By Michael W. Sasser
Contributing Writer

TULSA, OK __ One of the first albums that author Mark Bego bought was an Elton John LP on vinyl. Later, one of the first album reviews that Bego wrote for his college newspaper was on an Elton John release.

“In a way, I’ve been writing about Elton John for almost 40 years,” Bego said. “I’ve always been interested. I feel like I’ve been following him for my entire career.” It therefore comes as no surprise that Bego refers to his latest book, Elton John: The Bitch is Back as “a labor of love.” The book was long in the planning.

“About six years ago I talked to my agent about doing a book on Elton, he asked around and at the time there wasn’t a lot of interest,” Bego said. Instead, Bego was engaged to write a book on Billy Joel.

“Billy Joel and Elton John have a lot of people in common,” Bego said. That renewed his interest and finally the unauthorized biography of Sir Elton was underway. In Elton John: The Bitch is Back, renowned celebrity author Bego has rounded up a fascinating group of interview subjects for this unique biography of one of the music world’s biggest superstars.

“I specifically wanted to talk to people who personally know Elton,” Bego said. “These people’s insights into Elton make this quite exciting.”

Interviews include Alice Cooper, Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones, Mary Wilson of The Supremes, Angela Bowie, Sarah Dash of LaBelle, Randy Jones of the Village People, Duncan Faure of The Bay City Rollers, Gary Brooker of Procol Harum and the colorful and outrageous RuPaul.

“One interview really led to the next one,” Bego said. “I interviewed a lot of people who aren’t normally sought out to talk about Elton. So a lot of the stories in the book are ones that fans of Elton won’t read anywhere else.”

The book focuses on Elton’s public and private life and the absolute intersection of the two.“Usually creative people use inspiration from their personal lives in their work,” Bego said. “Elton has certainly lived a colorful life and you can’t ignore that. He has been through so many stages. Gay and not gay, married, drugs. All of these changes had to be included.”

John is widely embraced by the gay community, even at stages of his public life where he denied his homosexuality. Bego said that he believes that John’s flirtation with heterosexuality and his brief marriage to a woman were a response to the early days of the AIDS epidemic. “A lot of people, including Elton, freaked out and I think he decided he had to change, had to stop having sex with men or else he was going to die,” Bego said. “I think that was the inspiration for his marriage.”

Heterosexuality did not take, Bego said.

“He was having three-way gay sex the same week he got married,” the author added.

Bego was surprised to learn other things about the estimable Sir Elton as well.

“He has always been so charitable so it was surprising to discover that he and his real father never got along well – even when his father was dying,” Bego said. That contrasted with Elton’s close relationship with his stepfather and many other people and causes of which he was supportive.

Bego was also surprised to learn that the famed collaboration between Elton and Bernie Taupin was a distant one geographically.

“They were never in the same place at the same time,” Bego said. “One of them would write the music, then send to the other for lyrics. They collaborated but were never together. When they met, that’s how it happened and it just became their formula for success.”

Today, Elton is in a new phase of his career – busy composing music for movies and for Broadway. He has also, Bego said, settled down personally, free of drugs and partnered with his true love.

But Bego said Elton is not going to be out of the public spotlight. “He does not plan on retiring,” Bego said. “We can look forward to music from him for the rest of his life. He is just one of those kinds of artists.” Elton John: The Bitch is Back by Mark Bego is available at booksellers nationwide.

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