne Rice.

The following year he published Captain and the kid, his 44th album, in which he made an autobiographical review as a story and which complemented, as a second part, the 1975 classic Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. In 2007, on the occasion of his 60th birthday and 40th of his artistic career, he released a special DVD with his live performance, on March 25, at Madison Square Garden, the same day as his birthday. On April 10, 2008, he gave a concert in New York in which he collected donations worth $2.5 million for Hillary Clinton, then still a Democratic candidate for president of the United States. This same month he released a special album with mixes of his greatest hits, performed with the singer Eminem and entitled Eminelton.

Knight of the British Empire, Sir, since December 30, 1997, he has received countless honors and awards. In addition to being a musician, Elton John is a big soccer fan. In 1976 he bought the London team from Watford, of which he was president until 1990, the year in which he sold part of his shares, although he continued as honorary president until 1991.

The artist

KODIAK MAN (Albert Herz) is a programming university teacher and A.I. artist. He also has created electronic music and works with AI to make visual art in exhibitions. Currently his greatest vocation is to teach classes and curate young teenagers.

Twitter : https://twitter.com/kodiak_man