New Testament Stories My Daddy Told Me, April, 2015

April, 2015

New Testament Stories My Daddy Told Me

PAUL AND APOLLOS (Acts 18:18-28)

By Wayne S. Walker

     Paul stayed in Corinth a good while.  When he finally set sail for Syria, Aquila and Priscilla went with him.  They stopped in Cenchrea, where Paul had his hair cut off because he had taken a vow.  Sometimes, Christians from a Jewish background in the first century continued to observe certain customs from the Old Testament law on an individual basis without making them religious rites or demanding them of others.  Next, they came to Ephesus, where he went into the synagogue and reasoned with the Jews.  They asked him to remain there.

Paul replied that he needed to leave soon in order to keep the coming feast in Jerusalem, another Jewish custom that Paul wanted to observe.  So he left Aquila and Priscilla there and sailed for Caesarea.  From there, he went up and greeted the church, probably in Jerusalem, and then returned to Antioch of Syria.  After spending some time there, he began his third preaching trip by going into Galatia and Phrygia to strengthen the disciples in those regions.

Meanwhile, Aquila and Priscilla remained in Ephesus.  During that time, a Jew named Apollos, originally from Alexandria in Egypt, came to Ephesus.  He was an eloquent speaker and very knowledgeable in the Scriptures.  He had been instructed in the way of the Lord and began to speak in the synagogue.  Everything which he said about the things of the Lord was true, but his knowledge extended only to the baptism of John.

Therefore, when Aquila and Priscilla heard him, they took Apollos aside privately and helped him to understand the way of God more accurately.  Being fervent in spirit, Apollos want to cross over the Aegean Sea to Achaia, where Corinth was located, and preach there.  The brethren at Ephesus wrote letters to the disciples in Greece, encouraging them to receive him.  When he arrived, he helped the church a great deal by refuting the Jews and showing from the Scriptures that Jesus is the Christ or Messiah.

Questions

1. When Paul left Corinth, who went with him?
2. What did Paul have done in Cenchrea?
3. Why did Paul need to leave Ephesus so quickly?
4. After returning to Antioch, which preaching trip did Paul then begin?
5. Who came to Ephesus and began to speak in the synagogue?
6. In what particular subject was his knowledge of the Lord’s way deficient?
7. How did Aquila and Priscilla help this individual?
8. When this man wanted to preach in Achaia, what did the brethren in Ephesus do for him?

April, 2015, Monthly Meditation

LIFTING UP HANDS

by Wayne S. Walker

     “Lift up your hands in the sanctuary, and bless the LORD” (Psalm 134:2).  The Bible makes many references to the lifting up of hands.  Concerning this verse, Charles H. Spurgeon, who says that the Psalm was an exhortation by the returning pilgrims to arouse the priests to pronounce a blessing upon them and thus teaches us to pray for those who are continually ministering before the Lord, wrote, “In the holy place they must be busy, full of strength, wide-awake, energetic, and moved with holy ardour.  Hands, heart, and every part of their manhood must be upraised, elevated, and consecrated to the adoring service of the Lord.  As the angels praise God day without night, so must the angels of the churches be instant in season and out of season.”

I have heard, though I cannot confirm it, that the lifting up of hands was a common motion of greeting to show that one did not have any weapons.  We have all probably seen some movie or television show where the police are bearing down on someone who immediately holds his hands up to show that he is not armed or will not take any retaliatory action.  Somehow, it must have become a custom associated with worship.  Spurgeon quoted Samuel Eyles Pierce who said, “The lifting up of the hands was a gesture in prayer, it was an intimation of their expectation of receiving blessings from the Lord, and it was also an acknowledgment of their having received the same.”

In 1 Timothy 2:8 Paul wrote, “I desire therefore that the men pray everywhere, lifting up holy hands, without wrath and doubting.”  In many denominational worship services, it is common to see people holding up their hands and swaying during prayer and even singing.  As in the washing of feet by Jesus in John 13 and the holy kiss of Romans 16:16, the thing being commanded here is not the action itself but the attitude that it represents—holiness, having nothing of an ulterior nature behind us.  If for whatever reason a person might choose to hold up his hands in prayer, one would be hard pressed to say that it is unscriptural, but there is no passage of scripture which teaches that it is necessary or that one sins without doing it.  Rather, he must spiritually lift up holy hands by coming to God in an attitude of humility.

Between 12 & 20: An Interview With Some Homeschooled Teens

Here is an interview with 6 different homeschooling teens. Erin Chianese, mother of 2 now-grown homeschooled daughters conducted this interview with the trained eye of a mother of teenage girls.

Between 12 & 20: An Interview With Some Homeschooled Teens By Erin Chianese

As parents, the decision to homeschool is ours. We know in our hearts that it is best for our children and our families. Of course, there are nagging doubts to any important decision, especially when it goes against the grain of the surrounding society. I used to call homeschooling our family’s “grand experiment.” I used to wish I had a crystal ball to find out the results of our venture. One of the most informative homeschooling conference sessions I have been to is a Teen Panel. Listening to teens discuss their own lives can dispel some of the fears of how our own grand experiments will turn out.

Here is an interview with six young adults to learn their thoughts on homeschooling. They were homeschooled most or all of their lives. They practiced different homeschooling styles and are embarking on different paths.

Read More at:
http://www.homeschoolnewslink.com/blog/?p=807

John Barry and the Midnight Cowboy Theme

     John Prendergast Barry (November 3, 1933–January 30, 2011) was an English composer and conductor of film music who  arranged and performed the “James Bond Theme” to the first film of the James Bond movies, 1962’s Dr. No, and also composed the soundtracks for eleven of the next fourteen films in the series between 1963 and 1987.  Barry was born John Barry Prendergast, on November 3, 1933, in York, England, the son of an English mother and an Irish father. His mother was a classical pianist. His father, John Xavier “Jack” Prendergast, from Cork, was a projectionist during the silent film era, who later owned a chain of cinemas across northern England.  As a result of his father’s work, Barry was raised in and around cinemas in northern England and he later stated that his childhood background of being brought up in the theatres owned by his father influenced his musical tastes and interests as a result.  Barry was educated at St Peter’s School, York, and also received composition lessons from Francis Jackson, Organist of York Minster.

Serving in the British Army for two years in Cyprus, Barry spent his national service playing the trumpet. After his army service, he took a correspondence course with jazz composer Bill Russo, and working as an arranger for the Jack Parnell and Ted Heath’s Orchestra, he formed his own band in 1957, the John Barry Seven, with whom he had some hit records on EMI’s Columbia label, including “Hit and Miss”, the theme tune he composed for the BBC’s Juke Box Jury program, and a cover of the theme for the United Artists western The Magnificent Seven. By 1959 Barry was gaining commissions to arrange music for other acts.  The career breakthrough for Barry was the BBC television series Drumbeat, when he appeared with the John Barry Seven. He was employed by EMI from 1959 until 1962 arranging orchestral accompaniment for the company’s singers, including Adam Faith. When Faith made his first film, for the juvenile delinquency drama Beat Girl (1960), Barry composed, arranged and conducted the score, his first.

Barry’s achievements caught the attention of the producers of a new film called Dr. No (1962). Barry was hired and the result was one of the most famous signature tunes in film history, the “James Bond Theme.”   When the producers of the Bond series engaged Lionel Bart to score the next James Bond film From Russia with Love (1963), they discovered that Bart could neither read nor write music.  The producers remembered Barry’s arrangement of the James Bond Theme and his composing and arranging for several films with Adam Faith.   This was the turning point for Barry, and he subsequently won five Academy Awards and four Grammy Awards, with scores for, among others, Born Free (1966) which put him in the front ranks of popular film composers, The Lion in Winter (1968), Midnight Cowboy (1969), and Somewhere in Time (1980). In 1975 Barry moved to California. He subsequently lived for many years in the United States, mainly in Oyster Bay, NY, in Centre Island on Long Island, from 1980.  Barry suffered a rupture of the oesophagus in 1988, following a toxic reaction to a health tonic he had consumed. The incident rendered him unable to work for two years and left him vulnerable to pneumonia.

Barry composed the theme for the TV series The Persuaders! (1971), also known as The Unlucky Heroes.  He also wrote the scores to a number of musicals, including the 1965 Passion Flower Hotel with lyrics by Trevor Peacock’ the successful 1974 West End show Billy with lyrics by Don Black; and two major Broadway flops, Lolita, My Love (1971), with Alan Jay Lerner as lyricist, and The Little Prince and the Aviator (1981), again with lyricist Don Black.  Some of his later films include the first remake of King Kong (1976), Out of Africa (1985), and Dances with Wolves (1990). In 1999 Barry was made an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) at Buckingham Palace for services to music.  In 2001, the University of York conferred an honorary degree on Barry, and in 2002 he was named an Honorary Freeman of the City of York. During 2006, Barry was the executive producer on an album entitled Here’s to the Heroes by the Australian ensemble The Ten Tenors. Barry and Black also composed one of the songs on Shirley Bassey’s 2009 album, The Performance. Barry died of a heart attack on January 30, 2011 at his Oyster Bay home, aged 77.

The following work by John Barry is contained in my collection:

Midnight Cowboy (1969): Theme (Everybody’s Talkin’).

—material selected, adapted, and edited from several different sources

why the daughter of a homosexual man opposes same-sex “marriage”

Here is something else everyone ought to read:

My Father Was Gay. Why I Oppose Legalizing Same-Sex Marriage.

the radical pro-homosexual agenda in public schools

Here is something you ought to read.  How did we go from a majority opposing so-called same sex marriage, an oxymoron if there ever was one, a few years ago to what we are presently being told which is that surveys show that a majority now favor it?  One factor is a generation or two of pro-radical homosexual agenda having been poured into the heads of our children in public schools.  Surveys show that some 80% of children raised in Bible-believing households end up rejecting Bible principles after 12 years of public school indoctrination.  If you still feel that  sending your children to public schools is worth the risk, at least make sure you know what they are being introduced to and taught in their school’s curriculum.

http://www.hannity.com/articles/news-476261/maine-schools-first-grade-curriculum-reading-13499580/

Harvey Schmidt and The Fantastics

     Harvey Lester Schmidt (born September 12, 1929) is an American composer for musical theatre and illustrator, who is best known for composing the music for the longest running musical in history, The Fantasticks, which ran off-Broadway from 1960 – 2002, with songs like “Try to Remember,” “Much More,” “Soon It’s Gonna Rain,” and “They Were You.”.  Schmidt was born in Dallas, TX, on September 12, 1929, the son of a Methodist minister, and raised in Texas, in the area around Houston. A fan of radio, movies, and theater from an early age, Schmidt’s imagination was captured by these forms of entertainment and their ability to evoke powerful reactions from audiences. As a filmgoer in his teens, he was dazzled by some of the best of what Hollywood had to offer and was particularly fascinated by the designs and the use of space that he saw in the early films of Vincente Minnelli. His interest in music was encouraged by his mother, who was a piano teacher. He was a natural pianist and able to play anything by ear, but also suffered from a mild dyslectic condition that limited his formal training — he couldn’t read music. Schmidt’s most obvious talent as a youth was his artistic ability, which impressed his teachers as well as his friends.

He attended the University of Texas at Austin to study art, and it was there, through his membership in a campus social organization called the Curtain Club, that he met Tom Jones, a fellow Texan, writer, frustrated actor, and, like Schmidt, a movie buff from childhood, and he started to accompany the drama students on the piano. They soon started writing musicals together, the first being a revue. He and Jones were brought together on a theater project by fellow student Word Baker, who had conceived of a piece that was a pastiche of early twentieth century theater and movie songs. The piece ended up taking its title from a Schmidt solo composition, “Hipsy-Boo.” Schmidt and Jones first collaborated successfully on Time Staggers On, a musical account of the first day of a freshman at college that was heavily influenced by On the Town, and proved extremely popular on the Austin campus. They parted company in the early ’50s, However, after serving in the Army, Schmidt moved to New York and worked as a graphic artist for NBC Television and later as an illustrator for Life, Harper’s Bazaar, Sports Illustrated, and Fortune, and by 1955, they were both in New York sharing an apartment.

All of Schmidt’s major musicals were written with Jones as his lyricist. The work the duo is known for is the musical The Fantasticks which ran off-Broadway for 42 years, from 1960 – 2002 at the Sullivan Street Playhouse in New York, for a total of 17,162 performances.   In 1956, Jones had presented Schmidt with an idea that he was trying to develop and finish since his days as a graduate student. While studying at Austin, he’d encountered Edmond Rostand’s 1890 play Les Romanesques, a parody of and homage to Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.  His idea was transform Les Romanesques into a musical and Americanize the story by transposing it to a Western setting with Mexicans and cowboys under the title Joy Comes to Dead Horse.  They continued working on Joy Comes to Dead Horse for years, while trying to write songs and skits together and get their musical careers going; in the meantime, Schmidt became a nationally known illustrator and graphic artist.

Finally, in 1959, through their mutual friend Word Baker, who was also working in New York, Schmidt and Jones were offered the chance to get the musical that had been gestating for most of the decade staged at Columbia University’s Barnard College in a summer theater program run by actress Mildred Dunnock, if it could be cut to a single act. Out went the Western setting, gone was any allusion to the Mexican characters, and everything else extraneous to the original story. They were back to Rostand’s work and chose for their title the name of one of the English translations of Les Romanesques, The Fantasticks.  The team followed with the Broadway musical 110 in the Shade, a musical based on the play, The Rainmaker, by N. Richard Nash, in 1963, which ran for 330 performances on Broadway and earned a Tony Award nomination for Best Composer and Lyricist for Schmidt and Jones in 1964. I Do! I Do!, a musical adapted from Jan De Hartog’s The Fourposter,.followed in 1966, which brought Mary Martin and Robert Preston to the Broadway stage in a two-person musical and ran for 560 performances. Jones and Schmidt were nominated for the Tony Award for Best Composer and Lyricist and Best Musical.

Schmidt and Jones’s last work on Broadway was a musical entitled Celebration. The production ran for 109 performances in early 1969.  They continued to work together off Broadway, creating such works as Colette (1970), Philemon (1973), Mirette, Grover’s Corners based on Thorton Wilder’s play, Our Town, which took thirteen years to write, only to have the rights pulled by Wilder’s nephew.  Schmidt also moved into writing for film, scoring the 1972 feature Bad Company, directed by his friend Robert Benton, and a movie entitled A Texas Romance.  In 1992 Schmidt received the Tony Award, Tony Honor for “The Fantasticks,” then in its 33rd year.  Schmidt and Jones also collaborated on the 1995 feature film adaptation.   They both appeared in a revue of their songs, The Show Goes On, at the York Theatre Company in 1997. The run was extended several times and the show was recorded on the DRG label.  One of their most recent works, in 2002, was the off-Broadway musical, Roadside, based on a play by Lynn Riggs, which had been presented as a work-in-progress at Southwest Texas State University in November of 2000.  His recording, Harvey Schmidt plays Jones and Schmidt was released in 2005.   Schmidt and Jones were both inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in July, 2012, and Schmidt has been inducted into the American Theatre Hall of Fame.

My collection includes the following work by Harvey Schmidt:

The Fantastics (1960): Medley.

—material selected, adapted, and edited from several different sources

The Little White Schoolhouse, Ripon, WI

4/2015

The Little White Schoolhouse, 305 Blackburn Street, Ripon, WI, is a simple frame schoolhouse, built in 1853, but it holds a powerful history.  On March 20, 1854, a decision was made in this building by a small group of Ripon citizens that changed the future of this nation. Acting on their convictions, and having the courage to stand firm to their beliefs, these men and women of Ripon voted to form and become members of a new political party that would be called “Republican.”   The building was designated a National Historic Site in 1974. A complete restoration and conservation was completed in 2007.  Today, as the birthplace of the Republican Party, Ripon’s Little White School House stands as a museum where a group of people first gathered to change the political climate of the United States. Visitors will learn about the founding of Ripon and what school was like for children in the 1850’s. The Schoolhouse offers a prairie educational experience in which elementary grade students participate in an 1850’s school simulation.  To visit the School by special arrangement, call the Ripon Chamber of Commerce at 920-748-6764.

http://www.ripon-wi.com/ripon-wi/republican-birthplace.html

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/media/115151/Little-White-Schoolhouse-Ripon-Wis

News from Home School Book Review for April, 2015

Home School Book Review ( https://homeschoolbookreviewblog.wordpress.com/ ) is the site for book lovers who want reviews of primarily children’s literature from a Biblical worldview.

The following books were reviewed in March, 2015:

March 31, 2015–Babyface

March 30, 2015–This Time, Tempe Wick?

March 29, 2015–Trail of Apple Blossoms

March 24, 2015–Bringing Up Ziggy: Lessons from a Helping Hands Monkey Mom

March 23, 2015–Hurry Up, Houdini!: Magic Tree House #50

March 20, 2015–Freckled and Fourteen

March 19, 2015–Seventy Years In Dixie: Recollections and Sayings of T. W. Caskey and Others

March 15, 2015–The Monkey and the Bee

March 14, 2015–Christmas with Ida Early

March 6, 2015–Mystery of the Secret Dolls

March 2, 2015–Life With Father

Each month, we give a Book of the Month Award; for March, 2015, it goes to:

Trail of Apple Blossoms by Irene Hunt

Books we are currently reading and will be reviewed in the near future include:

From Sea to Shining Sea by Peter Marshall and David Manuel

The Amazing Maurice and His Educated Rodents by Terry Pratchett

Trouble Don’t Last by Shelley Pearsall

Blessed Be God: Studies in Ephesians edited by Dan Petty

Elton John and music for The Lion King

Elton Hercules John (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, March 25, 1947) is an English singer, songwriter, composer, pianist, record producer, and occasional actor who has worked with lyricist Bernie Taupin as his songwriter partner since 1967, and they have collaborated on more than 30 albums to date.  John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on  March 25,1947 in Pinner, Middlesex, the eldest child of Stanley Dwight and only child of Sheila Eileen Harris, and was raised in a council house of his maternal grandparents, in Pinner.  When he was six years old, when family moved to a nearby semi-detached house.  John started playing the piano at the age of three, and within a year, his mother heard him picking out Winifred Atwell’s “The Skater’s Waltz” by ear.  After performing at parties and family gatherings, at the age of seven he took up formal piano lessons. He showed musical aptitude at school, including the ability to compose melodies, and gained some notoriety by playing like Jerry Lee Lewis at school functions. At the age of eleven, he won a junior scholarship to the Royal Academy of Music. According to one of his instructors, John promptly played back a four-page piece by Handel that he heard for the first time.

For the next five years John attended Saturday classes at the Academy in central London, and has stated that he enjoyed playing Chopin and Bach and singing in the choir during Saturday classes.  He was also educated at Pinner Wood Junior School, Reddiford School, and Pinner County Grammar School, until age seventeen, when he left just prior to his A Level examinations to pursue a career in the music industry.  During the last few years he was taking lessons from a private tutor in addition to his classes at the Academy. When John he began to seriously consider a career in music, his father, who served as a Flight Lieutenant in the Royal Air Force, tried to steer him toward a more conventional career, such as banking.  Both of John’s parents were musically inclined, his father having been a trumpet player with the Bob Millar Band, a semi-professional big band that played at military dances. The Dwights were keen record buyers, exposing John to the popular singers and musicians of the day, and John remembers being immediately hooked on rock and roll when his mother brought home records by Elvis Presley and Bill Haley in 1956.

When John was 14, his parents divorced. His mother then married a local painter, Fred Farebrother, a caring and supportive stepfather.  They moved into flat No. 1A in an eight-unit apartment building called Frome Court, not far from both previous homes. It was there that John would write the songs that would launch his career as a rock star; he would live there until he had four albums simultaneously in the American Top 40.  At the age of 15, with the help of his mother and stepfather, John became a weekend pianist at a nearby pub, the Northwood Hills Hotel, playing on Thursday to Sunday nights a range of popular standards, including songs by Jim Reeves and Ray Charles, as well as songs he had written himself. A stint with a short-lived group called the Corvettes rounded out his time.  In 1962, John and his friends formed a band called Bluesology. By day, he ran errands for a music publishing company; he divided his nights between solo gigs at a London hotel bar and working with Bluesology.  By the mid-1960s, Bluesology was backing \ American soul and R&B musicians like The Isley Brothers, Major Lance and Patti LaBelle and The Bluebelles. In 1966, the band became musician Long John Baldry’s supporting band, and played sixteen times at The Marquee Club.

In 1967, Dwight answered an advertisement in the British magazine, New Musical Express, placed by Ray Williams, then the manager for Liberty Records.  At their first meeting, Williams gave him a stack of lyrics written by Bernie Taupin, who had answered the same ad.  John wrote music for the lyrics, and then mailed it to Taupin, beginning a partnership.  When the two first met in 1967 they recorded what would become the first Elton John/Bernie Taupin song: “Scarecrow”. Six months later Reginald Dwight was going by the name “Elton John” in homage to Bluesology saxophonist Elton Dean and Long John Baldry.  The team of Elton John and Bernie Taupin joined Dick James’s DJM Records as staff songwriters in 1968, and over the next two years wrote material for various artists, like Roger Cook and Lulu. In 1969, John provided piano for Roger Hodgson on his first released single, “Mr. Boyd” by Argosy, a quartet that was completed by Caleb Quaye and Nigel Olsson.

Elton John was released in April 1970 on DJM Records/Pye Records in the UK and Uni Records in the US, and established the formula for subsequent albums – gospel-chorded rockers and poignant ballads. The first single from the album, “Border Song”, made into the US Top 100, peaking at Number 92. Backed by ex-Spencer Davis Group drummer Nigel Olsson and bassist Dee Murray, Elton John’s first American concert took place at The Troubadour in Los Angeles in August 1970, and was a success.   John and Taupin then wrote the soundtrack to the obscure film Friends and then the album Madman Across the Water, the latter reaching number eight in the US and producing the hit songs, “Levon”, and the album’s opening track “Tiny Dancer.”  Released in 1972, Honky Château became John’s first US number one album, spending five weeks at the top of the Billboard 200, and began a streak of seven consecutive US number one albums.

The pop album Don’t Shoot Me I’m Only the Piano Player came out at the start of 1973, and reached number one in the UK, the US, Australia among others. Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, released in October 1973, gained instant critical acclaim and topped the chart on both sides of the Atlantic, remaining at number one for two months.   John formed his own MCA-distributed label named The Rocket Record Company and signed acts to it – notably Neil Sedaka (“Bad Blood”, on which he sang background vocals) and Kiki Dee.   In 1974 MCA released his Greatest Hits album, a UK and US number one which is certified Diamond by the RIAA for sales of 16 million copies in the US.  Also in 1974, a collaboration with John Lennon took place, resulting in Lennon appearing on Elton John’s single cover of The Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds.”  Caribou was released in 1974 and became John’s third number one in the UK, and topped the charts in the US, Canada and Australia.

Pete Townshend of The Who asked John to play a character called the “Local Lad” in the film of the rock opera Tommy, and to perform the song “Pinball Wizard”. Drawing on power chords, John’s version was recorded and used for the movie release in 1975.  Also in 1975, the autobiographical album Captain Fantastic and the Brown Dirt Cowboy debuted at number one in the US, the first album ever to do so, and stayed at the top for seven weeks.  In 1976, the live album Here and There was released in May, followed by the Blue Moves album in October, which contained the single “Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word”. His biggest success in 1976 was “Don’t Go Breaking My Heart,” a duet with Kiki Dee that topped both the UK and US charts. In November 1977 Elton John announced he was retiring from performing, and Taupin began collaborating with others. In 1979, John and Taupin reunited, though they did not collaborate on a full album until 1983’s Too Low For Zero.

John’s 1981 album, The Fox, included collaborations with Tom Robinson and Judie Tzuke. In October 1983, Elton John caused controversy when he broke the United Nations’ cultural boycott on apartheid South Africa by performing at the Sun City venue.  He married his close friend and sound engineer, Renate Blauel, on Valentine’s Day 1984 – the marriage lasted three years.  In 1985, he was one of the many performers at Live Aid held at Wembley Stadium. A Biography channel special detailed the loss of Elton’s voice in 1986 while on tour in Australia. Shortly thereafter he underwent throat surgery, which permanently altered his voice.  He placed other hits throughout the 1980s, including “Nikita” which featured in a music video directed by Ken Russell, No. 3 in the UK and No. 7 in the US in 1986, a live orchestral version of “Candle in the Wind”, No. 6 in the US, and “I Don’t Wanna Go on with You Like That”, No. 2 in the US in 1988.

In 1990, John achieved his first solo UK number one hit single, with “Sacrifice” (coupled with “Healing Hands”) from the previous year’s album Sleeping with the Past; it would stay at the top spot for six weeks.   The following year, John’s “Basque” won the Grammy for Best Instrumental, and a guest concert appearance at Wembley Arena which he had made on George Michael’s cover of “Don’t Let the Sun Go Down on Me” was released as a single and topped the charts in both the UK and the US. At the 1991 Brit Awards in London, Elton John won the award for Best British Male.  In 1992 he released the US number 8 album The One, featuring the hit song “The One.” In April 1992, John appeared at the Freddie Mercury Tribute Concert at Wembley Stadium, performing “The Show Must Go On” with the remaining members of Queen, and “Bohemian Rhapsody” with Axl Rose of Guns N’ Roses and Queen.  Along with Tim Rice, Elton John wrote the songs for the 1994 Disney animated film The Lion King.  Also in 1994, Elton John was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame by Guns N’ Roses frontman Axl Rose.

In 1995 John released Made in England (number 3), which featured the single “Believe.”  A compilation album called Love Songs was released in 1996. Early in 1997 he held a 50th birthday party.  In the musical theatre world, in addition to a 1998 adaptation of The Lion King for Broadway, he also composed music for a Disney production of Aida in 1999 with lyricist Tim Rice, for which they received the Tony Award for Best Original Score at the 54th Tony Awards, and the Grammy Award for Best Musical Show Album at the 43rd Grammy Awards.  In 2000, he and Tim Rice teamed again to create songs for DreamWorks’ animated film The Road to El Dorado.  He released his 27th album, Songs from the West Coast, in October 2001.  In August 2003 Elton scored his fifth UK number one single when “Are You Ready for Love” topped the charts. Returning to musical theatre, John composed music for a West End theatre production of Billy Elliot the Musical in 2005 with playwright Lee Hall.  His only theatrical project with Bernie Taupin is Lestat: The Musical, based on the Anne Rice vampire novels. However it received harsh reviews from critics and closed in May 2006 after 39 performances.

In March 2007 John performed at Madison Square Garden for a record breaking 60th time for his 60th birthday.  The concert was broadcast live and a DVD recording was released as Elton 60 – Live at Madison Square Garden.  On July 1, 2007, Elton John appeared at the Concert for Diana held at Wembley Stadium in London, in honor of Diana, Princess of Wales, on what would have been her 46th birthday.  On June 21, 2008, Elton performed his 200th show in Caesars Palace. A DVD/CD package of The Red Piano was released through Best Buy in November 2008. A two-year global Red Piano Tour tour sandwiched between commitments in Las Vegas, NV, which closed in Las Vegas in April 2009. On  June 6, 2010, John performed at the fourth wedding of conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh for a reported US$1 million fee.  He released The Union on October 19, 2010. He began his new show The Million Dollar Piano at The Colosseum at Caesars Palace, Las Vegas on September 28, 2011.

On February 3, 2012, John visited Costa Rica for the first time when he performed at the recently built National Stadium.  On June 4, 2012, he performed at the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee Concert at Buckingham Palace, performing a repertoire including “Your Song”, “Crocodile Rock” and “I’m Still Standing.”   In February 2013, Elton performed a duet with singer-songwriter Ed Sheeran at the 55th Grammy Awards.  Later in 2013 he collaborated with rock band Queens of the Stone Age on their sixth studio album …Like Clockwork, contributing piano and vocals on the song “Fairweather Friends.”  In September 2013, Elton received the first Brits Icon Award for his “lasting impact” on UK Culture. It had been announced in March 2012 that John had completed work on his thirty-first album, The Diving Board. The album was produced by T-Bone Burnett and was originally set for release in autumn 2012.  The album’s release date was pushed back multiple times, but on its release in September 2013 it reached No. 3 in the UK and No. 4 in the US.

The following work by Elton John is contained in my collection:

The Lion King: Symphonic Suite and The Circle of Life

—material selected, adapted, and edited from several different sources