Sir Elton Hercules John - Part 2
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Musicals
In addition to a 1998 adaptation of "The Lion King" for Broadway, John has also composed music for a Disney production of "Aida" (2000) with lyricist Tim Rice, for which they received the Tony Award for Best Original Score and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album.

John also composed music for a West End production of "Billy Elliot" (2005) with Lee Hall, and "The Vampire Lestat" with Bernie Taupin, based on the Anne Rice vampire novels.

Personal life
John has had a complicated personal history. He disclosed his bisexuality in 1976 in a Rolling Stone Magazine interview. He married German recording engineer Renate Blauel on Valentine's Day, 1984, but they divorced four years later.

He has lived with his partner David Furnish, a former advertising executive, since the early 1990s. On 21 December 2005, they entered into a civil partnership. A low-key ceremony with only their parents in attendance was held at the Guildhall, Windsor, followed by a lavish party at their Berkshire mansion. Guests at the party included Victoria Beckham, Hugh Grant and Jemima Khan, Boy George, Joss Stone, Ringo Starr, George Michael, Tim Burton and Helena Bonham Carter, Bryan Adams, Michael Caine, Donatella Versace, Claudia Schiffer, Elizabeth Hurley, Sting, Sharon Stone, The Pet Shop Boys, Stephen Gately, Elvis Costello, Jamie Cullum, Sarah Ferguson, Kid Rock, Cilla Black, Lulu, James Blunt, and The Osbournes. The Sun newspaper marked the event with the headline 'Elton Takes David Up the Aisle'.

In 1976, Elton John became involved in Watford Football Club and fulfilled a childhood dream by becoming its chairman and director. He invested large sums of money and the club rose into the First Division after a number of key acquisitions. He sold the club to Jack Petchey in 1987, but remained their life-long president. In 1997 he re-purchased the club from Petchey and once again became chairman. He stepped down in 2002 when the club needed a full-time chairman although he continued as president of the club. Although no longer the majority shareholder, he stills holds a significant financial interest. In June 2005 he held a concert at Watford's Vicarage Road ground, donating the funds to the club.

John has long been associated with AIDS charities after the deaths of his friends Ryan White and Freddie Mercury, raising large amounts of money and using his public profile to raise awareness of the disease. For example, in 1986 he joined with Dionne Warwick, Gladys Knight, and Stevie Wonder to record the single "That's What Friends Are For", with all profits being donated to the American Foundation for AIDS Research. The song won Elton and the others the Grammy Award for Best Pop Performance by a Duo or Group with Vocal (as well as Song of the Year for its writers, Burt Bacharach and Carole Bayer Sager).

John founded the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992 as a charity to fund programmes for HIV/AIDS prevention, for the elimination of prejudice and discrimination against HIV/AIDS-affected individuals, and for providing services to people living with or at risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

Aside from his main home in Windsor, England, John splits his time in his various residences in Atlanta, Georgia; Nice, France; London, England; and Venice, Italy.

During his career, John has battled addictions to cocaine and rumoured financial difficulties caused by his profligate spending. In the mid-late 1990s, John formed a friendship with colleague Michael Jackson. Because of the help John gave him during his addiction to painkillers, Jackson dedicated the 1997 album "Blood on the Dance Floor" to him.

Elton John is a noted art collector, and is believed to have one of the largest private photography collections in the world.

Musical style and voice
In the 1970s, Elton John's sound immediately set him apart from most others by being piano-based in a rock 'n' roll world dominated by guitars. Another early characteristic was a set of dynamic string arrangements by Paul Buckmaster. Coupled with Taupin's often opaque but emotionally resonant lyrics, the results were unique in the history of music. Songs in this style included "Sixty Years On", "Burn Down the Mission", "Take Me to the Pilot", "Levon", "Madman Across the Water", and the best-known of these, "Tiny Dancer".

"Your Song", one of his earliest popular hits, incorporates some other features found in many of his songs:

It is in binary form, with the verse repeated before the chorus begins;

The piano accompaniment is prominent, though the song also features an orchestra;

It uses a slowly building crescendo that brings the song to a "tutti" climax. Other songs that follow this pattern include "Don't Let the Sun Go Down On Me" and "Rocket Man".

John also has a distinctive vocal style. In particular, his phrasing is often a bit metronomic and sometimes has a curiously off-kilter, 'rushed' quality especially at the end of lines (example: the phrase 'like a puppy child' in the song "Amoreena"). He also, at least in his classic period in the 1970s, would sometimes sweep up from his normal tenor into a Four Seasons-like falsetto.

Elton John underwent throat surgery to remove potentially cancerous nodules from his vocal chords in January 1987 while on tour, a necessity he originally said was due to an infection, but later said was the result of excessive drug abuse. The problems with his voice can clearly be heard in his raspy singing on the "Live In Australia" album (released 1987). He made a full recovery from the surgery, but he continued to indulge in illegal drugs for a few more years. The surgery in 1987 also had an after-effect on John's voice, and he found that he could no longer sing in falsetto as well as he previously could, and that he now sang in a lower range.

The change in Elton John's voice has been largely played down, with Elton commenting fifteen years after the surgery that he was 'singing better than ever.' Sudio effects were evidently added to his voice on his first UK No 1 Hit "Sacrifice" (1990). The release of "Songs From The West Coast", his 2001 album, showed very clearly how different his voice is to his prime. It is a matter of opinion which singing style is better, but few would deny that Elton John remains an excellent singer.

Quotations
'You can call me a fat, balding, talentless, old queen who can't sing at you can't tell lies about me.' (After successfully winning a libel case against The Sun in 1987 for alleged underage sex.)

'I haven't made a good album in a long while. Not since 1976 and Blue Moves.'

'If there is a better singer in England than Craig David, then I am Margaret Thatcher.'

(After being asked about his sexuality in the 1970s) 'I think people should be free to engage in any sexual practices they choose; they should draw the line at goats, though.'

'Nowadays, record companies want the quick buck from the Backstreet Boys, Britney Spears, Travis Miscia, S Club Seven, Steps. They've always been around, I'm not knocking the music perhaps, but it's like packets of cereal. There are too many of them, too many of them are just mediocre. And I think it damages real people's chance, real talent, of getting airplay. It's just fodder.'

'There's so much you're expected to do and you follow a pattern. You make a record, you do a video. I like to break the rules a little bit more and I did in the 70s, I should try a little bit more now.'

'Anyone who lip-synchs in public on stage when you pay £75 to see them should be shot. That's me off her Christmas card list. But do I give a toss? No.' (about Madonna)

'If I had one finger left, I'd play for you.' (After breaking his fingernails by playing too hard)

'I thought it was a bit of an anti-climax, to be honest. The thought behind it was fantastic, but Hyde Park is a charisma-free zone. There was no sense of occasion and from a musical point, I didn't think there were too many highlights. I was very pleased to be a part of it, but I didn't think it was anywhere near as good as the first one. How could it be?' (about Live 8)

'The great thing about rock and roll is that someone like me can be a star.'

'Well, Oprah Winfrey's fat / Phil Donahue just take a hike / Why won't they let Howard Stern on TV?' (A tribute song he sang for Howard Stern in the late 1980s.)

'But you'll have to perform a fellatious sex act.' (Joking around with Howard Stern about putting Stern in his will during a December 16, 1998 interview.)

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