How was Elton John discovered?

Answer 1

The popularity of Elton John happened due to a "last ditch" effort to promote Elton in the United States. Elton was a session musician as well as a band member in numerous bands but also worked for Dick James. He was enlisted to compose songs to be recorded by popular artists in the UK at the time (Don Kirchner and the Monkees?). The problem was Elton did not enjoy nor was very good at creating lyrics. He answered an ad in the New Musical Express for lyricists and composers which eventually paired him with Bernie Taupin who wrote lyrics.

Once the two paired and completed the compositions no one took the compositions as their own so it was decided Elton would just begin singing the songs which led to Dick James funded single releases and one or two albums. The first of these albums being "Empty Sky" in 1969. It received some decent recognition in the UK but not great. The singles they released did reach the charts but not too high.

As stated in a "last ditch" (as much as James was going to) effort Elton was sent to the USA by landing a 4 day stretch at Doug Weston's Troubadour in LA. California in Aug of 1970. James and promoters had a double decker bus (UK bus) sent over and pumped up Elton's status as he had not yet became popular in his own country. After the Troubadour shows the critics at the LA. Times heralded Elton as the best new talent of the year, the reviews of his shows praised Elton as the next best talent in Rock Music. It also helped that there were numerous LA luminaries in the audience during the show ie. Leon Russell, Brian Wilson and other well established musicians and movie stars of the time. Although his talent and reviews were never in question without doubt the patrons list and timing lended to his immediate success.

After this Elton mounted a low key nationwide tour gaining momentum as he moved across the country. One of the last shows was recorded in WABC New York with approximately 100 in the audience and released as "11/17/70"( or "17/11/70" in the UK). Both were successes and actually helped Elton become better known in the UK.

[Elton's success may also be credited to the format that was developing in the USA on FM stations called "Album Oriented Rock" (AOR) in which FM stations played entire albums on air not just the more popular "hits". Elton's early albums were finely fitted for this format.]

After this his self titled album was released including his hugely popular "Your Song" which began a run of unequaled success and record sales for approximately 5 years. The rest is music history.

Answer 2

he was playing piano in a restaurant and a music producer found him.