So does the world need another Elton John biography? So compelling and entertaining is prolific pop music biographer Bego’s portrait that the answer is in the affirmative ... Elton fans won’t want to miss this.
Bego tells a gripping story of the musician’s escalating fame and fortune ... Drawing from published sources and interviews with John and those in his life, the fast-paced narrative loses steam covering the last 25 years of John’s life; it devolves into a dry recitation of album releases, concert appearances, and newsworthy events ... Whether readers have been listening to Elton John since 'Goodbye Yellow Brick Road' or know him only from the film 'Rocketman,' they’ll find this a comprehensive biography, infused with a satisfying dose of dishy gossip.
Though Mr. Bego claims to be a rock and roll 'purist' his book has songs attached to the wrong album, songs attributed to the wrong songwriter and lyricists misidentified as songwriters...horrible typos...swaths of reviews quoted as if to fill a word count. Language seems alien to Mr. Bego...and his English is tortured ... It made me long for the sober detail of Philip Norman’s Sir Elton (2000).
Straightforward biography ... Whether that adds up to his being 'the most remarkably beloved rock and pop artist of rock history,' as Bego...writes, is surely debatable. The remark is suggestive of the tossed-off way in which the author treats a subject who deserves deeper consideration ... In the end, this biography is an exercise in superficiality, about as muscular as a handshake from Andy Warhol, who 'would present his hand like he had just handed you a dead chicken.' For ardent collectors of Eltoniana only.
