Download or read book Me written by Elton John and published by Pan Macmillan. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 427 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his first and only official autobiography, music icon Elton John reveals the truth about his extraordinary life. Me is the joyously funny, honest and moving story of the most enduringly successful singer/songwriter of all time. The Sunday Times bestseller with a new chapter bringing the story up to date. 'The rock memoir of the decade' – Daily Mail 'The rock star's gloriously entertaining and candid memoir is a gift to the reader' – Sunday Times ______________ Christened Reginald Dwight was a shy boy with Buddy Holly glasses who grew up in the London suburb of Pinner and dreamed of becoming a pop star. By the age of twenty-three, he was performing his first gig in America, facing an astonished audience in his bright yellow dungarees, a star-spangled T-shirt and boots with wings. Elton John had arrived and the music world would never be the same again. His life has been full of drama, from the early rejection of his work with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin to spinning out of control as a chart-topping superstar; from half-heartedly trying to drown himself in his LA swimming pool to disco-dancing with the Queen; from friendships with John Lennon, Freddie Mercury and George Michael to setting up his AIDS Foundation. All the while, Elton was hiding a drug addiction that would grip him for over a decade. In Me Elton also writes powerfully about getting clean and changing his life, about finding love with David Furnish and becoming a father. In a voice that is warm, humble and open, this is Elton on his music and his relationships, his passions and his mistakes. This is a story that will stay with you, by a living legend. ______________ 'Self-deprecating, funny . . . You cannot help but enjoy his company throughout, temper tantrums and all' – The Times 'Racy, pacy and crammed with scurrilous anecdotes - what more could you ask from the rocket man' – Guardian (Book of the Week) 'Chatty, gossipy, amusing and at times brutally candid' – Telegraph

Download or read book Love Is the Cure written by Elton John and published by Hachette+ORM. This book was released on 2012-07-17 with total page 156 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A deeply personal account of Elton John's life during the era of AIDS and an inspiring call to action. In the 1980s, Elton John saw friend after friend, loved one after loved one, perish needlessly from AIDS. He befriended Ryan White, a young Indiana boy ostracized because of his HIV infection. Ryan's inspiring life and devastating death led Elton to two realizations: His own life was a mess. And he had to do something to help stop the AIDS crisis. Since then, Elton has dedicated himself to overcoming the plague and the stigma of AIDS. The Elton John AIDS Foundation has raised and donated $275 million to date to fighting the disease worldwide. Love Is the Cure includes stories of Elton's close friendships with Ryan White, Freddie Mercury, Princess Diana, Elizabeth Taylor, and others, and the story of the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Sales of Love Is the Cure benefit the Elton John AIDS Foundation.

Download or read book His Song written by Elizabeth J. Rosenthal and published by Bpi Communications. This book was released on 2001 with total page 556 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A comprehensive overview of the musical career of Elton John provides the full story behind all of the musician's recordings, a complete chronicle of his concert tours, an assessment of his musical odyssey, and a study of his sometimes turbulent personal life, along with more than forty photographs and a complete discography.

Download or read book Rocks written by Joe Perry and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2014-10-07 with total page 432 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Joe Perry’s New York Times bestselling memoir of life in the rock-and-roll band Aerosmith: “An insightful and harrowing roller coaster ride through the career of one of rock and roll’s greatest guitarists. Strap yourself in” (Slash). Before the platinum records or the Super Bowl half-time show or the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, Joe Perry was a boy growing up in small-town Massachusetts. He idolized Jacques Cousteau and built his own diving rig that he used to explore a local lake. He dreamed of becoming a marine biologist. But Perry’s neighbors had teenage sons, and those sons had electric guitars, and the noise he heard when they started playing would change his life. The guitar became his passion, an object of lust, an outlet for his restlessness and his rebellious soul. That passion quickly blossomed into an obsession, and he got a band together. One night after a performance he met a brash young musician named Steven Tyler; before long, Aerosmith was born. What happened over the next forty-five years has become the stuff of legend: the knockdown, drag-out, band-splintering fights; the drugs, the booze, the rehab; the packed arenas and timeless hits; the reconciliations and the comebacks. Rocks is an unusually searching memoir of a life that spans from the top of the world to the bottom of the barrel—several times. It is a study of endurance and brotherhood, with Perry providing remarkable candor about Tyler, as well as new insights into their powerful but troubled relationship. It is an insider’s portrait of the rock and roll family, featuring everyone from Jimmy Page to Alice Cooper, Bette Midler to Chuck Berry, John Belushi to Al Hirschfeld. It takes us behind the scenes at unbelievable moments such as Joe and Steven’s appearance in the movie of Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (they act out the murders of Peter Frampton and the Bee Gees). Full of humor, insight, and brutal honesty about life in and out of one of the biggest bands in the world, Rocks is “well-paced, well-plotted…a mini-masterpiece” (The Boston Globe).

Download or read book Broken Horses written by Brandi Carlile and published by Crown. This book was released on 2021-04-06 with total page 338 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • The critically acclaimed singer-songwriter, producer, and six-time Grammy winner opens up about faith, sexuality, parenthood, and a life shaped by music in “one of the great memoirs of our time” (Glennon Doyle, author of Untamed). NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY NPR AND AUTOSTRADDLE • “The best-written, most engaging rock autobiography since her childhood hero, Elton John, published Me.”—Variety Brandi Carlile was born into a musically gifted, impoverished family on the outskirts of Seattle and grew up in a constant state of change, moving from house to house, trailer to trailer, fourteen times in as many years. Though imperfect in every way, her dysfunctional childhood was as beautiful as it was strange, and as nurturing as it was difficult. At the age of five, Brandi contracted bacterial meningitis, which almost took her life, leaving an indelible mark on her formative years and altering her journey into young adulthood. As an openly gay teenager, Brandi grappled with the tension between her sexuality and her faith when her pastor publicly refused to baptize her on the day of the ceremony. Shockingly, her small town rallied around Brandi in support and set her on a path to salvation where the rest of the misfits and rejects find it: through twisted, joyful, weird, and wonderful music. In Broken Horses, Brandi Carlile takes readers through the events of her life that shaped her very raw art—from her start at a local singing competition where she performed Elton John’s “Honky Cat” in a bedazzled white polyester suit, to her first break opening for Dave Matthews Band, to many sleepless tours over fifteen years and six studio albums, all while raising two children with her wife, Catherine Shepherd. This hard-won success led her to collaborations with personal heroes like Elton John, Dolly Parton, Mavis Staples, Pearl Jam, Tanya Tucker, and Joni Mitchell, as well as her peers in the supergroup The Highwomen, and ultimately to the Grammy stage, where she converted millions of viewers into instant fans. Evocative and piercingly honest, Broken Horses is at once an examination of faith through the eyes of a person rejected by the church’s basic tenets and a meditation on the moments and lyrics that have shaped the life of a creative mind, a brilliant artist, and a genuine empath on a mission to give back.

Download or read book Elton written by David Buckley and published by Chicago Review Press. This book was released on 2007 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: One of music’s true global superstars and most admired figures, Elton John has sold an estimated 200 million albums worldwide to date, and continues to appear regularly in the singles charts, thanks largely to a series of high-profile collaborations with new faces. But he is loved as much for his outrageous personality and witty outspokenness as for his music: recent memorable outbursts have included a public comment that "people who charge �75 and lip-sync should be shot” and calling some pushy photographers "rude, vile pigs.” He has even admitted that, in one of his more comedic cocaine-fueled moments, he phoned one of his management team "to tell him to do something about the wind outside my hotel room.” Such shamelessness and sheer silliness rivals anything uttered by punk rockers, yet it is so typically Elton: honest and wittily intemperate. Tragedy and heartbreak have played a large part in his life too. Behind the parties, the hedonism, the lavish stage costumes and silly glasses lies a more somber story. There have been disputes with managers, legal wranglings, splits with partners, and a divorce. Added to that there have been serious health problems, a very public battle with his expanding waistline and receding hairline, drug addictions, and spells when he wanted to quit the music business altogether. But now, at 60 years old, Elton enjoys a stable relationship with his husband David Furnish. His demons have been overcome. His commercial and critical stock is rising. With popular acts like the Scissor Sisters sounding more like Elton than Elton himself, Elton John is finally cool again. Drawing on many firsthand interviews with his associates and musical collaborators, this page-turning story of high drama and prodigious talent traces Elton’s astonishing journey through life as the colossus of camp, while also offering a critical history of his work and analyzing afresh his contribution to popular music.

Download or read book Elton John Fifty Years On written by Stephen Spignesi and published by Post Hill Press. This book was released on 2019-10-15 with total page 252 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: We can count on one hand the musical legends equal to Elton John (the Beatles and the Rolling Stones each get a finger). Elton John: Fifty Years On looks at the impact songwriting partners Elton John and Bernie Taupin have had on popular music and culture, and also discusses every song on all thirty albums, plus his work on Broadway, in movies, and elsewhere. • Part 1 is a bullet-pointed look at every released song, complete with insights, trivia, and meanings, including musical insights—like Elton’s favorite chord progressions, or the most notable melodies in his discography. • Part 2 is a collection of essays and interviews with musicians and music writers chatting about Elton and Bernie. Did you know? · Elton and Bernie’s revision of “Candle in the Wind” (known as “Goodbye England’s Rose”), a tribute to Princess Diana after her untimely death, is the biggest-selling single in the UK and the second-biggest selling single in music history (after Bing Crosby’s “White Christmas”). · “Tiny Dancer” may or may not be about Bernie Taupin’s wife, Maxine…quotes from Elton and Bernie contradict each other. · The biggest music stars in the world routinely show up at Elton John concerts to sing duets with the Rocket Man, including Lady Gaga, Miley Cyrus, George Michael, Bruce Hornsby, Lionel Richie, Mary J. Blige, Bryan Adams, Demi Lovato, Shawn Mendes, and many more, as well as Elton’s legendary “dual” shows with Billy Joel · The background vocals for the song “White Lady White Powder” on the 21 at 33 album are sung by the Eagles. · The background vocals for the song “Cage the Songbird” on the Blue Moves album are sung by Graham Nash and David Crosby. (Stephen Stills must have been busy?) Elton John: Fifty Years On was written for ultimate Elton John fans. A browsing book, a reading book, a treasure trove of facts, trivia, insights, and commentary, it’s the perfect companion to Elton leaving the Yellow Brick Road.

Download or read book Elton John written by Chris Roberts and published by Union Square & Company. This book was released on 2019 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "A celebratory retrospective of one of popular music's most enduring and beloved stars, as he tours the world one last time." -- amazon.com.

Download or read book Elton John by Terry O Neill written by Terry O'Neill and published by Cassell. This book was released on 2019-11-05 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Looking at Terry's photographs is like gazing through a window at the most extraordinary and exciting moments of my life. I'm so glad he was with us throughout the madness: in his evocative and stylish photos he captured those moments as no other photographer could." - Elton John Elton John and iconic photographer Terry O'Neill worked together for many years, taking in excess of 5,000 photographs. From intimate backstage shots to huge stadium concerts, the photographs in this book represent the very best of this archive, with most of the images being shown here for the first time. O'Neill has drawn on his personal relationship with Elton John to write the book's introduction and captions.

Download or read book Miss Memory Lane written by Colton Haynes and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2023-03-21 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “A brutally honest memoir that socks you in the gut with its candor” (Elton John and David Furnish) about lust, abuse, addiction, stardom, and redemption from Arrow and Teen Wolf actor Colton Haynes. In 2018, Colton Haynes woke up in a hospital. He’d had two seizures, lost vision in one eye, almost ruptured a kidney, and been put on an involuntary psychiatric hold. Not yet thirty, he knew he had to take stock of his life and make some serious changes if he wanted to see his next birthday. As he worked towards sobriety, Haynes allowed himself to become vulnerable for the first time and discovered profound self-awareness. He had millions of social media followers who constantly told him they loved him. But what would they think if they knew his true story? If they knew where he came from and the things he had done? Now, Colton bravely pulls back the curtain on his life and career, revealing the incredible highs and devastating lows. From his unorthodox childhood in a small Kansas town, to coming to terms with his sexuality, he keeps nothing back. By sixteen, he had been signed by the world’s top modeling agency and his face appeared on billboards. But he was still a broke, lonely, confused teenager, surrounded by people telling him he could be a star as long as he never let anyone see his true self. As Colton’s career in television took off, the stress of wearing so many masks and trying to please so many different people turned his use of drugs and alcohol into full-blown addiction. “In searing, honest prose, he tells a coming-of-age story that is utterly his own, yet surprisingly universal” (Bill Clegg, New York Times bestselling author)—of dreams deferred and dreams fulfilled; of a family torn apart and rebuilt; and of a man stepping into the light as no one but himself.

Download or read book Elton John written by Philip Norman and published by Harmony. This book was released on 1991 with total page 520 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A biography of the popular singer/songwriter discusses John's childhood dreams of soccer fame, the marriage he avoided in his youth and the one that failed in the 1980s, his bisexuality, and his musical success. 35,000 first printing. $35,000 ad/promo.

Download or read book Rocket Man written by Mark Bego and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The colorful and kaleidoscopic life of one of the world’s most original and talented musical artists. Here’s the book every pop music lover has been waiting for—full of the scandals, addictions, affairs and tantrums that underscored the life of arguably the world’s greatest pop musician. Flamboyant, iconic Elton John is as much part of the American musical landscape as he is in his native England. In the 1970s, when popular music on both sides of the Atlantic fragmented into disco, soul, hard rock, pop and folk, Elton John embraced them all with his signature creative panache. Emerging in the late 1960s as a singer/songwriter, Elton was widely acknowledged as the most prolific pop and rock star of the decade by the mid-1970s. His peerless musical style and ability to jump from sensitive ballads to bawdy rock anthems to campy pop have made him a musical superstar for the ages. From his heartfelt ballads like “Tiny Dancer” and “Your Song,” to his rock & roll hits including “Benny and The Jets” and “Crocodile Rock,” Elton has lived one of the most outrageous and colorful lives in show business. Having met the “Rocket Man” the first time in the 1980s, Bego has drawn upon his personal observations, vast research, and has been able interview dozens of Elton’s collaborators and lifelong friends to produce the the ultimate story on the amazing and larger-than-life Elton John.

Download or read book Wham George Me written by Andrew Ridgeley and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2019-10-03 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: It's that time of year again . . . Turn up 'Last Christmas', get the mince pies out and head back to the 80s in the remarkably honest and fascinating autobiography from one half of the world's greatest pop duo THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'I couldn't put it down. Such a fantastic book' Chris Evans, Virgin Radio ________ School mates. Band mates. Soul mates . . . When Andrew Ridgley took George Michael, the new boy at school, under his wing, he discovered a soul mate. In Wham! George and Me, Andrew tells the story of how they rode a rollercoaster of success around the world while making iconic records and surviving superstardom with their friendship intact. It is a memoir of love, music, the flamboyant 1980s and living in a pop hurricane. No one else can ever tell their story - because no one else was there . . . For the first time, Andrew Ridgeley tells the inside story of Wham!, his life-long friendship with George Michael and the formation of a band that changed the shape of the music scene in the early eighties. ________ 'A joyous celebration of the Wham! years. For anyone who was a teenager in the early 1980s, it will take you on a nostalgia trip. It's an honest but affectionate account of a remarkable duo who remained true to their origins and their friendship throughout it all' Daily Express 'As infectious as their music' Daily Mirror 'A remarkably generous memoir. In more than one sense, the biography of a friend' Spectator 'A great story' Saturday Live, Radio 4 'A lovely book. A love letter to George' Graham Norton, BBC One 'Charming, heartfelt . . . there's a real poignancy to Ridgeley's description of Wham!'s glory days' Sunday Times

Download or read book Made In Scotland written by Billy Connolly and published by Random House. This book was released on 2018-10-18 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: THE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER 'Where do you come from? It's one of the most basic human questions of all. But there is another question, which might sound a wee bit similar but is actually very different: What do you come from? And, let me tell you, that question can take you all sorts of strange places...' In Made in Scotland, legendary comic and national treasure Billy Connolly returns to his roots, reflecting on his life, his homeland and what it means – then and now – to be Scottish. Full of Billy's distinctive humour, Made in Scotland is a hilarious and heartfelt love letter to the place and the people that made him.

Download or read book Rock Me on the Water written by Ronald Brownstein and published by HarperCollins. This book was released on 2021-03-23 with total page 448 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this exceptional cultural history, Atlantic Senior Editor Ronald Brownstein—“one of America's best political journalists (The Economist)—tells the kaleidoscopic story of one monumental year that marked the city of Los Angeles’ creative peak, a glittering moment when popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. Los Angeles in 1974 exerted more influence over popular culture than any other city in America. Los Angeles that year, in fact, dominated popular culture more than it ever had before, or would again. Working in film, recording, and television studios around Sunset Boulevard, living in Brentwood and Beverly Hills or amid the flickering lights of the Hollywood Hills, a cluster of transformative talents produced an explosion in popular culture which reflected the demographic, social, and cultural realities of a changing America. At a time when Richard Nixon won two presidential elections with a message of backlash against the social changes unleashed by the sixties, popular culture was ahead of politics in predicting what America would become. The early 1970s in Los Angeles was the time and the place where conservatives definitively lost the battle to control popular culture. Rock Me on the Water traces the confluence of movies, music, television, and politics in Los Angeles month by month through that transformative, magical year. Ronald Brownstein reveals how 1974 represented a confrontation between a massive younger generation intent on change, and a political order rooted in the status quo. Today, we are again witnessing a generational cultural divide. Brownstein shows how the voices resistant to change may win the political battle for a time, but they cannot hold back the future.

Download or read book Captain Fantastic written by Tom Doyle and published by Ballantine Books. This book was released on 2017-03-21 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The true story of Elton John’s meteoric rise from obscurity to worldwide celebrity in the weird, wild 1970s, based on rare one-on-one interviews with the Rocket Man himself—now the subject of a major motion picture. In August 1970, Elton John achieved overnight fame with a rousing performance at the Troubadour in Los Angeles. Over the next five years, the artist formerly known as Reginald Dwight went from unheard of to unstoppable, scoring seven consecutive #1 albums and sixteen Top Ten singles in America. By the middle of the decade, he was solely responsible for 2 percent of global record sales. One in fifty albums sold in the world bore his name. Elton John’s live shows became raucous theatrical extravaganzas, attended by all the glitterati of the era. But beneath the spangled bodysuits and oversized eyeglasses, Elton was a desperately shy man, conflicted about his success, his sexuality, and his narcotic indulgences. In 1975, at the height of his fame, he attempted suicide. After coming out as bisexual in a controversial Rolling Stone interview that nearly wrecked his career, and announcing his retirement from live performance in 1977 at the age of thirty, he gradually found his way back to the thing he cared about most: the music. Captain Fantastic gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the rise, fall, and return to glory of one of the world’s most mercurial performers. Rock journalist Tom Doyle’s insider account of the Rocket Man’s turbulent ascent is based on a series of one-on-one interviews in which Elton laid bare many previously unrevealed details of his early career. Here is an intimate exploration of Elton’s working relationship with songwriting partner Bernie Taupin, whose lyrics often chronicled the ups and downs of their life together in the spotlight. Through these pages pass a parade of legends whose paths crossed with Elton’s during the decade—including John Lennon, Bob Dylan, Groucho Marx, Katharine Hepburn, Princess Margaret, Elvis Presley, and an acid-damaged Brian Wilson. A fascinating portrait of the artist at the apex of his celebrity, Captain Fantastic takes us on a rollicking fame-and-drug-fueled ride aboard Elton John’s rocket ship to superstardom. Praise for Captain Fantastic “Veteran rock journalist [Tom] Doyle continues his foray into the 1970s music scene with a compelling profile of an unlikely rock star. . . . In chronicling Elton John’s stratospheric rise to fame, replete with platinum records, increasingly outlandish stage shows, and mountains of cash, the author deftly manages to keep his subject in sharp focus. Based on hours of one-on-one interviews with Captain Fantastic himself, this breezy yet comprehensive biography demonstrates what it was like for the talented musician to churn out an impossible string of hit records. . . . A great way to better understand the man behind the garish glasses and platform boots.”—Kirkus Reviews “In this adoring and candid set of fan’s notes, music journalist Doyle (Man on the Run) draws on interviews with John and his colleagues, especially his writing partner, Bernie Taupin, to capture the meteoric rise and fall of the man who released at least one album every year of the 1970s. . . . This energetic book . . . makes a convincing case that John reached his peak and made his best music in the ’70s.”—Publishers Weekly “A breezy and surprisingly poignant romp through a decade, and a career, that effectively invented modern celebrity culture.”—Peter Doggett, author of You Never Give Me Your Money: The Beatles After the Breakup

Download or read book Captain Fantastic written by David DeCouto and published by . This book was released on 2018-04-06 with total page 828 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The definitive artist of post-Watergate America, Elton John accounted for a staggering two percent of all global record sales by 1975, while his concert tours routinely broke house records set by the Rolling Stones and the Beatles. Combining rigorous research with critical insight -- and drawing on over ninety firsthand interviews with Elton's closest friends and collaborators -- 'Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s' is a no-holds-barred portrait of the troubled genius who helped change the landscape of popular music more than any other solo artist since Elvis Presley.'Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s' explores in intimate detail the life of a greatly misunderstood icon during the Technicolor decade when his creative powers were at their zenith and his personal life at its most conflicted. The result is a work that provides fresh insight into a musical force nonpareil, including explorations of Elton's battles with various addictions, his suicide attempts (including one never before spoken of), his startling success as a leading icon of the era, his exploration of his sexuality, the stories behind nearly every song he wrote and recorded during the decade, and much more.This blunt yet compassionate portrait -- which features a foreword from Jethro Tull's iconic leader, Ian Anderson, and an afterword by A.J. Croce, the critically acclaimed pianist and son of the late Jim Croce -- also comes complete with many rare and never-before-published photographs, as well as a complete list of every concert (including city/date/venue) that Elton gave during the '70s, and a detailed bibliography. "Everything knows everything about me, and everyone knows nothing," Elton once said. With the publication of 'Captain Fantastic: The Definitive Biography of Elton John in the '70s, that is about to change.