Audience, Transformation

The turning point for John’s career came on August 25, 1970, when he appeared at the Troubadour Club in Los Angeles amid much anticipation and hype. Promoters put up billboards and posters, bought radio time, and arranged for John to arrive in a British style doubledecker bus. The attention and fanfare made him a little uncomfortable, especially when he found out that people like Gordon Lightfoot and Henry Mancini would be in the audience and that Neil Diamond was going to introduce him. These were his heroes, not his audience.

He was nervous.

Instead of conservative dress, which would have matched the dark, staid cover of the Elton John album, the promoters talked him into wearing light colored bell bottoms with a huge belt of stars and moons, and a long sleeved shirt with large letters spelling out “Rock ‘n’ Roll.” Elton’s transformation occurred on stage that night when he grabbed a tambourine, involved the audience in a singalong, and brought down the house with a rousing rendition of “Burn Down the Mission.” His new persona connected with the audience in a way he had never experienced before. The experience fueled a further transformation that would later include a wide array of costumes, from jumpsuits and bib overalls to white boots and star spangled T shirts.

And then there were the sunglasses-hundreds of pairs, for which he is now legendary. These were no ordinary sunglasses. Oversized, covered in stars and sequins-to this day fans still comment on the wild sunglass designs, referring to them as “Elton John glasses.” Beyond their flash, they symbolized something very revealing about his real personality. “I’d always been very shy and the dark glasses were really a shield,” John says. “I could hide behind them.” Elton John’s brand personality evolved as his music and his career escalated to new levels. It wasn’t long before songs such as “Take Me to the Pilot,” “Your Song,” and “Border Song” were all over the radio dial, making the once awkward British teen the darling of the American media; Reggie Dwight, geeky teenager, had transformed into Elton John, rock star. The press and the critics alike were unusually kind to John-unlike the reception his rock androll contemporaries received-with magazines such as Time and Life describing him as an “emerging superman.” Critics focused on his underlying musical talent, rather than extracurricular antics as with other rockers.