Sing Us A Song, You're That Piano Man Guy, Right?

If Memory Swerves™, 'twas on this day in music history — May 7, 1967 — that Reginald Kenneth Dwight of Middlesex legally changed his name to Sir Elton Hercules John. Just 20 years old at the time, young Master Dwight was in attendance at the Royal Academy of Music, an institution that one imagines would have mercy on lads named "Reginald" or "Kenneth," to say nothing of those with Middlesexed leanings. Long-emancipated from his absentee, trombone-playing father — who divorced mum Sheila when the young keyboard pounder was 14 — Reginald handpicked the names in his new hybrid curiosity, choosing Elton in honor of Elton Rasmussen, a rugby baller whom his father admired, while John comes from John Barleycorn — an English folk song about porridge — and Hercules was the name of Reg’s muskrat, who itself was named for the horse in the British comedy series Steptoe and Son, a show which Reg and Hercules enjoyed together, and which was later recreated in the states as Fred G. Sanford & Son, a nighttime comedy starring funnyman Jamie "Redd" Fox. Sir Elton John — no relation to Yours Truly Doyle "Dooley" Johns — has enjoyed a storied career, first as a floppy-haired bongo slapper in the Mungo Jerry Band, and later as the costumed half of the dueling "Piano Men" — the other half being "Madman Across The Water" Billy Joel. John is also famous for serenading the likes of actress Norma Jean Desmond (of Sunset Blvd) and Duchess Camilla Bowles at her marriage to Prince Charles. Today the bow-tied, top-hatted Honky Cat® is enjoying a rebirth thanks to his "Rocketman" biopic—which we missed at the picture show, but are told 'twas "magically surreal," which we take to mean "bloody awful"—not to mention his unlikely turns singing and dancing his way thought roles as Simba in the “Lion King," Joseph in “The Amazing Technicolor Dream Trousers” and possibly the "Burning Man" at the festival of the same name, all whilst being something of a “Pinball Wizard” down at the pub. Bravo, Citizen­-Which-Is-To-Say-Captain Fantastic! You’re a regular Jack-Or-Rather-John-Of-All-Trades!