by Elton John
I was ready to ask them where to sign when Dick told Beck’s agent to stuff their 10 per cent. What was he doing? I tried to catch his eye, in order to wordlessly communicate that he should consider the wisdom of shutting up immediately. He didn’t look at me. The agent said the deal was non-negotiable. Dick shrugged.
‘I promise you now,’ he said, ‘that in six months’ time, Elton John will be earning twice what Jeff Beck does.’
What? Dick, you fucking idiot. What did you have to say that for? It sounded remarkably like a statement that was going to follow me around for the rest of my career. I could see myself in five years’ time, still slogging around the clubs, The Guy Who Was Going To Earn Twice What Jeff Beck Does. The agent swiftly disappeared – he was probably in a hurry to inform the rest of the music industry that Dick James had lost his marbles – but Dick was completely unrepentant. I didn’t need Jeff Beck. I should go to America on my own. The songs on Elton John were great. The band was fantastic live. The US record label were behind us all the way. They were going to pull out all the stops to promote us. One day I’d thank him for this.
Back at Frome Court, I talked it over with Bernie. He suggested we should think of it as a holiday. We could visit places we had only seen on TV or in films – 77 Sunset Strip, the Beverly Hillbillies’ mansion. We could go to Disneyland. We could go record shopping. Besides, the US record label were going to pull out all the stops. We’d probably be met at the airport by a limousine. Maybe a Cadillac. A Cadillac!
* * *
We stood blinking in the Los Angeles sunshine, a little cluster of us – me and Bernie, Dee and Nigel, Steve Brown and Ray Williams, who DJM had appointed my manager, our roadie Bob and David Larkham, who’d designed the covers for Empty Sky and Elton John. We were befuddled by jet lag and trying to work out why there was a bright red London bus parked outside LAX Airport. A bright red London bus with my name painted on the side of it: ELTON JOHN HAS ARRIVED. A bright red London bus that our excited American publicist, Norman Winter, was currently urging us to get on board. Bernie and I exchanged a dismayed glance: oh, for fuck’s sake, this is our limo, isn’t it?
You have no idea how slowly a London Routemaster bus goes until you’ve travelled on one from LAX to Sunset Boulevard. It took us two and a half hours, partly because the thing had a top speed of about forty miles an hour, and partly because we had to take the scenic route – they wouldn’t allow a double-decker on the freeway. Out of the corner of my eye, I could see Bernie gradually sliding down in his seat, until he couldn’t be seen from outside the window, presumably in case Bob Dylan or a member of The Band happened to drive past and laugh at him.
This really wasn’t how I’d expected our arrival in California to pan out. Were it not for the fact that I could see palm trees out of the window and the bus was filled with Americans – the staff of Uni Records – I might as well have been on the 38 to Clapton Pond. It was my first experience of the difference between British record companies and US ones. In Britain, no matter how much your label loves you, no matter how passionate they are about working on your album, it’s always tempered by a certain reserve, a national tendency to understatement and dry humour. That clearly wasn’t the case in America: it was just non-stop enthusiasm, a completely different kind of energy. No one had ever talked to me the way Norman Winter was talking – ‘this is gonna be huge, we’ve done this, we’ve done that, Odetta’s coming to the show, Bread are coming to the show, The Beach Boys are coming to the show, it’s gonna be incredible’. No one had ever talked to me as much as Norman Winter was talking: as far as I could tell, his mouth hadn’t actually stopped moving since he’d introduced himself in the arrivals lounge. It was simultaneously startling and weirdly exhilarating.
And everything he said turned out to be completely true. Norman Winter and his promotions department had done this and done that: got LA record stores to stock the album and display posters, lined up interviews, invited umpteen stars to see the show. Someone had convinced my Uni labelmate Neil Diamond to get onstage and introduce me. I was headlining over David Ackles, which seemed completely ridiculous.
‘But David Ackles is on Elektra,’ protested Bernie weakly, remembering the hours we’d spent in Frome Court listening to his debut album and discussing the incomparable West Coast hipness of the label that had released it: Elektra, run by the great Jac Holzman, home to The Doors and Love, Tim Buckley and Delaney and Bonnie.
It was fantastic work from a passionate and committed team who had used every bit of their expertise in creating hype. They had miraculously turned a show by an unknown artist at a 300-capacity club into an event. And it certainly had a profound knock-on effect on me. Before, I’d been dubious about the idea of playing in America. Now, I was absolutely terrified. When everybody else went on a day trip to Palm Springs, arranged by Ray, I wisely elected to remain at the hotel alone, in order to concentrate on the pressing business of panicking about the gig. The more I panicked, the more furious I got. How dare they all go to Palm Springs and enjoy themselves, when they should have been back at the hotel with me, pointlessly worrying themselves sick? In the absence of anybody to shout at in person, I rang Dick James in London and shouted at him. I was coming back to England. Now. They could stick their gig and their star-studded guest list and their onstage introduction from Neil Diamond up their arses. It took all Dick’s powers of avuncular persuasion to stop me packing my suitcase. I decided to stay, dividing my remaining time before the gig between record shopping and a little light sulking whenever anyone mentioned Palm Springs.
I can remember two things very clearly about the first show we played at the Troubadour. The first is that the applause as I walked onstage had a slightly odd quality to it: it was accompanied by a kind of surprised murmur, as if the audience were expecting someone else. In a way, I suppose they were. The cover of the Elton John album is dark and sombre. The musicians on the back are dressed down and hippyish – I’m wearing a black T-shirt and a crocheted waistcoat. And that’s the guy they assumed they’d see: a brooding, introspective singer-songwriter. But when I’d gone shopping for new clothes a couple of weeks before I left for the States, I’d visited a clothes shop in Chelsea called Mr Freedom, about which there was a real buzz developing: the designer Tommy Roberts was letting his imagination run riot, making clothes that looked like a cartoonist had drawn them. The stuff in the window was so outrageous that I hung around on the pavement outside for ages, trying to pluck up the courage to go in. Once I did, Tommy Roberts was so friendly and enthusiastic that he talked me into buying a selection of clothes not even Tony King would have countenanced wearing in public. Wearing them, I felt different, like I was expressing a side of my personality that I’d kept hidden, a desire to be outrageous and over-the-top. I suppose it all went back to chancing on that photo of Elvis in the barber’s in Pinner when I was a kid: I liked that sense of shock, of seeing a star who made you wonder what the hell was going on. The clothes from Mr Freedom weren’t outrageous because they were sexy or threatening, they were outrageous because they were larger than life, more fun than the world around them. I loved them. Before I went onstage at the Troubadour, I put them all on at once. So instead of an introspective hippy singer-songwriter, the audience were greeted by the sight of a man in bright yellow dungarees, a long-sleeved T-shirt covered in stars and a pair of heavy workman’s boots, also bright yellow, with a large set of blue wings sprouting from them. This was not the way sensitive singer-songwriters in America in 1970 looked. This was not the way anyone of sound mind in America in 1970 looked.
And the second thing I remember very clearly is peering out into the crowd while we were playing and realizing, with a nasty start, that Leon Russell was in the second row. I hadn’t spotted any of the galaxy of stars that were supposed to be there, but you couldn’t miss him. He looked incredible, a vast mane of silver hair and a long beard framing a mean, impassive face. I couldn’t tear my eyes off him, even though looking at him made the bottom
fall out of my stomach. The gig had been going well up to that point – Dee and Nigel sounded tight, we’d started to relax and stretch out the songs a little. Now I suddenly felt as nervous as I had at the hotel on the day of the Palm Springs trip. It was like one of those terrible nightmares where you’re back at school, sitting a test, then realize that you’re not wearing any trousers or underpants: you’re playing the most important gig of your career, then see your idol in the audience, glaring at you, stony-faced.
I had to pull myself together. I had to do something to take my mind off the fact that Leon Russell was watching me. I jumped to my feet and kicked my piano stool away. I stood there, knees bent, pounding at the keys like Little Richard. I dropped to the floor, balancing on one hand and playing with the other, my head under the piano. Then I stood up, threw myself forward and did a handstand on the keyboard. Judging by the noise the audience made, they hadn’t expected that either.
Afterwards, I stood, dazed, in the fug of the packed dressing room. It had gone amazingly well. Everyone from Britain was elated. Norman Winter was talking with a speed and intensity that suggested that on the journey from LAX he’d actually been at his most laid-back and laconic. People from Uni Records kept bringing other people over to shake my hand. Journalists. Celebrities. Quincy Jones. Quincy Jones’s wife. Quincy Jones’s children. He seemed to have turned up with his entire family. I couldn’t take anything in.
Then I froze. Somewhere over the shoulder of one of Quincy Jones’s umpteen relatives I could see Leon Russell in the doorway. He started pushing through the crowd towards me. His face was as impassive and mean as it had seemed from the stage: he didn’t look much like a man who’d just enjoyed the night of his life. Shit. I’ve been found out. He’s going to tell everyone what a fraud I am. He’s going to tell me that I can’t play piano.
He shook my hand and asked how I was doing. His voice was a soft Oklahoma drawl. Then he told me I’d just played a great gig, and asked if I wanted to go on tour with him.
* * *
The next few days passed like a strange, feverish dream. We played more shows at the Troubadour, all of them packed out, all of them fantastic. More celebrities came. Each night, I rummaged deeper in my bag of Mr Freedom clothes, pulling out stuff that was more and more outrageous, until I found myself facing an audience of rock stars and Los Angeles tastemakers wearing a pair of tight silver hot pants, bare legs and a T-shirt with ROCK AND ROLL emblazoned across it in sequins. Leon Russell appeared backstage again and told me his home-made recipe for a sore throat remedy, as if we were old friends. Uni Records took us all to Disneyland, and I bought armfuls of albums at Tower Records on Sunset Strip. The LA Times published a review by their music editor, Robert Hilburn. ‘Rejoice,’ it opened. ‘Rock music, which has been going through a rather uneventful period recently, has a new star. He’s Elton John, a 23-year-old Englishman, whose debut Tuesday night at the Troubadour was, in almost every way, magnificent.’ Fucking hell. Bob Hilburn was a huge deal: I’d known he was at the gig, but I had no idea he was going to write that. Once it was published, Ray Williams was suddenly deluged with offers from American promoters. It was decided we’d extend our stay and play more shows, in San Francisco and New York. I did interview after interview. The Elton John album was all over FM radio. One station in Pasadena, KPPC, took out a full-page advert in the Los Angeles Free Press literally thanking me for coming to America.
As everyone knows, fame, especially sudden fame, is a hollow, shallow and dangerous thing, its dark, seductive powers no substitute for true love or real friendship. On the other hand, if you’re a terribly shy person, desperately in need of a confidence boost – someone who spent a lot of their childhood trying to be as invisible as possible so you didn’t provoke one of your mum’s moods or your dad’s rage – I can tell you for a fact that being hailed as the future of rock and roll in the LA Times and feted by a succession of your musical heroes will definitely do the trick. As evidence, I present to you the sight of Elton John, a twenty-three-year-old virgin, a man who’s never chatted anyone up in his life, on the night of 31 August 1970. I am in San Francisco, where I’m due to play a gig in a few days’ time. I am spending the evening at the Fillmore, watching the British folk-rock band Fairport Convention – fellow survivors of the sodden hell that was the Krumlin Festival – and meeting the venue’s owner, legendary promoter Bill Graham, who is keen for me to perform at his New York concert hall, the Fillmore East. But I’m not really concentrating on Fairport Convention or Bill Graham. Because I have decided that tonight is the night I’m going to seduce someone. Or allow myself to be seduced. Definitely one or the other; either will do.
I’d discovered that John Reid happened to be in San Francisco at the same time as me, attending Motown Records’ tenth anniversary celebrations. Since meeting him through Tony King, I’d casually dropped in on him at EMI a couple of times. Whatever feeble signals I was attempting to give off – if indeed I actually was attempting to give any signals off – went completely unnoticed. He seemed to think I was only visiting in order to ransack the pile of soul singles in his office, or to give him copies of my own records. But that was then. Emboldened by the events of the last week, I managed to find out where he was staying and rang him up. I breathlessly told him about what had happened in LA, and then, as nonchalantly as possible, suggested we should meet up. I was staying at the Miyako, a nice little Japanese-themed hotel near the Fillmore. Perhaps he could come over for a drink one night?
The gig finished. I went backstage to say hello to Fairport, had a couple of drinks and a quick chat, then made my excuses and went back to the Miyako alone. I hadn’t been in my room long when the phone rang: there’s a Mr Reid to see you in reception. Oh God. This is it.
four
Things moved very quickly after that night in San Francisco. A week later, I was in Philadelphia, doing interviews, when I got a call from John, who’d gone back to England, telling me that he’d bumped into Tony King at the BBC. He’d told Tony what had happened, and what our plans were. Tony had gone from baffled – ‘Reg? Reg is gay? You’re moving in together, as in moving in together?’ – to uproariously amused when he heard about my desire that the relationship stay low-key. ‘What do you mean, Reg wants to keep it quiet? He’s with you! Everyone who’s set foot in a London gay club knows about you! He might as well hang a fucking neon sign out of the window with I AM GAY written on it.’
I wanted to keep it quiet because I wasn’t sure how people would react if they knew. I needn’t have worried. None of my friends or the people I worked with cared at all. Bernie, the band, Dick James and Steve Brown: I got the feeling they were just relieved that I’d finally had sex. And outside of those circles, no one seemed to entertain the faintest possibility that I might be anything other than straight. It seems insane now that no one even raised an eyebrow, when you consider what I was wearing and doing onstage, but it was a different world then. Homosexuality had only been decriminalized in Britain for three years: the wider public’s knowledge or understanding of the subject was pretty sketchy. When we toured America, all the legendary groupies from that era – the Plaster Casters and Sweet Connie from Little Rock – would turn up backstage, to the evident delight of the band and road crew. I’d think, ‘Hang on, what are you doing here? Surely you’re not here for me? Surely someone’s told you? And even if they haven’t, I’ve just been carried onstage by a bodybuilder, while wearing half the world’s supply of diamanté, sequins and marabou feathers – does that not suggest anything to you?’ Apparently not. I became quite adept at slipping away and locking myself in the toilet to escape their attentions.
If anyone I knew felt it was odd that I was setting up home with John so soon, they didn’t mention it. And as it turned out, the speed with which my relationship with John progressed was just the first indication of what I was like. I was the kind of person who met someone, immediately fell head over heels and started planning our life together. Incapable of telling
a crush from real love, I could see the white picket fence and an eternity of connubial bliss before I’d even spoken to someone. Later, when I was really famous, this became a terrible problem both for me and the object of my affections. I’d insist they gave up their own lives in order to follow me around on tour, with disastrous results every time.
But that was in the future. I really was in love with John – that intense, guileless, naive kind of first love. And I’d just discovered sex. It made sense to move in together. Under the circumstances, my current living arrangements were hardly ideal. Straight or gay, you’re going to struggle to conduct a meaningful sexual relationship with someone if you’re living in your mum’s spare room and your co-writer’s trying to sleep in the bunk bed under yours.
When I got back from America we started looking for a flat to rent together. We found one in a development called the Water Gardens, near Edgware Road: one bedroom, a bathroom, a living room and a kitchen. Bernie temporarily moved in with Steve Brown. He’d fallen in love in California too, with a girl called Maxine, who’d been on the famous day trip to Palm Springs. No wonder he’d been so eager to go.
The last people I told were my mum and Derf. I waited until a few weeks after I’d moved out. I suppose I was psyching myself up. I finally decided the moment was right the night John and I were supposed to go and see Liberace at the London Palladium. We had tickets, but I told John to go on his own, I had to ring Mum that night. I was nervous, but the phone call went OK. I told Mum I was gay and she seemed totally unsurprised: ‘Oh, we know. We’ve known that for a long time.’ At the time I put her knowledge of my sexuality down to the intangible mystic power of a mother’s intuition, although, with the benefit of hindsight, she and Derf probably got an inkling what was going on when they helped move my stuff into the Water Garden and realized that I was living in a one-bedroom flat with another man.