Elton John is enjoying continued success on the charts after previously announcing his retirement from touring. The EGOT winner has scored another best-selling album after releasing his collaborative album, Who Believes in Angels? Aaongside Brandi Carlile, earlier this year. Elton has since doubled up on his victory with another album, which provided back-to-back hits and marked his comeback on Billboard’s Top Album Sales chart.
The re-release of Live From the Rainbow Theatre, with Ray Cooper, debuted at number 35, giving Elton his second collaborative debut on the prominent chart. However, the project wasn’t a normal release as it arrived as part of Record Store Day with a limited edition vinyl. The album was first recorded in 1977 during a six-show residency at London’s Rainbow Theatre that Elton and Ray shared.
At the time, only 5,000 vinyl copies of the live album were produced, and within just a few days, nearly all of them available were snapped up.
Thanks to its re-emergence on the charts, Elton has now collected 30 wins on the Top Album Sales chart throughout his remarkable five-decade career.
This comes just days after the legendary singer shared a heartbreaking health confession about the time he was diagnosed with prostate cancer.
The 78-year-old was diagnosed in 2017 but made a recovery after undergoing an operation, which eventually landed him back in the hospital.
However, on the plane journey back to the UK, Elton recalled feeling feverish as he admitted “something clearly wasn’t right” and after heading home, he was quickly rushed to the King Edward VII’s Hospital in London.
In his 2019 autobiography Me, the star wrote: “[They] noticed that something was terribly wrong. I was told that my condition was so serious, the hospital didn’t have the equipment to cope with it.”
After being transferred to the London Clinic, Elton learned he had contracted a “major infection” while in South America and was just 24 hours from death.