I can’t believe he listens to my album in his house.” “It was surreal and lovely because he doesn’t need to do that,” says the singer, AKA Joseph Traynor, “but he’s genuinely enthusiastic.
He hailed the Scottish singer Joesef, signed to the Glasgow indie label Bold Cut, as “one of the great voices”.
Lately, the veteran singer seems to be revelling in his ability to champion rising stars. Photograph: JMEnternational/JMEnternational for BRIT Awards/Getty Images I learned from him to constantly stay curious.”Įlton John with Olly Alexander at the 2021 Brit awards. I’m thinking, you wrote Bennie and the Jets! What can you learn from us? But he’s really interested and open-minded. “We slightly cheekily asked if he’d play with us and he went: ‘Absolutely.’” Smith found him to be very down to earth. “He’d mentioned us in interviews, and after we covered Tiny Dancer he called me up,” says singer James Smith. In 2022, the superstar played and sang on 100% Endurance, a song by the Leeds-based post-punk band Yard Act. I never dreamed I’d perform with Elton at the Brits.” He’s obviously a legendary artist, but to experience the human side of him was something I’m so grateful for. “I think It’s a Sin reminded him of his younger years and experience of being gay. “I learned to play piano with an Elton John songbook, so speaking to him was overwhelming,” Alexander says. He contacted Alexander after watching him in the Channel 4 hit drama It’s a Sin, named after the Pet Shop Boys song they then sang together. Lately, the singer has had hit singles duetting with younger stars including Ed Sheeran, Britney Spears and Dua Lipa. So now whenever we go to Africa or wherever he connects with people deeply.” He lost a lot of friends and sat at a lot of bedsides. “It’s been incredibly helpful having someone so famous,” says the foundation’s chief executive, Anne Aslett, “but he has lived experience as a gay man living through the Aids crisis in the 80s and 90s. Such an outsize stage presence and indeed life couldn’t be contained by pop songs alone: his musical theatre successes include The Lion King (1994) and Billy Elliot (2005), while he played an outsize bovver-booted Pinball Wizard in Ken Russell’s 1975 film Tommy and inspired an acclaimed biopic, 2019’s Rocketman.Īfter coming out as gay in 1992, he established the Elton John Aids Foundation, raising over $525m (£413m) to support HIV-related programmes in 90 countries. In the 90s, he sang Candle in the Wind at the funeral of Diana, Princess of Wales: a reworked and rerecorded version reached No 1 and became the biggest-selling single in UK history. The 70s brought outlandish costumes and superstardom before chart domination returned with 80s hits such as I’m Still Standing. Photograph: Robert Knight Archive/Redferns
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