Bernie Taupin (born 22 May 1950) is an English lyricist, poet, and singer, best known for his long-term collaboration with Elton John, writing the lyrics for the majority of the star’s songs, and making his lyrics some of the best known in music history. In 1967, Taupin answered an advertisement placed in the UK music paper New Musical Express by Liberty Records, a company that was seeking new songwriters. Around the same time, Elton John responded to the same advertisement, and the duo were brought together, collaborating on many projects since. In 1971, journalist Penny Valentine wrote that “Bernie Taupin’s lyrics were to become as important as Elton [John] himself, proved to have a mercurial brilliance. Not just in their atmospheric qualities and descriptive powers, but in the way he handled words to form them into straightforward poems that were easy to relate to.” (More from Wikipedia)
The songwriting team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin came together quite by happenstance, and theirs is a nearly unique long-distance musical partnership. Altogether, they have collaborated on 30 albums.
In 1967, Elton John – then using his real name Reggie Dwight – answered an ad in the prominent British magazine New Musical Express by Ray Williams, a Liberty Records A&R man. (The initials stand for “artists and repertoire”; they are basically the people who shake the bushes looking for new talent). Bernie Taupin had answered the same ad; although neither artist was actually signed by Liberty Records, Ray Williams gave him Taupin’s telephone number.
Reggie Dwight was based in London and was then in a band called Bluesology that was backing British blues artist Long John Baldry; within six months, he started using the name Elton John as an homage to Baldry and to Elton Dean, a saxophone player in Bluesology.
Bernie Taupin though was living in Lincolnshire in eastern England. As I saw once on a television program, Taupin would send Elton John lyrics for a new song, and he would then write the music for it. The program showed the lyrics for “Tiny Dancer” that Elton had just gotten in the mail, and he mentioned some early ideas for the song and how he went about writing music. “Tiny Dancer” became a hit single and was included on Elton John’s fourth album, Madman Across the Water (1971).
Their songwriting partnership went on like this for years, and the two men were rarely in the same room together despite filling the 1970’s and 1980’s with hit songs that get a lot of radio play to this day. Elton John and Bernie Taupin both live in the Los Angeles area and see each other more frequently now.
(April 2015/1)
