Word: elton
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...only other recent troubles have also been matters of mistaken identity. In the early '70s the youthful population, still politicized and ever on the alert for potential messiahs, passed the word that Elton was the new "heavy"-sort of a Bob Dylan with sequins. Encouraged by pop's desperately sober critical establishment, they began combing his works for "messages." Worse, they were pretty sure they found some. The King Must Die was obviously about the Memphis assassination, while Honky Chateau was clearly a code word for the White House, Madman Across the Water a musical portrait of Richard...
...flurries, he has become increasingly relaxed about his success. He took it in stride when critics said he had sold out, edging in toward the musical center line they so deplore -as if there were something deplorable about pop music's actually being popular. They also observed that Elton was derivative-at one moment of the Rolling Stones, at another of Joni Mitchell, Leonard Cohen, whomever. In fact, everyone in pop is influenced by others at one time or another. How can it be otherwise in a tight little world where the assimilation of newer, farther-out musical ideas...
...Jimmy Connors. In England he lives in the affluent suburb of Virginia Water. His house is a lively jumble. The huge boots he wore as the Pinball Wizard in the movie Tommy stand near a Picasso. Two stuffed leopards are a leap away from three Rembrandt etchings. Says Elton: "All I really crave now is an original Toulouse-Lautrec or a Hieronymus Bosch...
Pretty standard stuff for the man who stands near the head of the richest class of entertainers the world has ever known. But there are some things that are different about Elton John. For one thing, he will not join the exodus of rock stars who are leaving Britain to escape stiff new tax laws. "I can't imagine going to live in Geneva," he says. "There is nothing there but people who've gone to Geneva." He would rather spend time worrying about his new record label, Rocket, which gives its artists much larger than standard royalties...
Even closer to him is, of all things, the Watford Football Club, which he and his father used to watch in the old days. Elton is now a director of the club, called the Hornets. They are mediocre at best, but Elton lives and dies with their fortunes. He practices with the club, he bawls out its members in the newspaper when they do especially poorly, gives them the royal box at his concerts to encourage them. He has staged benefit concerts for Watford in order to buy the team the new players it needs. A year ago, he gained...