Welcome to the Elton Blog! Once a week, fans can look forward to reading about what’s been happening and what’s likely to happen in the world of Elton John. Besides updates, you can expect to find more obscure items, plus we beef up analysis. This coincides with our website’s recent name change, to Eltonjohn.world!
Without further ado, we present the first edition of EB. . . .
Friends
There’s been talk for a while now about Elton possibly playing the Glastonbury Festival. This time, the rumours are true. Organisers say it will be his farewell show in Britain. It’s to take place on 25 June 2023, the last night of the festival.
We were intrigued to learn that major names are likely to join Elton onstage. What’s more, The Sun‘s Simon Boyle has heard from a source that Elton is following up The Lockdown Sessions with another album of collaborations and has ”zero plans to stop recording,” particularly when it comes to younger music-makers.”
Glastonbury tickets have already sold out. However, there is to be a resale of cancelled or returned tickets in April.
RobdaBank, Bestival‘s co-founder, is one admirer who is excited by the news. He says this will on the same weekend that he turns 50.
Elton played Bestival in 2013, where his set list ranged from Grey Seal to Hey Ahab. Elton and Leon Russell performed the latter on The-Late-Show-With-David-Letterman a couple of years prior.
Remember how in the 1975 movie Tommy, the Pinball-Wizard (played by Elton) complained the lead character was scoring more and more? Well, our man continues to score. In Canada, Cold Heart (Pnau Remix) with Dua Lipa is considered the biggest song. They top the year-end Canadian-Hot-100 chart. Elton himself, by the way, has achieved a new BillboardCharts record. When it comes to Top Tours, he’s in the number one slot for the fifth month in a row.
Just in October, the Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour grossed $49.6 million.
Millions have been raised, as well, for AIDS research, thanks to the Elton John AIDS Foundation. Drhensays, who has teamed up with the EJAF, congratulated the charity for their 30 years of accomplishments. This continues as Anne-Aslett, the EJAF‘s CEO, says they have launched The Rocket Fund, a multi-year campaign ”which pulls together” their work with the LGBT community, drug users, and young people, particularly in Eastern Europe and central Asia.
Elton also spoke about his foundation. He told enews that it is vital to keep up the momentum and ”normalise the conversation about HIV.” He doesn’t want people to feel like there is no longer a problem.
When it comes to good causes, Scotty-Lights is using their holiday display and music–including Elton and Ed Sheeran’s hit Merry Christmas–to raise funds for the East Anglian Air Ambulance, which services Suffolk, Norfolk, Cambridgeshire, and Bedfordshire, England.
Getting help of another kind was teenager Kanin-Elizabeth. Earlier this year, the Michigan native wrapped up recording sessions with the Elton John Band‘s bass player Matt Scott Bissonette, who says she has a natural talent and maturity. World-Through-My-Window is one of the songs they collaborated on.
Jake-Rogers-Wesley is another young entertainer getting attention (in this case from Elton himself). Jake says Elton is ”the GOAT.” At first, we were taken aback–before realising he meant it’s an acronym for ”the greatest of all time.”
The-Hu have received raves from Elton as well. The band’s management company told EJW that the star spoke with lead singer Gala.
In 2019, the group’s debut album, The Gereg, hit #1 on the World Album and Top New Artist chart, and they’ve ”been touring ever since.”
As for their moniker, it is pronounced like ”the Who,” but has a different meaning. ”Hu is the root word for human, children and women in ancient Mongolian and the band is proud to be the first to announce Hunnu Rock genre to the world–traditional instruments and modern rock components to be perfectly balanced.”
The late Geoffrey Gurrumul Yunupingu was another autochthonous artist who won Elton’s admiration. Gurrumul, who once opened-for-Elton, was inducted into Darwin, Australia’s National Indigenous Music Awards (NIMAs) Hall of Fame in August. In 2013, a foundation was set up in his name to aid young Australians.
And who can forget the 2Cellos, who supported Elton on quite a few dates? They just played their final concert together in New Zealand, but one of the guys, Stjepan Hauser, will be back on the road soon, having released his first solo album.
When Elton turned 75, Hauser celebrated with an EJ medley which can be accessed HERE–and called, appropriately enough, My Gift is My Song.
