Elton John Rock's Captain Fantastic

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Elton's beat constantly punctuates Taupin's lyrical line in arresting ways. There is a curious blend of sophistication and primitivism in Elton's assertive piano style that makes it an instantly recognizable musical signature—as unmistakable in its way as a Beach Boys harmony or Joe Cocker's sandpaper rasp. Elton's own voice is a supple instrument. He can growl like Mick Jagger or sing an insinuating lyric plaint. He writes for himself­not surprisingly ­with supreme correctness, confidence, even elegance. To an unusual degree, he is the only one who can effectively sing the songs he writes.

Still, exciting and absorbing as his records are, they do not give one a full feeling for his talents. That comes only in live performance. These extravagant concert appearances—or perhaps more properly, these extragagant appearances at concerts­ have given him his notoriety among those who pay more attention to rock scenes than to rock sounds.

He started out wearing gaudily studded and mirrored jumpsuits, soon graduated to feather boas, fur shoulderettes, a top hat surprounted by a magnificent ostrich plume by now these too have become routine costumes for him.

Elton's concerts are fun. People augh as much as they shriek. ("If they scream," he says in his self-mocking way, "it is probably in horror.") Fans eagerly await his first appearance onstage to see what outrageous variations he will work on his image that night. No one can predict which of his 200 pairs of glasses (total value: $40,000) he may wear. He has three pairs that are mink-lined, another with 57 tiny light bulbs that spell out ELTON, yet another shaped like musical notes linked by a jeweled bridge bar. Most gorgeous of all is a set of cloud-shaped lenses suspended by gold hooks from a gold and platinum frame encrusted with 103 diamonds.

One of Elton's trademarks is pounding the piano with his feet; another is throwing his piano stool in the general direction of the audience (but actually into the pit). He has been known to dye his hair orange or pink for some gigs, to bat tennis balls into the crowd, and once in Los Angeles he hired actors to dress as Queen Elizabeth, Frankenstein and Elvis Presley and wander around the stage. Whether this represents a display of unquenchable energy, the response of a sometime wallflower suddenly encouraged to be the life of the party, or just overripe showmanship, it makes for the best show, and the best biz, on the pop scene today.