Chaucer’s Books will host a book launch for Bernie Taupin, 2023 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee and local author, for his new memoir “Scattershot,” 6 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 26 at 3321 State St., Santa Barbara.
“I loved writing, I loved chronicling life and every moment I was cogent, sober, or blitzed, I was forever feeding off my surroundings, making copious notes as ammunition for future compositions. …,” Taupin said of his memoir. “The thing is good, bad, or indifferent I never stopped writing, it was as addictive as any drug.”
Also the author of “Life, Music, Elton and Me,” Taupin is half of one of the most successful and long-running musical collaborations in music history. Taupin is the man who wrote the lyrics for Elton John, who conceived the ideas that spawned countless hits, and sold millions of records.
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 own account of their adventures close to his chest, until now. Written with honesty and candor, “Scattershot” allows the reader to witness events unfolding from Taupin’s perspective, sometimes front and center, sometimes from the edge.
“This is the most glorious of books. I am besotted by the life I never knew he had,”John said of “Scattershot.”
An multi-decade whirlwind told in a non-linear yet grounded narrative, “Scattershot” whizzes around the world as readers ride shotgun with Taupin on his extraordinary life.
Readers visit Los Angeles with him and John on the cusp of global fame; spend time with Taupin in Australia almost in residency at an infamous rock ‘n’ roll hotel in a blizzard of drugs; and spend late night hours with John Lennon, with Bob Marley, and hanging with Frank Sinatra.
Taupin also writes about his encounters with writers such as Graham Greene, artists like Andy Warhol and Salvador Dali, and scores of notable misfits, miscreants, eccentrics, and geniuses, known and unknown.
Readers will learn how these people inspired the indelible lyrics to songs such as “Tiny Dancer,” “Candle in the Wind,” and “Bennie and The Jets.”
An English lyricist, Taupin has worked in partnership with John since 1967 and has written the lyrics for most of John’s famous hits, including “Rocket Man,” “Candle in the Wind,” “Crocodile Rock,” “Your Song,” and “I’m Still Standing,” and countless others.
John and Taupin received the Johnny Mercer Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame, a lifetime achievement Grammy, an Academy Award.
In 2022, Taupin was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire for services to music. In 2023, he was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
.