Music Giants III - Elton John

Royal Mail is issuing a set of stamps and Miniature Sheet to celebrate one of the UK’s greatest music legends on the50th anniversary of his first album and as he continues his final tour – Farewell Yellow Brick Road. Total sales of EltonJohn’s records worldwide are estimated between £275m and £300m which makes him one of the biggest selling artistsof all time. A re-written and re-recorded version of ‘Candle in the Wind’ released in 1997 remains the biggest-selling single since the charts began in the 1950s and he is the most successful artist of all time in the US charts after the Beatles and Elvis Presley.

Elton John has achieved 38 gold and 27 platinum albums and has been awarded 12 Ivor Novellos, 5 Grammys, 4 BRITS and an Oscar. He has also written the award-winning and much acclaimed soundtracks to the Lion King and Billy Eliot. In recognition of his contribution to music and for his charity work he was knighted in 1998, having been awarded a CBE two years previously.

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Honky Château: Recorded in the Château d'Hérouville near Paris, Honky Château was Elton John’s breakthrough pop album, home to ‘Rocket Man’ – one of three songs he composed on the morning of the first day of recording.

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Goodbye Yellow Brick Road: A double album that perhaps represents the artisticpinnacle of Elton’s 1970s’ career, a teeming, eclectic song writing masterclass that features ‘Candle in The Wind’, ‘Saturday Night’s Alright for Fighting’ and ‘Bennie and the Jets’.

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Caribou: His fourth consecutive US number one album, Caribou, is best-known for ‘The Bitch Is Back’ and the epic ‘Don’t Let the Sun Go Down On Me’, but its most striking moment might be ‘Ticking’, the eerie saga of an armed siege in a bar.

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Captain Fantastic and The Brown Dirt Cowboy: A concept album on whichlyricist Bernie Taupin recounts the early days of his and Elton’s career, complete with a vivid depiction of Elton’s 1968 suicide attempt, ‘Someone Saved My Life Tonight’.

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Sleeping with The Past: The last album Elton John made before going into rehab was intended as a homage to the soul and R ‘n’ B music that had inspired him in the 1960s: in ‘Sacrifice’, it produced his first UK solo number one single.

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The One: The cover designed by Gianni Versace, its lyrics haunted by the unfolding AIDS crisis and Elton’s battle with drug addiction, The One re-established the now clean and sober Elton John.

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Made in England: Largely recorded live in the studio, Made in England’s upbeat titletrack – a hit single in 1995 – masks the rest of the album’s mature mood, which featuresreflections on ageing both positive and negative.

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Songs from The West Coast: “Going backwards to go forwards”, as Elton put it, Songs from The West Coast returned to the warm sound of his early 1970s’ albums and offered his and Taupin’s strongest collection of songs in years. A latter-day triumph.