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rocketrecord · 7 months

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From Jackie issues 497 and 498, published 14th and 21st of July 1973. Transcription under the cut because why not

PART ONE: THE first time I met Elton John's mother, Sheila, she was busy making baked beans on toast for everyone who was visiting his house, Hercules, on the Wentworth estate just outside London.

Elton quickly explained that baked beans on toast, no matter how successful he was these days, was still one of his favourite meals!

Elton's mother is now moving to a house nearby, so she doesn't have to travel so far to see him.

Also when Elton is away, as he frequently is these days, his mother always stays in his home to look after it for him.

Sheila remembers her son's expertise at cooking when he was younger. She may now still cook him a quick beans on toast, and John Reid his manager and friend may make the grander meals, but Elton used to be and still is an expert at baking.

"When he was at school and I was out at work I often used to come home and find the kitchen full of flour and pots and pans, and there were all these cakes!"

Elton's mother remembers too that he first started playing the piano at an amazingly early age.

"He was playing all the pop tunes when he was three. We used to send him to bed, then he'd get up and play at family parties. The funny thing is that I can't play the piano myself, but my father played old military music

"When he was a bit irritated as a baby my husband would let him beat on the piano -Elton's little legs used to be hanging from the piano stool! In those days, of course, you weren't allowed to perform in public before you were 13 years old. I think without that law he could have been a child star. He could have won several talent shows I'm sure.

"It was when he was about eight years-old that he lost interest in music totally because he had the wrong teacher, but I managed to find a new one when he was 10 or 11 years old and she let him play all the pop stuff. I think other people had been forcing him into the classics when all he wanted to do was play pop. It just seemed to go very, very well after that and he took an interest again."

Even now Elton's mother plays a part in his musical career.

He always plays me over tapes of new material that he and Bernie Taupin have put together, and asks me what I think would make the right single."

Elton has alwas been very close to his mother, and they were talking eagerly about the “grand opening” of his new swimming pool. The pool is beside his large lounge and has been almost a year in the making.

Sheila's favourite Elton John album? Appropriately it's called the Elton John album!

"I love sad music," she told me.

"'Elton's alwavs been a sensitive and thoughtful person, and this comes out in his songs-particularly on that album. I've always enjoyed a good cry at films and things.

Even her house was named after an Elton John song track, Hienton." It was gold lettered on wood and Sheila is so devoted to it, that it's being moved to her new home at the back of Elton's.

Another person in Elton's life is moving closer to him as well:

Bernie Taupin, the man who writes all the words in Elton's songs.

Until recently Bernie insisted on staying up at his little cottage in Lincolnshire but has now been persuaded to move nearer to Elton so they can work more easily.

When we met, Bernie and Elton were just preparing to go to France and record at the same chateau where they made their album Honky Chateau.

"There will be a lot more rock'n' roll on the next album." Elton assured me.

Elton always keeps a sense of humour when he's talking about himself.

I’m not exactly your thin. lean, lank pop star," he laughed. hated my hair when it was long. So I had it all cut short and just lately I've had some green streaks added to each side just above my ears.

I think that mould green and orange go together!

"I guess I see myself as cuddly - certainly not sexy! I imagine that's why the audiences never try to rip my clothes off. Mind you, it's lovely because I've always had. young fans, especially up North.”

Elton told me of a recent dinner he'd had with a hero of his--the famous American comedian Groucho Marx, who was one of the Marx Brothers, whose films are often seen on television. Groucho is the one with the large black hat, moustache and cigar and the funny walk.

"It was while I was over in California and was renting a house at Malibu Beach. He agreed to come to dinner and although it was 100 degrees outside, they said that as he was now an old man he'd want a log fire burning in-doors. So we had to light one.

"He sat down in the lounge in his coat and his beret and insisted on calling me John Elton. He was amazing - you never quite knew whether he was taking the mickey out of everything

"Then I also met another famous old screen star Mae West. She was incredible. She must be eighty if she's a day!"

At his home Elton keeps two dogs. Bruce, the alsatian and Brian, a spaniel, and he's bought his mother Sheila a Yorkshire terrier called Fanny.

Whenever you call there they're apt to come bounding in from the garden demanding attention-especially from Elton, because he has to be away from home so much, they like a lot of his time when he is there.

Usually when guests are at his house they have to be kept out of the way, but they were allowed to bound into the room on one big occasion recently. That was when David Cassidy, his lifelong friend Sam Hyman and Rod Stewart came to dinner.

"David has his own dogs," ex-plained Elton, "and he was delighted to meet mine. They immediately sensed he liked dogs and made a great fuss of him.”

Next Week: The dinner party with David and Rod.

PART TWO: THE pop dinner party of the year took place at Elton John's house 'Hercules? on the Wentworth estate in Surrey, just outside London.

There was Elton, and there was Rod Stewart and there was . . . David Cassidy!

It was Elton's idea to get all three pop stars together during David's recent tour. He'd met David in California last summer and the two singers have become close friends.

David's visit to Elton was the closest kept secret of his tour. And one of the biggest attractions was Elton's jukebox, which he keeps in his large games room at the front of the house. Elton keeps the jukebox stocked with the current top twenty in America and England as well as some golden oldies. And David especially liked playing those old Beatles favourites, like Love Me Do. Please, Please Me and Yellow Submarine.

Elton let me into a secret: "I had an idea during David's tour that it would be nice to join him up on stage and play the piano for him. It never worked out but I thought it was a way of showing him how much ! liked him and liked his work. A lot of people knock him but I think he's very talented.

However, Elton may yet write some songs for David.

"Now I've got a record company, which I've called Rocket Records. I'm producing and I've written a song for Kiki Dee. I'd always written for myself before, and now I'm starting to write for other people, I don't see why I shouldn't try and do something for David. In fact I've written three songs for Kiki, so Bernie, who writes the words, has had to imagine he's a girl for those songs!"

Rod Stewart had told Elton that he'd like to meet David so Elton thought the dinner would be a golden opportunity.

Another guest at the top level dinner party was David's friend since schooldays, Sam Hyman, who flew over to Britain for the last few days of the tour. Completing the party was Elton's friend and manager John Reid, who did all the cooking!

What was the menu? A good English meal of roast beef followed by strawberries and ice crear with coffee and pear brandy to finish. The guests had red wine with their main course. Elton says the evening was very high spirited with David not leaving until four in the morning!

"I think David is really great," said Elton.

"He really works as hard as a navvy, you know. He's certainly not an idiot. He knows me now, but when I first met him he was so paranoid: he'd shut himself in his house for a year and a half because he was scared to go out in case he got ripped to shreds!

"When he came down for dinner he was completely at home, playing records and joking although he was very tired because it was at the end of his tour. He did ask me to write something for him and I'd really like to.

"There is such an awful barrier because he is a pop star. You have either to be a heavy group like Led Zeppelin or a pop star.

But what people don't realise is that he's a very good musician. The reason why I'd have liked to have appeared with him is because I'd like to have made a gesture to show that I appreciate his talent. I hate these musical barriers in pop music.

Elton has been spending this month in America on holiday.

“I like to go out there to California for a rest once a year. I'lI probably see David again then, although he's started work on 'The Partridge Family' again which means he works eighteen hours a day- he has to go into the recording studios when he's finished up at the film set. As I said, he works amazingly hard.

"I love Los Angeles, just for a month.

I just sit by the pool, go surfing and once a day I go up to Sunset Strip and visit the most fabulous record shop in the world called Tower Records. It's like a warehouse and has all these piles of albums. It seems to have every record in the world, past and present.

"I mostly look for ridiculous things, spoken word records and things like that literally every day. I reckon to spend half an hour a day there. I think I hold the record for record buying there. 6,500 dollars worth in a day! That was on albums and tapes.

“I’ve got this record library at home and I fancy myself as an amateur dise jockey. I did the Noel Edmonds show last Christmas, Boxing Day actually and we did the show together. I really enjoyed that.

“I catalogue everything in my collection: cross filed and everything! I'm a terrible collector of things. Actually I'm the sort of person who's got 700 bottles of Marmite and the same of Windolene."

Elton remains one of the friendliest of pop stars. It is typical of him that he has befriended David Cassidy, because he knows that stardom can bring loneliness, and also jealousy from other musicians. He went out of his way to help David and the dinner invitation was typical, also the fact that he saw that Rod Stewart was there too.

When we met, Elton was wearing a plum velvet jacket with musical notes embroidered on it. He's known for his wild clothes: in fact he can be said to have been a leader in the brighter clothes approach to pop with his gigantic platform soles and heels, his dungarees, and now he promises the wildest pair of glasses ever seen on stage.

"They plug in and have the words ELTON across them in neon! I'd also like to get into funny things like padded suits. You see, I haven't really got the sexiest body in the world so I like to have comedy in my act.

"When I toured America last, I had a tap dancer called Legs Larry Smith who used to come on stage. He was the only person who kept me sane. I get terribly bored when things get too serious.

"I have a lady called Annie who makes all my clothes. I just tell her any ideas I have and she does some drawings for me to choose from."

On the little finger on his right hand he was wearing an enormous sparkling ring.

"That's what I call my Liberace ring. It was bought at Cartier's as a present for me and it's made of gold and diamonds. It's sparkly and it's fun!'

And that's just about how you could describe Elton himself!

#jackie magazine #elton john #1973 #teenybop realness #It’s sparkly and fun!#when reading teeny bop magazines and they quote elton u may find urself saying ‘he does not talk like that’#this was an era when some magazines even said elton was living with sheila lol #i think elton and david’s friendship was brief but elton mentioned him a lot in this era #mine #rod stewart #david cassidy

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