Elton John

Elton John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight in Pinner, Middlesex, in 1947. He learned piano young, won a scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music, and in the 1960s played in the blues band Bluesology while writing songs for other artists and working as a session musician, before his debut album, Empty Sky, appeared in 1969.

His songwriting partnership with lyricist Bernie Taupin, begun in the late 1960s, produced "Your Song," "Tiny Dancer," "Rocket Man," "Bennie and the Jets," "Goodbye Yellow Brick Road" and dozens more, most built around his gospel- and boogie-inflected piano playing.

His 1970s run, including Honky Château, Goodbye Yellow Brick Road and Rock of the Westies, made him one of the biggest-selling artists in the world. He kept releasing albums in the decades after, among them Songs from the West Coast, The Diving Board and The Lockdown Sessions, bringing his total to 32 studio records.

He has since written for stage and screen, including the songs for Disney's The Lion King as well as scores for Aida and Billy Elliot the Musical. His life was dramatised in the 2019 film Rocketman, and his farewell tour, Farewell Yellow Brick Road, ran from 2018 to 2023 and became the highest-grossing tour ever at the time.

Live, he remains a piano-and-band performer, with a fondness for elaborate costume dating back to his earliest arena shows. He has raised money for AIDS charities since the late 1980s, founding the Elton John AIDS Foundation in 1992, and served two spells as chairman of Watford Football Club.