Elton John is ending his world tour with a “last farewell show” in Stockholm, Sweden on Saturday July 8. At 76, the singer puts an end to fifty years of career. He had been on the road since 2018 with his Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour, interrupted in 2020, due to the pandemic, then when he himself tested positive for Covid-19.
In June, on the stage of the Glastonbury festival, he fired up the crowd with his hits: Rocketman, Tiny Dancer, Your Song and I’m Still Standing. Last year, his show at Dodger Stadium in Los Angeles was broadcast on the Disney platform. Some pre-recorded messages were broadcast for the occasion. Among them those of Joe Biden, the Prince and Princess of Wales, Victoria and David Beckham or even Coldplay, Katy Perry and Miley Cyrus.
The Farewell Yellow Brick Road tour is one of the most profitable in history. According to Billboard, ticket sales would have brought in more than $900 million.
Elton John was born in 1947 in Pinner, a small town northwest of London. At an early age, he was interested in music. “I started playing the piano at the age of three, on my grandmother’s lap”, he confided in 1991 in an Antenne 2 program. But all is not rosy in the family of little Elton. His father has set sail and the child is raised by his mother, stepfather and grandmother. “He finds refuge in the piano where he excels very quickly to such an extent that he will win a scholarship to learn at the Royal Academy of Music”, relates journalist Sophie Rosemont to BFM.
The artist founded Bluesology, his first group, in the 1960s. Singer and pianist, in 1967 he met Bernie Taupin, who would become his main lyricist. Together they will make the biggest hits of the artist. Your Song was the first of a long list. Rare for a British singer at the time, the title is classified in the cats in the United States.
Elton John struggles to win the hearts of the French. But in 1976, the musician ended up establishing himself in France with his album Blue Moves. “It’s a record that hasn’t had much success elsewhere, and which nevertheless earned me my success in France”, the musician later laughed in an interview with the Antenne 2 newspaper in 1984.
Although preceded by a few artists like the Beatles, Michael Jackson or Madonna, the pop star is one of the biggest record sellers in the history of music.