Elton John's Creative Partner Bernie Taupin Releasing Autobiography

06-15-2023

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(PR) Hachette Books announces the publication of "Scattershot: Life, Music, Elton, and Me" By Bernie Taupin, Songwriters Hall of Fame Inductee, Grammy and Academy Award-winning Musician, And Long-Time Collaborator of Elton John, which will be available on September 12th.

Half of one of the greatest creative partnerships in popular music, Bernie Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions and millions of records. Together, they were a duo, a unit, an immovable object. Their extraordinary, half-century-and-counting creative relationship has been chronicled in biopics like 2019's Rocketman and even John's own autobiography, Me. But Taupin, a famously private person, has kept his personal account of their adventures close to his chest, until now.

SCATTERSHOT: Life, Music, Elton, and Me grants access to history-making events from Taupin's singular perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge, yet always with an infectious energy and a songwriter's eye for detail. As a child growing up in the East Midlands of England, Taupin's imagination was sparked by the American mythopoetics of country music and cowboy culture. Before long, he found himself in the center of the glittering, star-studded fishbowl of '70s and '80s Beverly Hills.

In SCATTERSHOT, readers visit Los Angeles with Bernie and Elton on the cusp of global fame. We spend time in Australia at an infamous rock 'n' roll hotel in an endless blizzard of drugs and spend late-night hours with John Lennon, Bob Marley, and Frank Sinatra. And beyond the world of popular music, we witness memorable encounters with writers like Graham Greene, painters like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown. And of course, even if they're not famous in their own right, they are stars on the page, and we discover how they inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as "Tiny Dancer," "Candle in the Wind," "Bennie and The Jets," and so many more.

"It was never my intention to write a traditional A to Z autobiography," Taupin said. "I began a few years back composing essays and observations on my life that ultimately gained momentum and started to look like a book. From then on it became a long, arduous task that was both exhilarating and liberating. It was also a lot of fun and immensely beneficial in blowing the dust off a lot of what I'd forgotten about. Hopefully, there's something in it for everybody. It's contemplative, self-assessing, and attempts to stay off the beaten path in not regurgitating what's already been written. Nonlinear, it's an exploratory trip bouncing back and forth along the decades."

"Bernie Taupin's unique vantage point afforded by his position as one half of one the most important musical creative partnerships of the last century makes for a singular and compelling memoir," said Ben Schafer, Executive Editor at Hachette Books. "As a lyricist who didn't (usually) perform, he was able to see the eye of the storm that was the creative ferment of the '70s, '80s, and beyond, while also standing outside. Along the way, he encountered some of the most remarkable minds who have ever lived, and recollects them with candor, humor, insight, and empathy. I've no doubt readers of memoir will find much to enjoy in Scattershot, which Hachette Books is proud to publish.

"We're proud to publish Bernie Taupin's brilliant and intimate account of his unusual, musical life and the incredible times he witnessed," said Mary Ann Naples, Publisher of Hachette Books. "It's a masterpiece."

Preorder here.