>>Oh spare us. That is COMPLETE bollocks. The guy got himself into the limelight straight after leaving college - I couldn't miss it even though I was in New Zealand at the time and detested the pop industry as much then as I do now. And his PR machine has made sure he's never been out of the public eye since. He's the archetypal pop product.

Interesting. I first heard of Elton John in Kildonan, Arran in an old boat shed where the son of the hotelier had a little recording studio thing. It would be summer 1970 just after release of second album. Never heard of him before so he PR machine must have been slow for me (at 16 presumablly I was part of the target audience).

By then, I was quite into acoustic and electric blues, folk music, west coast music, rock, classics, had been through the Beatles, done the Stones in the Park, seen Pink Floyd, been to see Judy Collins and all sorts of stuff - ie quite eclectic - but bizarrely the Elton John PR machine had missed me while the Velvet Underground and Roy Harper had managed to find me.

Jack - you may be talking bollocks from the wrong year unless New Zealand was that far ahead - I know it's alays the first at New Year.