Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s

by David DeCouto

  As the coup de grâce, Derf put his wife’s false teeth in the ex-Beatle’s water glass right before he returned to the table.

  “Lennon just pissed himself laughing,” Elton said.

  Moving deftly from one Beatle to another, Elton visited Ringo Starr at his Goodnight Vienna sessions in Los Angeles days later. The pianist had agreed to play piano on “Snookeroo,” a track about a North English ne’er-do-well which he and Bernie had written specifically with Starr’s laddish personality in mind.

  “[Ringo] said, ‘Listen, make it nice and commercial,’ so we did,” Elton said. “Bernie wrote really simple lyrics, very Ringo-type lyrics, and I tried to write a simple sort of melody to it.”

  “Ringo was not himself a great songwriter,” said Nancy Lee Andrews, Ringo’s long-term girlfriend throughout the ‘70s. “That’s why whenever any one of his buds would write him a song, he was so grateful. And I remember, with the Elton song, the boys used to call cocaine ‘snookeroo’. And then there was the billiards game snooker, too. I think it was an English thing.”

  The all-star band Starr assembled for the sessions included Nicky Hopkins, Robbie Robertson and future Blues Brothers band member Steve Cropper.

  “I thought, ‘Whoops, I’ve got to play well here,’” Elton said. “Then [I] realized I could play just as well as they could.” He grinned. “What a silly sod.”

  Released as a double A-side (along with “No No Song”), “Snookeroo”—propelled in no small part by Elton’s involvement—charted at Number 3 on the Billboard Hot 100, and became the third-highest solo success of Ringo Starr’s career.

  Chapter 21:

  The Eight Million Dollar Man

  Capitalizing on his interplanetary popularity, Elton signed the most lucrative deal ever secured by any performer in entertainment history. The 55-page MCA Records contract—personally negotiated by John Reid, and signed on July 13—guaranteed the pianist an unheard-of eight-million dollars for five albums. Through his shared negotiating tactics, Reid was able to secure an astounding twenty-eight percent royalty for Elton for all future record sales—a rate significantly higher than the industry-standard fifteen percent.

  Besides its enormous financial benefits, the contract also provided a sense of continuity—a key advantage in Reid’s eyes. “I’m superstitious about changing labels,” he said. “I don’t think you should do it unless something is seriously wrong…It’s too hard to know what you’re getting yourself into with a new company. You can’t confuse a single personality with a whole company. You might know the president of a company, but you don’t know all the personnel. It may take you two years to get a good working relationship with all the people in a company, and by that time it may be too late.”

  MCA president Mike Maitland was equally as pleased with the deal, which allowed him to keep Elton in-house. “The emotional effect of my having to tell the staff that we had lost him would have been tremendous,” he said. “We would have survived, but it could have crippled us for a while.”

  Despite the backbends MCA went through to accommodate their cash cow, they did make one stipulation: Elton had to decrease his work rate from two albums a year to only one. To ensure their investment, MCA promptly took out a $25 million insurance policy on the pianist’s life. Full page ads were then placed in the L.A. Times and the New York Times to announce the historic contract, which Maitland called, simply, “the best deal anybody ever got.”

  “I was endeavoring to make a lot of statements in one simple way,” John Reid said. “[The contract] made a statement to the public, to the financial community, to the record industry, and for myself.”

  “It’s a great deal,” Elton concurred. “It gives me more flexibility, and there won’t be so much product coming out. But it will give the public and me a chance to get used to the fact that I won’t be around so much. I want to do other things besides music, after all.”

  The pianist played a rough mix of “Philadelphia Freedom”—the only song he’d ever purposefully written as a stand-alone single, outside of the seasonal “Step Into Christmas”—to Billie Jean King on August 25, before a World Team Tennis playoff match in Denver between her Philadelphia Freedoms and the Denver Racquets. King called the entire team around to listen to the song together as a visibly nervous Elton set a portable cassette player he’d brought with him onto the trainer’s table and hit play.

  “Hear the beat?” he asked King as the tune’s chorus blared out of a tiny speaker. “That’s you when you get mad on the court. Stomping up to the empire: ‘PHIL-A-DEL-phia…’”

  The tennis champion laughed, massively pleased with the song. “I don’t like it, Elton,” she said. “I love it, love it, love it.”

  Elton released “The Bitch is Back” on September 3. Though proving another immediate hit—and his ninth Top 10 single—certain Stateside radio stations refused to play the record without bleeping out the word “bitch,” which appeared forty-four times throughout the course of its 3:45 runtime.

  Other stations refused to air the song outright.

  “We will play records that are borderline suggestive records, such as ‘Disco Lady’ by Johnnie Taylor,” WPIX-FM’s program director stated imperiously, “but we will not play ‘The Bitch is Back’ by Elton John. We won’t play those types of records no matter how popular they get.”

  Even more liberal stations, which were playing the single up to twice an hour, disallowed their DJs from actually announcing the song’s title on air.

  “At one point we were playing ‘The Bitch is Back’ about every hour or so because it was one of the top-selling records,” said WLS-AM disc jockey Bob Sirott. “We played the hell out of that record, but we weren’t allowed to say the title. He’s singing it but we could say it.” Despite the discrepancy, Sirott remained a steadfast fan of the Englishman. “I always loved Elton…Every new song was a special event…But even though I heard this stuff for hours every day, I never got tired of it. I always liked Elton’s music.”

  While his latest single was causing indignation—feigned or otherwise—in America, Elton was already back in Britain, where he busied himself signing new acts to Rocket Records. Most notable amongst them was pop crooner Neil Sedaka, who’d last hit the upper reaches of the American charts in the late ‘50s and early ‘60s with a string of hits which included “Calendar Girl” and “Breaking Up is Hard to Do.” Despite scoring a recent British success with “Laughter in the Rain,” Sedaka was finding it tough sledding trying to secure an American label to release his new music.

  “Over there, they think I’m a ghost,” he told Elton.

  For his part, Elton had idolized Sedaka for years. “I was a fan straightaway,” he said. “I was a huge fan of The Tra-La Days Are Over. It was great to see someone who played the piano.”

  Moved by Sedaka’s efforts to mount a proper comeback, Elton offered to release his new music on Rocket.

  Sedaka accepted straightaway. “Thank you so much,” he said, stunned by the offer.

  “It’s okay,” a pleased Elton replied. “You’re handing us gold bricks.”

  The pianist was so excited at having one of his former idols on his label that he agreed to write the liner notes for Sedaka’s upcoming album. Entitled Sedaka’s Back, the collection was edited down at Caribou Ranch from Sedaka’s last three British LPs. “I’ll never forget when we left Caribou,” Sedaka said, “we went together to the airport, and in those days you didn’t need any ID to get on an airplane, but Elton had forgotten his ticket, and we went up to the ticket counter, and Elton is dressed with the high boots and sequins, and a big hat. And the girl asked him for his ticket. He didn’t have it. He said, ‘I’m Elton John,’ and she said, ‘You have to have identification. I can’t let you on the plane.’ I thought she must be from another planet, between his face and his outfit, she must have known who he was, but instead he paid for another ticket in cash.”

  After the two pianists landed in L.A., Elton i
mmediately headed out by himself to various radio stations as ‘EJ the DJ’, specifically to promote the new disc.

  Sedaka could hardly believe Elton’s single-minded devotion. “Here was the most successful recording artist in the world,” he marveled, “being the best PR man anyone could have.”

  Kiki Dee secured her second hit for Rocket soon after with the Bias Boshell-penned track “I’ve Got the Music in Me,” an ebullient rocker produced by Gus Dudgeon at Jimi Hendrix’s old studio, Electric Lady, in New York City.

  The song easily slid up to Number 19 on the charts, belying its tortured creation. “Kiki had a bit of a studio complex, and couldn’t seem to get the vocal together,” Gus said. Not helping matters, Cissy Houston, mother of future R&B sensation Whitney Houston, was singing backing vocals at the session, along with a pair of equally talented studio veterans.

  “They were absolutely fantastic singers,” Kiki said. “And I just bottled it. I lost confidence.”

  “While she was doing [her vocals],” Gus said, “Elton crept in through a back door, hid behind a screen, took off all his clothes, and suddenly streaked across the studio, stark naked. Kiki nearly freaked, but kept on singing. That’s why the vocal came out so great.”

  “All we’ve done is given her the confidence to do it on her own,” the pianist modestly told NME. “And there’s so many people in the business like me who can do these things for artists like Kiki Dee.”

  With Rocket Records finally scoring regular successes, Elton looked to expand the scope of his label’s roster.

  “I’d love to get someone like Iggy and the Stooges,” he said, “but they’ve broken up.”

  Ticket demand for Elton’s fall U.S. tour, a 10-week, 44-date extravaganza, was greater than ever, with lines forming outside Ticketron offices days in advance of tickets actually going on sale. In L.A., ducats for three local dates at the 18,700-seat Inglewood Forum sold out in six hours, and a fourth show had to be added. In Landover, Maryland, an additional show had to be swiftly penciled in to avoid a near riot by unhappy, ticketless fans.

  Similar scenes played out across the country. Yet despite his obvious popularity, Elton still found himself plagued by bouts of self-doubt. On more than one occasion, he’d call up various venues to check how ticket sales were progressing, only to find in each instance that the arenas were completely sold-out. “It’s hard to believe sometimes,” he said. “In all honesty, the only groups who can go to the States and sell out everywhere are Zep, the Stones, the Who, myself, and [Jethro] Tull. I can’t think of any others.”

  Staging for Elton’s latest tour was as extravagant as the public’s demand for tickets—with a cutting-edge lighting system, a mirror-paneled grand piano, and carpeted amps. Moreover, Elton’s name was spelled out in luminous blue neon across a wall of speakers, stage-right, while each band member’s name glowed red directly above their station.

  The pianist’s stage clothes for this outing were, likewise, far wilder than ever before. “They’re all absolutely stupid, I mean absolutely ridiculous,” he said. “They’ve gone over the top this time, and I’m really pleased.” His wardrobe included a full-length silver wizard’s robe and a sleek black Lurex jumpsuit covered with fluorescent balls which dangled from piano wire. “Maybe I look like an idiot at times, but I’ve always tried to have a trace of absolute stupidity about me,” he said. “Basically I’m a fucking lunatic. Or at least as much of a lunatic as a normal bloke can be.”

  Elton commissioned a new set of eyewear as well, including round mink-lined glasses, glasses designed as musical notes, and glasses in the shape of stars, pianos and clouds. His prized pieces, however, were a set of special glasses given to him by the Four Seasons. “In fact, Frankie Valli made a special visit to come and give me the present himself,” Elton said, “and when I opened it, I could see why. There were four pairs of spectacles, and across the lenses of each pair was painted a scene portraying one of the four seasons: Autumn, Summer, Winter and Spring. It absolutely knocked me out, because they’d been specially designed for me.”

  The most valuable pair he owned, however, were made of solid gold. “But I’m so afraid of losing them that they’re strictly for my eyes only,” he said with a laugh.

  Each night, two hours prior to his performance, Elton would peer out from backstage at his audience, and try to determine which of his many outfits might best please them. Then it was off to his dressing room to consult with a huge portable dresser. “You would open this wardrobe and there would be thirty pairs of shoes, two-hundred jackets to choose from, drawers and drawers of spectacles,” said journalist Chris Charlesworth. “He was always very good-natured about it all. He realized it was all over-the-top and he was self-mocking about it. He thought it was all a big laugh, really.”

  By this point in his career, Elton’s internal clock was finely tuned to the demands and exhilarations of performing before tens of thousands of rabid fans.

  “I start getting a little hyper late in the afternoon before a concert, and it keeps building up,” he told the Chicago Tribune’s Lynn Van Matre before the first of two sold-out shows at the “Madhouse on Madison,” Chicago Stadium. “You get to the dressing room and you hear the crowd and you finally step onstage, and it’s like Christmas Day and opening your presents. And then it’s over, and there’s this feeling of release and also a definite letdown. I mean, I never go out after a show’s over—what could I do that wouldn’t be a drag after performing?”

  Kiki Dee, who had again received the plum opening slot on the tour, warmed up the audience with a 45-minute set each night. “She was really amazing,” Elton said. “It’s horrible having to support because the audience comes for the main act, but she and the band really worked hard. She got a lot of respect and she deserved it.” The superstar would go so far as to help provide unaccredited backing vocals for Kiki’s set at several gigs, huddled around a microphone backstage with Nigel, Davey and Dee.

  Seemingly every aspect of the whirlwind that Elton so effortlessly generated had Kiki’s head spinning. “It was crazy,” she later told MailOnLine’s Richard Barber. “We had a police escort everywhere we went. I felt like I was riding Elton’s rainbow and it was exciting, but [ultimately] it wasn’t me.”

  The moment that Kiki and her band vacated the stage, a group of jump-suited roadies would begin pushing their equipment offstage, testing microphones and thumping away on Nigel’s massive drum kit, as Elton’s shimmering, sequined Steinway rose majestically onto stage by hydraulic lift. Each night, a massive roar would echo through the arena at the sight of his piano, no matter the city.

  Then suddenly, without warning, the house lights would cut out.

  Blackness.

  Hysteria.

  Massive video screens posted off to either side of the stage—a new innovation for rock concerts—would begin unspooling a cartoon by Peggy Okeya set to Don’t Shoot Me’s “I’m Gonna Be a Teenage Idol,” showing the top-hatted superstar standing atop a giant stack of records as teenage fans toppled ecstatically into a gramophone.

  The opening strains of “Funeral For a Friend/Love Lies Bleeding” would then blast forth from banks of speakers hanging bat-like above the stage, as clouds of dry ice spilled out into the audience. Taking his place behind his piano, Elton glittered beguilingly in the smoky darkness. A spotlight would illuminate him as he struck the first two chords of the song proper—a simple yet evocative E-major to A-major—causing 20,000 voices to break into a sonic wail.

  Gazing out at the screaming multitudes, spectacles sparkling beneath the ever-shifting lights, Elton would invariably smirk at the hysteria his mere presence generated, as a darkened sea of faces cried out his name in fevered exaltation. Whether prepubescent or senior citizen, white, black or Asian, poor or wealthy, his audiences included every conceivable segment of society. “I can see four or five rows when I’m onstage,” he said, “and the cross-section of people is staggering.”

  As always, the
Brit gave his all each night. “It’s the greatest thing in the world to stand on a stage and see people in the front rows smiling and know they came to see you,” he told journalist Robert Hilburn. “The stage, in reality, is the closest you can ever get to most of the fans…that’s why I get so upset if I play badly. Not only for me, but because I know I’ve disappointed the audience…That’s what you struggle against every night.”

  Though his band—augmented by the four-piece Muscle Shoals Horns (“They’re about the tightest brass section you’ll ever wish to hear”), which lent Elton’s songs added contrapuntal punch—enjoyed a higher profile than most backing bands, a certain restless displeasure began to fester during this tour, especially amongst original members Nigel and Dee. “It would have been nice,” Dee said, “to have had a [band] name other than ‘Elton John’ that identified us, or was just a name we all created. Nigel and I kind of lost our identities along the way.”

  Despite any potentially mutinous undercurrents, Elton cheerfully cavorted about the stage each night like a royal court jester. The stage was his musical kingdom, his unquestionable dominion. Most evenings he’d end up on top of his piano. Or beneath it. For Elton, it was all in a day’s work. “There are so many people who think they’re the big cheese,” he said. “‘Well, man, we played for 70,000 people.’ Well, it’s great, sure, but I mean, who cares? Next year someone else will be able to do it. Your next-door neighbor might do it. And that’s the whole point of pop music.”

  Realizing that the pinnacle of rock stardom was the very slipperiest of slopes, Elton was determined to make the most of his time in the spotlight. “I’ve always said I don’t want to be around in ten years still playing the same set I played [on this tour],” he noted. “‘Cause that’d become depressing for me. ‘Cause then I’d be something I set out not to be.”