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)