The former Reggie Dwight, later known as Elton John, laughs with his mom Sheila Fairebrother and her husband Fred (whom he affectionately called “Derf,” Fred spelled backwards) in their suburban London apartment in 1970. At this point John was just three albums into his prolific career, and still had countless hits — “Rocket Man,” “Daniel,” “Bennie and the Jets,” “Candle in the Wind” among them — in his future. “When he was four years old,” the future Elton John’s mother said of her prodigiously talented son, “we used to put him to bed in the day and get him up to play at night for parties.”