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Few artists have had as lasting a legacy in popular music as the man born Reginald Kenneth Dwight. From doing demo recordings for the likes of Nick Drake to backing up artists touring soul artists like Patti Labelle, the gawky keyboard player soon took his new name from his band Bluesology saxman Elton Dean, and the first name of Long John Baldry with whom his band was often backing up, giving us the icon we know today as Elton John. Under the Dick James publishing banner he would be serendipitously paired with a neophyte lyricist named Bernie Taupin, and soon the so-called Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy would rule the world of pop.

Sir Elton John has been reigning supreme in the music industry for several decades now and has a long history of well-acclaimed work. Born in 1947, he always had a knack for music and started playing his grandmother’s piano when he was quite young. He then started taking piano lessons to further perfect his talents, and his skills got him into the Royal Academy of Music at the age of 11.

From playing in pubs to now being one of the most sought-after musicians in the industry, John has come a long way. While his professional endeavors need to be introduced, his personal life and sexuality have always been a huge subject of scrutiny. In 1976, he brought more attention to himself when he detailed in a Rolling Stone interview that he was bisexual.

Elton John | Credits: @eltonjohn/Instagram

But 16 years later in 1992, he declared that he was actually gay. While this...

Weird: The Al Yankovic Story star Daniel Radcliffe says shooting a scene where a fictionalized Weird Al Yankovic goes on a drug trip and hatches from an egg is the second strangest thing he’s ever done onscreen.

In a new interview with The New York Times, Radcliffe compared the scene to his work in Swiss Army Man, noting that “maybe only Paul Dano riding me like a Jet Ski in Swiss Army Man comes close to the weirdest thing I’ve ever done.”

The actor, who was hand-picked to...

Earlier this year, the Elton John biopic, Rocketman, hit multiplexes. The movie took huge liberties telling Elton’s story: showing him performing songs years or even decades before they were written; taking his stage name from John Lennon instead of his mentor, little-known English rocker Long John Baldry; levitating high above the piano while belting out “Crocodile Rock”; and even singing “Rocket Man” at the bottom of a swimming pool while his childhood self played the piano dressed as an astronaut.

It was a fantasy musical that went for the emotional truth,...

The new Elton John movie Rocketman never pretends to be a traditional biopic. It’s a fantasy musical told from the perspective of a burned-out, drug-addled Elton reflecting on his wild life from a rehab facility in the early 1990s. Characters frequently burst into elaborately choreographed song and dance routines, songs are played long before he wrote them, the timeline is off much of the time and facts are disregarded in favor of creating a compelling narrative and capturing the emotional truth of Elton’s life.

“What I care about...

Stevie Wonder wanted to meet Tonto. He had just turned 21, was flush with cash and had all these songs and sounds in his head that he couldn’t get onto tape. A friend had loaned him a copy of an album called Zero Time that had been recorded using the world’s largest, most advanced music synthesizer: Tonto, an acronym for “The Original New Timbral Orchestra.”

The mastermind behind Tonto was an Afro’d, English bassist-turned–studio tech named Malcolm Cecil who lived above a midtown-Manhattan advertising recording studio. ““I...

London — Bob Weston, a British guitarist who played with Fleetwood Mac, has died aged 64.

Police say Weston's body was found in his north London home on Tuesday after neighbors raised the alarm.

Police said Friday that his death was not being treated as suspicious. An autopsy revealed the causes of death as gastric intestinal hemorrhage, cirrhosis of the liver and throat problems.

Weston joined Fleetwood Mac in 1972 as replacement for Danny Kirwan, and played on the band's albums "Penguin" and "Mystery to Me."

But during an American tour the next year, Mick Fleetwood discovered Weston was having an affair with his wife, Jenny Boyd. Weston was fired.

He released several solo albums and played with musicians including Long John Baldry, Murray Head, Sandy Denny and Steve Marriott.

He is survived by a brother.