Elton John On 60 Minutes 2 (04/07/99)

the only one who's had a song in the top 40 every year for the last 29 years his Princess Diana tribute candle in the wind 97 is the best-selling pop single of all time and at 52 he's hardly ready to retire coming up he told us will be a tour with Tina Turner and a new Broadway musical but for all is a claim including a knighthood even an Oscar he is still in many ways the shy kid named Reginald Dwight who at the age of four first began pounding the piano lot of stuff that I I wasn't able to express in my life I expressed on stage my parents they wouldn't let me wear pointed toe shoes they wouldn't let me wear that chisel toe shoe the woodland we were harsh puppies IRA Bell [Applause] and he became the poster boy for rock-and-roll extravagance his craft may have been that of singer composer and piano player but his identity is defined by his passion to perform I mean I enjoy all facets of my career but I don't think I enjoy anything as much as playing live being in front of a crowd saying yeah showing off as it was maybe it's that search for attention I don't know I think every performer is slightly nuts in the fact that it's a pretty unnatural thing to do to be an actor to be a singer to be someone on stage you're living a lie it's not really who you are it's just that craving for attention then and love it's a speaking of approval for season and horrible exactly it's something he's been seeking all his life since he was a child growing up in England it began with his father who ban rock music from the house and wanted Reginald to be a banker he died six years ago do you now regret not going to his funeral I would have felt a bit of a hypocrite if I were gone maybe I should I don't know I thing I regret most is that we didn't have a loving relationship he didn't know how to connect with me and I didn't know how to connect him because I was afraid of him [Music] [Applause] [Music] well if I gotta do to before young Reginald was never a threat of failure while studying at the Royal Academy of Music equipped to play in local blues bands and then it changed his name to Elton John he didn't take long before shy little reg who was an international superstar well I was like the Jimi Hendrix of the piano and it was fantastic and I came out in hot packs and wings on my boots and did some Ursuline Academy where did that come from when you not only were jumping around and playing and pushing but also you were a duck and a chicken and oh whatever yeah I'm a dark energy kinda like Darren the Tennessee way that came from my teenage life of not being able to wear pointed shoes and stuff like that so I think you're safe too dad yeah if I can't wear our hush puppies watch this yes it's like wow now I can do it was like being that out of a cage and and I ain't know for the first few years of my career when I was doing it was great great fun but towards the end and it went over but it went on for far too long I do I regret yeah hey dude yes part of the customs had to do with the fact you didn't like the way you look dude there's some sense of insecurity about a pure yeah it's like the more I could cover up myself with a KERS of clothing because not realizing that would make you look even wider than you are yeah I've had the glasses woman it was more the glasses maybe I mean the glasses there was this little store on sunset provide called optic boutique and they give them all the credit they just I've used plastic and they still make apples and stars and stripes and and they made this huge pair that set out little lit up and this was in the days before the computer chip got very small so I had the huge battery pack stay on stage and these glasses was so heavy but I have to say the out remember like that because they came down a bite of these days backstage at a concert in Pensacola Florida you can see that his tastes are still uniquely Eltham these are the classes that we bring with us every night these the stage classes well if I'm wearing pink then I can wear those you see I'm feeling a little tint ER well blue ones like that something most of the night I've been wearing clear glasses but I'm trying worked or untinted who knows why while touring he often commutes by charter jet each night from his American home in Atlanta Georgia for this tour he's performing solo for almost three hours it is easy to see what is often missed about Elton John he is an accomplished musician Elton's happiness today comes not just from success but from sobriety that began in part because of Ryan White the young haemophiliac who died from AIDS in 1990 when Elton attended White's funeral he began to admit that 15 years of drug and alcohol addiction was enough in fact more than once it had nearly killed him I just looked at my life and let me know you complain about everything you complain about the color of you in jet you complain to the hotel so it doesn't have the right flowers in it you can your life is totally and utterly out of order completely you are a selfish Pig it was the bottom for me the bottom to realize how low I'd become [Music] shortly after Ryan White's funeral Elton went into rehab since then he has rebuilt his life around music and has established a long-term relationship with film producer David Furnish it is a stark contrast to the life he led during the 1980s I was very lucky that I put myself in so many sexual situations where I could have contracted HIV you can you imagine how lucky you were I guess I can't imagine how lucky I mean I just unbelievable someone must have been looking at me god knows what and I thought well you know I've been given a second chance I'm gonna do something positive and I'm gonna start to try and do something for the people that maybe I've let down in the past friends parents know lovers lovers yep in 1992 he formed the Elton John AIDS Foundation to date it has raised some 15 million dollars for AIDS charities each year he hosts an Oscar party in Hollywood to benefit the foundation so this is a staple thing that we do every year is one of our staple fundraisers and it was no sorries fun because you get to see people who you know you're fans of and you never met like before there can be no one that you would want to come here that you have a net could there the list is whittling and sporting down there is Elton John the celebrity and then there is the artist he's created some of the most enduring songs of the last 30 years because a child Jesus [Music] the music is his but not the words because I don't write me lyrics it's very hard for me to express myself verbally on a song I've tried believe me I've tried and it overcomes that moon and June and let me just understand this if Elton John could be a lyricist yes you'd love it I would I would love to be alerted I've tried but it just doesn't seem to come out right so my inner feelings come out in my melodies many of the lyrics have come from Bernie Taupin it's a little bit this feeling inside the two met when they answered the same London one ad seeking songwriters back in 1968 today they're publishing rights to the songs are worth an estimated two hundred million dollars my heart always jumps a little bit I see him because I love him so much and I never will stop ever loving him I feel quite emotional about it but he was the brother I never had and he was the first big spark in my life soul mates soul mate they don't create their music like soul mates more like pen pals I mean he was never he's never been in the room when I've written they will be uncomfortable it would be like an intrusion Tarpon now faxes the lyrics to Elton who rarely spends more than an hour putting them to music you can look at a fax exactly and you hear the melody yes you look at the lyric you loo you read it through you see what the store is about by the lyrical content and you decide well I wonder what this could be it's definitely up gonna be fast it's gonna be slow or mid-tempo but it's just I've never really questioned it's something that really happened that happens and sometimes it doesn't happen sometimes you sit down with in front of you and you can't do anything about it and it just doesn't work so you give it what 50 minutes and you're yeah I just I don't see the point of slaving over something that some not even there to start with he used the same process for his newest interest the Broadway musical last year with lyricist Tim Rice he adapted their award-winning score of Disney's The Lion King for Broadway their next project is a new musical based on Verdes classic story of Aida some of the biggest names in music lined up to record the songs for a new album [Music] he and rice wrote 21 songs for this project Disney don't let me sign this but yes because they say well the Tonys are coming on it and and the committees think that if you write a musical in three weeks that you know it's um you know you have to sweat buckets over these things you but you did we did yes hurry we're here to sign yes is stunning yeah I mean we did a solid a that prolific talent has always been his lifeline in 1997 nilton lost two of his closest friends first designer Gianni Versace then six weeks later Princess Diana the funeral he sang a new version of candle in the wind were you as nervous about that performance as anything you've ever done I wasn't nervous I was just determined to use all the professionals I had in my body and all the experience I've had to deliver it in a way that was dignified I didn't want to cry I want to deliver it in a way that I felt this was befitting to the occasion and it seems to me you live like a cannon they always say champions can deliver at the toughest moment I love I'll never forget it it was quite quite quite remarkable Oh [Applause] [Music] since that summer he's worked almost non-stop creating and performing his music around the world for one who has an addictive compulsive personality thank God there is the opportunity to be a musician yes otherwise you'd be nuts No thank God because of my love of play and my love music kept me alive I would be dead if I hadn't done that without question music saved your life yeah it's safe music saved my life again it's come to the rescue for me it's been my Savior from the word go [Applause]

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Id: QzFSZmn9v-k

Length: 12min 57sec (777 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 19 2013