There is no entertainer whose work I have admired more than that of Elton John. His 1974 Greatest Hits may have been the first album I ever personally owned, only because I have a sister who is about six years my senior, and I listened to her albums and singles until I discovered Elton John on the radio as I approached my formative teen years. I played that vinyl until it warped. Three years earlier I had started learning to the play the guitar, at first with a few lessons from a fellow who loved old folk tunes, but I quickly began picking out chords on my own and learning to play by ear. I had been singing both melody and harmony parts since I was a young child, mostly in church, school, or with family and relatives.

The songs that Elton John and his lyrical collaborator, Bernie Taupin, produced interpreted the human condition for me and countless others around the globe. By his own testimony, one absolute constant in Elton John’s roller-coaster life has been his love and admiration for his songwriting partner. It was their songs that largely inspired me to start playing music, and I have been playing and performing them ever since. I still cover several of their tunes to this day (on guitar and keys), including the brilliantly composed “Your Song,” which I am still astounded to know that Taupin wrote at the ripe old age of 19.

If I had to choose one word to characterize Elton John’s life, it would have to be “outrageous,” an adjective that he has used from time to time in public appearances and in writing. By his own admission, Elton John has an addictive personality and spent many decades fighting horrible battles with drugs before finally going sober. He has a nasty temper nurtured by his wealth and fame, a personality trait that in my view is his least attractive. “I’m perfectly aware of how ridiculous my life is, and perfectly aware of what an arsehole I look like when I lose my temper over nothing,” he writes in his 2019 memoir simply titled Me. Of course, he is known for being self-indulgent, something he shares with many other pop stars of his generation. He is fairly critical of himself and open about what he perceives as his failures.

Elton John has endured his share of sadness: a troubled relationship with his parents, the many friends he has lost to AIDS, his own broken personal relationships, and the many years he was imprisoned by cocaine and alcohol. Those low points are perhaps balanced out with times of great joy, especially his hundreds and hundreds of live performances through the decades, the part of his career that he perhaps loved the most. He found what seems to be enduring love with his husband, David Furnish, and the couple have two sons, Zachary and Elijah. In the end, for multiple reasons connected to his upbringing and his rise to fame, I get the sense that Elton John had a very difficult time growing up, even long after he reached adulthood. Even so, I don’t see him as a tragic figure. I see him as an incredibly talented musician, songwriter, and entertainer who from a young age wanted to be loved and needed to be the best at what he was doing. By my account, he succeeded.

In a post from a few years back, I mentioned that I missed an opportunity to see Elton John perform when I was studying abroad in England in 1984. Fortunately, my wife and I were able to catch him in Kansas City in February, 2022, for his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour. He was showing obvious signs of his 75 years on the planet by then, but his voice was still incredibly strong. Yes, I know that backtracks and other enhancements make it possible for concerts to sound almost flawless, but Elton John has been extremely critical of performers who lip sync at their shows. I’m assuming he doesn’t. He has probably tuned his songs down a half or whole step from the original, and he has younger vocalists to help with the stratospheric notes, but he also rearranges songs to make them more manageable for his septuagenarian voice. Some of the tunes don’t sound the way most of us remember them, but they are still wonderful songs, and he remains a fabulous and generous entertainer.