(CBS) With his flashy stage presence, outlandish costumes and especially his elaborate eyewear, Elton John has become in many ways the very definition of a rock star. Many don't realize that he is also a brilliant musician. 60 Minutes II Correspondent Charlie Rose reports.
Besides writing songs that have become familiar anthems to millions, he has a knighthood, an Oscar, and has had a song in the Top 40 every year for the last 29 years. One of them, his Princess Diana tribute Candle In The Wind '97, is the best-selling pop single of all time. His speed is astonishing; he writes songs the way some people write grocery lists.
But he remains in many ways the shy fellow named Reginald Dwight who was born 52 years ago and, at the age of four, began pounding the piano. "A lot of the stuff that I wasn't able to express in my life, I expressed on stage," John says.
Over the years, John has become a poster boy for rock and roll extravagance. He may be a brilliant singer, composer and piano player, but his identity is defined by his passion to perform. Says John: "I enjoy all facets of my career. But I don't think I enjoy anything as much as playing live."
"Maybe it's that search for attention," he says. "I don't know. I think every performer is slightly nuts in the fact that it's a pretty unnatural thing to do, to be an actor, to be a singer, to be someone on stage. You're living a lie. It's not really who you are. I mean, it's just that craving for attention and love."
He's been seeking attention all his life, since he was a child growing up in Pinner, England. He had a rocky relationship with his father, who banned rock music from the house and wanted Reginald to be a banker. When his father died four years ago, John didn't go to the funeral.
"I would have felt a bit of a hypocrite if I would have gone," he says. "Maybe I -- I don't know. The thing I resent most is that we didn't have a loving relationship. He didn't know how to connect with me, and I didn't know how to connect with him, because I was afraid of him."
But young Reginald was never afraid of failure. He quit the Royal Academy of Music to play in local blues bands. Then he changed his name to Elton John.
Soon, shy little Reg was an international superstar. "I was like the Jimi Hendrix of the piano," he remembers. "And it was fantastic. And I came out in hot pants and wings on my boots and did somersaults on the counter."
His flamboyance, John says, was a result of being constrained as a child.
It was also due to his insecurity. "The more I could cover up myself with acres of clothing -- of course, not realizing that that would make you look even wider than you were," John says. "The glasses were -- it was more the glasses than anything. Because there was this little store in Sunset Boulevard called Optic Boutique. I give them all the credit. They used to make apples and stars and stripes and they made this huge pair that said Elton, that lit up. And this was in the days before the computer chip got very small. So I had this huge battery pack. Stagger on stage. And these glasses were so heavy."
On his latest tour, he performs solo for almost three hours. There is nothing to hide the fact that Elton John is an accomplished musician.
Elton's happiness today comes not just from success but from sobriety -- nine years of sobriety that began in part because of Ryan White, the young hemophiliac who died from AIDS in 1991. When Elton attended White's funeral, he began to admit that 15 years of drug and alcohol addiction was enough. In fact, more than once, it had nearly killed him.
Shortly after White's death, Elton began rehabilitation therapy. Since then, he has rebuilt his life around his music, and is enjoying happiness in a long-term relationship with his partner, David Furnish. It is a stark contrast to the life he led during the 1980s. "I was very lucky that I put myself in so many sexual situations where I could have contracted HIV," he says.
In 1992, he formed the Elton John AIDS Foundation, donating all the profits from his singles to AIDS charities. They have totaled some $15 million so far. The centerpiece of the foundation is his annual Oscar party.
There is Elton John the performer and the celebrity. And then there is Elton the artist. He has created some of the most enduring songs of the last 30 years: Rocket Man, Philadelphia Freedom, Can You Feel The Love Tonight.
He doesn't write the lyrics, however: "It's very hard for me to express myself verbally on a song. I've tried. Believe me, I've tried. And it all comes out moon and June. And hat and mat."
"I would love to be a lyricist. I've tried. But it just doesn't seem to come out right. I don't know why. I mean, of course I'd like to be a lyricist. There are certain things I'd like to say. But I just don't seem to have the talent to be able to say them correctly on paper. So my inner feelings come out in my melodies."
Many of the lyrics are written by Bernie Taupin. The two met in 1968, when they answered the same London advertisement for songwriters. Today, their publishing rights to the songs are worth an estimated $200 million.
Elton admits that he would be nowhere without Taupin. "My heart always jumps a little bit when I see him," John says, "because I love him so much. And I never will stop ever loving him. I feel quite emotional about it. But he was the brother I never had. And he was the first big spark in my life. He was the one -- he lit the fire. The spark was there. But he lit it."
The pair create their music via phone line. Taupin likes to write alone. After he is finished, he faxes the lyrics to Elton, who rarely spends more than an hour putting them to music.
Says John: "You look at the lyric. You read it through. You see what the story's about, what the lyrical content. And you decide, 'Well, I wonder what this could be. It's definitely not going to be fast. It's going to be slow. Or mid-tempo.' But it's just -- I've never really questioned it. It's something that really -- that happens."
Elton has learned not to drive himself crazy. "I don't see the point of slaving over something that's not even there to start with," he says. "If there was a germ of something good in the first 20 minutes, and you couldn't get anything else to go with it, you think, 'Well, I'm going to persevere with this.' But if there's nothing there that you don't -- that you like, it's not worth it. I just come back to it. Or just abandon it. "
He uses the same rapid-fire technique for his newest interest, Broadway musicals. He has already created huge box office with the award-winning music he wrote with lyricist Tim Rice for the animated film The Lion King.
Their next project is a new musical based on Verdi's classic story of Aida. Some of the biggest names in music lined up to record the songs for a soundtrack. He and Rice wrote 21 songs for this project in three weeks.
That prolific talent has always been his lifeline. In 1997, Elton lost two of his closest friends: designer Gianni Versace and then, six weeks later, Princess Diana. Since then he has worked through his grief almost nonstop.
In the face of personal tragedy, substance abuse, even the conflicted relationship with his father, he copes by creating and performing his music.
"My love of playing, my love of music kept me alive," he says. "I would be dead if I hadn't done that. Without question."
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