The piano players that put Elton John in “heaven”
It was fate that Elton John wound up being a rock and roll piano player. It wasn’t his original path – for most of his youth, the man then known as Reggie Dwight was on the classical path studying at the Royal Academy of Music. His skills might have been good enough to get him jobs in the more refined arts, but John was just waiting to become a flamboyant pop star.
That’s because even when John was studying the more buttoned-up keys players, his mind was still gravitating toward rock and roll. As a child of the late 1950s and early 1960s, John came of age just as rock and roll as becoming an untamed force of pop culture. Over-the-top performers were essential to John’s falling in love with rock and roll, and it always seemed to be the piano players who were craziest.
“Because I’m a piano player, I grew up watching Liberace, Russ Conway, Joe ‘Mr. Piano’ Henderson and people like that, listening to George Shearing, which my dad liked,” John told the BBC Radio 2 show Tracks of My Years in 2019. “When I first heard ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ by Jerry Lee Lewis I was like ‘Wow, that’s different!’”
“I mean, he was using the piano in a different way,” John explained. “When I saw him and the way he stood on the piano and jumped on the piano I thought ‘That’s what I wanna do’ and ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ as much as Elvis Presley, being a piano player, this changed my life.”
Jerry Lee Lewis wouldn’t be the only important influence for a young Elton John. Naturally, the shy and bespectacled boy saw someone like Little Richard as a revelation. The connections seem obvious now: an ostentatious gay piano player with a voice that could shatter glass and reach astonishing high notes. The transformation of Reggie Dwight to Elton John wasn’t just helped by Little Richard – it was kickstarted.
“Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis were from heaven to me,” John added. “Because Little Richard stood up and played the piano and he played in a vamping style. ‘Lucille’ – that voice, that look and he was the first black artist that I had seen doing rock and roll. He was electrifying and I loved him so much.”
“I got to duet with him on my Duets album, which was one of the highlights of my musical life because he is such an amazing singer,” John added. “Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis, I would bestow the Medal Of Honour up for both of them, because that kind of piano playing inspired me so much. Fats Domino too.”
