John - Me: Elton John Official Autobiography

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This book is dedicated to my husband, David,
and to our beautiful sons Zachary and Elijah.
Special thanks to Alexis Petridis, without
whom this book would not have been possible.

I was onstage at the Latino club in South Shields when I realized I couldnt take it anymore. It was one of those supper clubs that were all over Britain in the sixties and seventies, all virtually identical: people dressed in suits, seated at tables, eating chicken in a basket and drinking wine out of bottles covered in wicker; fringed lampshades and flock wallpaper; cabaret and a compre in a bow tie. It felt like a throwback to another era. Outside, it was the winter of 1967, and rock music was shifting and changing so fast that it made my head spin just thinking about it: The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour and The Mothers of Invention, The Who Sell Out and Axis: Bold As Love, Dr John and John Wesley Harding. Inside the Latino, the only way you could tell the Swinging Sixties had happened at all was because I was wearing a kaftan and some bells on a chain around my neck. They didnt really suit me. I looked like a finalist in a competition to find Britains least convincing flower child.

The kaftan and the bells were Long John Baldrys idea. I was the organ player in his backing band, Bluesology. John had spotted all the other rnb bands going psychedelic: one week youd go and see Zoot Moneys Big Roll Band playing James Brown songs, the next youd find they were calling themselves Dantalians Chariot, wearing white robes onstage and singing about how World War Three was going to kill all the flowers. Hed decided we should follow suit, sartorially at least. So we all got kaftans. Cheaper ones for the backing musicians, while Johns were specially made at Take Six in Carnaby Street. Or at least, he thought they were specially made, until we played a gig and he saw someone in the audience wearing exactly the same kaftan as him. He stopped in the middle of a song and started shouting angrily at him Where did you get that shirt? Thats my shirt! This, I felt, rather ran contrary to the kaftans associations with peace and love and universal brotherhood.

I adored Long John Baldry. He was absolutely hilarious, deeply eccentric, outrageously gay and a fabulous musician, maybe the greatest 12-string guitarist the UK has ever produced. Hed been one of the major figures in the British blues boom of the early sixties, playing with Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies and The Rolling Stones. He had an encyclopedic knowledge of the blues. Just being around him was an education: he introduced me to so much music Id never heard before.

But more than that, he was an incredibly kind, generous man. He had a knack of spotting something in musicians before anybody else could see it, then nurturing them, taking the time to build their confidence. He did it with me, and before that hed done it with Rod Stewart, whod been one of the singers in Steampacket, Johns previous band: Rod, John, Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger. They were incredible, but then they split up. The story I heard was that one night after a gig in St-Tropez, Rod and Julie had an argument, Julie threw red wine over Rods white suitIm sure you can imagine how well that went down and that was the end of Steampacket. So Bluesology had got the gig as Johns backing band instead, playing hip soul clubs and blues cellars all over the country.

It was great fun, even if John had some peculiar ideas about music. We played the most bizarre sets. Wed start out doing really hard-driving blues: Times Getting Tougher Than Tough, Hoochie Coochie Man. The audience would be in the palm of our hand, but then John would insist we played The Threshing Machine, a sort of smutty West Country novelty song, the kind of thing rugby players sing when theyre pissed, like Twas On The Good Ship Venus or Eskimo Nell. John would even sing it in an ooh-arr accent. And after that, hed want us to perform something from the Great American Songbook It Was A Very Good Year or Evry Time We Say Goodbye which enabled him to do his impersonation of Della Reese, the American jazz singer. I dont know where he got the idea that people wanted to hear him playing The Threshing Machine or doing an impersonation of Della Reese, but, bless him, he remained absolutely convinced that they did, in the face of some pretty compelling evidence to the contrary. Youd look out at the front row, people whod come to hear blues legend Long John Baldry, and just see a line of mods, all chewing gum and staring at us in complete horror: What the fuck is this guy doing? It was hilarious, even if I was asking myself the same question.

And then, catastrophe struck: Long John Baldry had a huge hit single. Obviously, this would usually have been the cause of great rejoicing, but Let The Heartaches Begin was an appalling record, a syrupy, middle-of-the-road, Housewives Choice ballad. It was a million miles from the kind of music John should have been making, and it was Number One for weeks, never off the radio. Id say I didnt know what he was thinking, but I knew exactly what he was thinking, and I couldnt really blame him. Hed been slogging around for years and this was the first time hed made any money. The blues cellars stopped booking us and we started playing the supper clubs, which paid better. Often wed play two a night. They werent interested in Johns pivotal role in the British blues boom or his mastery of the 12-string guitar. They just wanted to see someone whod been on television. Occasionally, I got the feeling they werent that interested in music, full stop. In some clubs, if you played over your allotted time, theyd simply close the curtains on you, mid-song. On the plus side, at least the supper club audiences enjoyed The Threshing Machine more than the mods did.

There was one other major problem with Let The Heartaches Begin: Bluesology couldnt play it live. I dont mean we refused to play it. I mean we literally couldnt play it. The single had an orchestra and a female chorus on it: it sounded like Mantovani. We were an eight-piece rhythm and blues band with a horn section. There was no way we could reproduce the sound. So John came up with the idea of putting the backing track on tape. When the big moment came, hed drag a huge Revox tape machine onstage, press play and sing along to that. The rest of us would just have to stand there, doing nothing. In our kaftans and bells. While people ate chicken and chips. It was excruciating.

In fact, the only entertaining thing about the live performance of Let The Heartaches Begin was that, whenever John sang it, women started screaming. Apparently overwhelmed by desire, theyd temporarily abandon their chicken and chips and run to the front of the stage. Then theyd start grabbing at the cord of Johns microphone, trying to pull him towards them. Im sure this kind of thing happened to Tom Jones every night and he took it in his stride, but Long John Baldry wasnt Tom Jones. Rather than bask in the adulation, hed get absolutely furious. Hed stop singing and bellow at them like a schoolmaster: IF YOU BREAK MY MICROPHONE, YOULL PAY ME FIFTY POUNDS! One night, this dire warning went unheeded. As they kept pulling at the cord, I saw John raise his arm. Then a terrible thud shook the speakers. I realized, with a sinking feeling, that it was the sound of a lust-racked fan being smacked over her head with a microphone. In retrospect, it was a miracle he didnt get arrested or sued for assault. So that was the main source of amusement for the rest of us during Let The Heartaches Begin: wondering if tonight would be the night John clobbered one of his screaming admirers again.

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