Elton John

British singer, songwriter, and pianist

Elton John is an English rock and pop singer, songwriter, composer, and pianist. Born Reginald Dwight in Pinner, near London, in 1947, he met his songwriting partner Bernie Taupin through a magazine want ad in 1967. The 1970 single Your Song was the opening hit in a pop career that has seen John sell over 300 million records worldwide. He released 12 albums in the ’70s alone, including Madman Across the Water, Honky Château, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (no. 78 on Apple Music’s 100 Best Albums List), Don't Shoot Me I'm Only the Piano Player and Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy. It was a decade that also yielded six US No. 1 singles, including Crocodile Rock, Don’t Go Breaking my Heart with Kiki Dee and Philadelphia Freedom.

The 1980s threw up more yet more hits, including I’m Still Standing, I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues, and Nikita, and the following decade saw him inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 1984. John’s collaboration with Tim Rice on the 1994 soundtrack album for The Lion King, lead to an Academy Award for Can You Feel the Love Tonight, while three years later, Candle in the Wind 1997, his tribute to the late Diana, Princess of Wales, became the biggest-selling single in UK chart and Billboard history. He ended the decade being honoured with 1999’s Grammy Legend Award.

John began a goodbye tour — Farewell Yellow Brick Road — in 2018 to mark his retirement from touring. In July 2023, shortly after a headline slot at Glastonbury, he played the final show at Stockholm’s Tele2 Arena, with the tour declared as the highest-grossing of all time (since edged out by Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour). During this period, his life was the subject of 2019 Biopic Rocketman, starring Taron Egerton, and John himself has appeared in the film Kingsman: The Golden Circle and The Who’s rock opera Tommy. He has appeared in the concert film Elton John Live: Farewell from Dodger Stadium featuring Dua Lipa. Elton John has also hosted more than 400 episodes of Rocket Hour on Apple Music Radio since it launched in 2015.