He learned to play the piano at the age of four and earned a fellowship to the Royal Academy of Music at eleven. Young Reg Dwight had one solace -a love for music. He recalls his childhood as cheerless he was overweight, unpopular, and plagued at home by a repressive father who wanted him to be a banker. ”Įlton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on March 25, 1947, in Pinner, Middlesex, England. ” The critic concludes that the central appeal of John ’s music is its “sweet, pensively expressed sense of sadness over human connections missed or lost. ” DeVoss also finds John “the symbol of the often battered, never completely shattered juvenile faith that no one is too short, too fat, too awkward or parentally despised to be transformed into someone who is not only famous and rich, but -infinitely more important -loved by the multitudes. DeVoss calls John an entertainer of “astonishing versatility ” whose “appeal knows no demographic limits. He is one of the rare pop singers who is able to reach mainstream audiences while still earning the respect of rock critics this is because John ’s original compositions exhibit piano virtuosity and an easy familiarity with rockabilly, gospel, blues, and both soft and classical rock. Once a flamboyant feather-clad rocker with several hundred pairs of gimmick glasses, John has entered midlife as a more sober but no less artistic performer who still generates hit records and sellout concert crowds. John, however, has been able to maintain his career for nearly twenty years, largely because his music “has become the repository of a million escapist dreams, ” to quote Time correspondent David DeVoss. ("Tommy, can you hear me?" one song implores.Elton John emerged in the 1970s as a hugely successful pop performer, the kind of star who often flies high but fades fast. Tommy Walker, at age 4, witnesses his father kill his mother's lover, and is warned by his parents: "You didn't hear it, you didn't see it, you won't say nothing to no one ever in your life!" He recedes then into his own world of deafness, muteness and blindness. I think I have been as surprised as everyone else at the emotive strength of the story." "Once I was prepared to tell the truth to Des, he was able to help me unveil the drama beneath the surface. "The story of the original 'Tommy' album was deliberately shaded," Mr. McAnuff says, "We would tend to shut everything else out." They would spend intense four- and five-day periods together, during which time, Mr. There were trips back and forth between London and La Jolla, trans-Atlantic faxes. Townshend began mining childhood memories. McAnuff, who won a 1985 Tony Award for directing the musical "Big River." The two exchanged ideas about the show, and Mr. "Hundreds and hundreds" of hours of conversation ensued during the following months, says Mr. Townshend says that he wants to create other works for the theater: "I've waited a long time, sitting on various rights like a mother hen, for some sign that the public is ready to fill theaters to see my shows rather than to see the Who." "And I started to think seriously about how I was going to spend the rest of my life." "I really felt my life as a musician was over," he has recalled.
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