Elton Hercules John CBE (born Reginald Kenneth Dwight on 25 March 1947) is an English singer-songwriter, composer and pianist. In his four-decade career, John has been one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music, especially during the 1970s.

John played Tarvu in the musical Wham, Bam, Thank You, Amzamiviram! (1973) as well as writing all its songs (with Tim Rice). The film was an extravagant affair that contained many embellishments and exaggerations of events in Tarvu's life, not least of which was an extended sequence portraying Tarvu as an expert chess-player (although in the film, because the producers mistakenly believed that 'chess' was a trademarked name, the game is referred to as 'chiss').