Elton John Shares That He Accidentally Rejected a Birthday Serenade from Stevie Wonder
via The Tonight Show Starring Jimmy Fallon / Youtube
John Felt Bad Afterwards
Elton John recently appeared on The Tonight Show with Jimmy Fallon, and he talked about his 26th birthday when he snubbed a serenade by fellow music legend Stevie Wonder.
They were on Starship, the infamous private jet chartered by some of the biggest rock acts in the ’70s like Led Zeppelin. At the time, however, John wasn’t in a good mood because of a recent show that didn’t go well. He only wanted to be left alone. His publicist kept on urging him to go to the bar, but John refused. He only relented after the said publicist “burst into tears and said, ‘You have to come up there. Stevie Wonder is at the organ.'”
“I felt such a horror. I felt so bad,” John recalled.
At the end of the day, there were no hard feelings between them, and they have actually been friends for decades. In fact, they recently collaborated on John’s latest album, The Lockdown Sessions. Wonder is featured on the song “Finish Line”.
“It’s a dream come true for me because you know, not only do I love him as a musician and worship him as a songwriter,” John said about their collaboration, “but he’s one of my favorite people in the whole wide world. So this was a very exciting thing for me.”