From performing as Reggie Dwight in a pub in Pinner in 1962 to holding a Las Vegas residency, it has been a long journey for Sir Elton John.
Now, after decades of excess, superstardom and personal anguish, he is set to take his last trip along the Yellow Brick Road. The singer announced last night that he is to retire from touring after a final five-continent, three-year, 300-plus concert extravaganza.
Sir Elton, 70, who has been touring for five decades and sold more than 300 million albums, said he did not want to miss his two children growing up. “My priorities have changed,” he said. “I always thought that I was going to be like Ray Charles or BB King and be on the road forever. But having children changes your life so much.”
Sir Elton and his husband, David Furnish, 55, have two children, Zachary, born in 2010, and Elijah, born in 2013. The boys and a tutor will accompany Sir Elton for much of the tour.
The singer said that he took the decision in 2015 to prepare for a final global tour. “I have had an amazing life, an amazing career. I have been incredibly lucky,” he said.
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He said that he would still be “creative” and would remain interested in photography, having had a successful exhibition at Tate Modern in 2016 of his modernist collection. “But most of the time I will be taking my kids to soccer camp, which is the most important thing,” he added.
He ridiculed suggestions that his touring retirement was because of ill health and said that even after an infection “knocked him sideways“ for seven weeks last year, he had still managed 96 shows.
“I will be going out with a bang, not a whimper,” he said of the Goodbye Yellow Brick Road tour, which will begin in September and is due to arrive in Britain in 2020. Gucci are due to design his costumes for the extravaganza, he said.
Sir Elton has acquired a reputation as an emperor of excess. A television documentary that Furnish made about him was entitled Tantrums and Tiaras. Sir Elton’s excesses — cocaine and shopping among them — never quite dulled his musical talent and showmanship, however.
There has also been personal anguish, most notably an eight-year feud with his mother. The pair were reconciled months before she died last year.
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In 1979 Sir Elton became the first international pop star to play in the Soviet Union. Six years later he was sandwiched between The Who and Freddie Mercury at the Live Aid concert. He sang Candle in the Wind at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales, and was knighted months later.
He has remained coy about his friendship with the royal family, with reports suggesting that when he first met Diana they danced the Charleston. Princess Margaret and Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother were known to be fans and he is rumoured to have danced with the Queen to Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock at a Buckingham Palace party.
A long way from a pub in Pinner and a 15-year-old called Reggie.