Costello, Elvis

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ELVIS COSTELLO

Born: Declan Patrick MacManus; London, England, 25 August 1954

Genre: Rock, Pop, Country

Best-selling album since 1990: Painted from Memory (1998)

Hit songs since 1990: "13 Steps Lead Down," "Toledo," "She"

While Elvis Costello's talents were hardened in the fires of the punk revolution of the mid-1970s, he has managed to spend more than a quarter of a century pursuing numerous projects that have frequently distanced him from that influential era by working in a variety of genres. These include country, middle-of-the-road pop, rock, ballads, political anthems, collaborations with string quartets and orchestras, and compositions for television and movie scores. Wherever
Costello has turned his considerable ability, he has brought a similar level of intensity—a kind of tortured frustration—to the impressive range of work he has produced.

If the emergence of the British punk bands the Sex Pistols and the Clash in 1976 triggered a musical sea change and opened the door for the barbed observations of Costello, he had, in fact, been knocking at it for some time. Although he was born in London, his family had strong connections with Liverpool and Merseyside—he spent time in the port of Birkenhead just over the water from the home of the Beatles—and through his father he had links with the world of show business. Ross MacManus was a vocalist and trumpeter with 1950s dance bands, heard on BBC radio broadcasts of the period. As a result, the young Declan spent his teenage years moving from Birkenhead to the capital and back, but retaining the same Liverpudlian accent that the Beatles had introduced to the United States on their first tour of 1964.

Change of Name, Change of Fortune

It was in London that Costello formed his first significant band, eventually named Flip City, who from 1974 rode on the wave of the pub rock phenomenon. Pub rock was a broad musical school that rejected the increasingly impersonal scale of rock—platinum albums, progressive pretensions, and stadium tours—and returned live popular music to the back rooms and upper floors of bars, particularly in the capital. Flip City were a country-tinged feature in a scene that lay the ground for punk bands to secure early live opportunities. When the group folded, MacManus adopted the name D. P. Costello—his own initials plus his mother's maiden name, emphasising still further the Irish antecedents of his clan.

When Stiff Records, an impetuous young label that had grown out of the pub rock movement, received a hand-delivered demo from Costello, not only did they recognize the young songwriter's potential but they proposed that he adopt the attention-grabbing first name Elvis. His reputation grew rapidly on the strength of his live shows, featuring Costello in his geeky, Buddy Holly eyeglasses that belied a spiky, acerbic stage manner. The music press took instant notice and his first album, My Aim Is True (1977), recorded in a single day with the American country rockers Clover, merely confirmed the media hype.

The debut collection unveiled a string of short, sharp shocks. Edgy rock songs like "Blame It on Cain," "(The Angels Want to Wear My) Red Shoes," and "Miracle Man," which connected easily with the angry gestures of punk and the new wave now in full flow, confirmed most of what the critics had been suggesting. The controversial "Less Than Zero," featuring the line, "Hey, Mr Oswald with your swastika tattoo," indicated that Costello was not going to steer clear of difficult topics. Although his ire was probably aimed at Oswald Mosley, the 1930s leader of the British fascists, American listeners assumed that Lee Harvey Oswald was his target. By such means, the artist's aura, as both a serious and challenging contender, was underlined. In addition, in "Alison" he showed that his ability to write a memorable love song was not lacking.

Leader in the New Wave Explosion

With that impressive beginning, Costello then proceeded to strengthen his case. Creating a backing band called the Attractions—bassist Bruce Thomas, drummer Pete Thomas, and keyboardist Steve Nieve—Costello, on guitar and vocals, produced the powerful This Year's Model (1978) and then Armed Forces (1979). With songs as sensational as "Watching the Detectives," "(I Don't Want to Go to) Chelsea," "Pump It Up," and "Oliver's Army" swelling the group's repertoire, Costello was now established as the premier British solo artist of the new wave explosion that was centered on punk acts but also embraced sharp-witted singer/songwriters like Ian Dury and Joe Jackson. Costello's name began to draw similar plaudits in the United States.

His American adventure was rudely halted, however, when a barroom row in Ohio with established American rock musicians Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett resulted in a fist fight and allegations that Costello had made racist remarks about African-American R&B singer Ray Charles. While Costello claimed he had been merely aiming to enrage representatives of the older musical establishment, his records were removed from playlists and for a couple of years he avoided the U.S. circuit.

The 1980s saw Costello continue an odyssey that would take many twists and turns. His 1980 album Get Happy!! paid tribute to the R&B sounds of Stax and Motown—"I Can't Stand Up for Falling Down," the Sam and Dave song, provided the first Attractions cover version—although "New Amsterdam" was a reminder that Costello's talent for a tune remained undiminished. In a string of albums that followed, Costello took a country route on Almost Blue (1981), returned to a powerful pop formula on Punch the Clock (1983), dabbled in rock and roll influences on King of America (1986), where he was joined by T-Bone Burnett and the guitar licks of ex-Presley sideman James Burton, and delved into darker themes on Blood and Chocolate (1986).

Collaborations with McCartney, Bacharach, and von Otter

Along the way Costello's personal life shifted—his first marriage collapsed, an experience touched upon on Goodbye Cruel World (1984), and he later wed Pogues bassist Cait O'Riordan. He also responded to the policies of Margaret Thatcher's administration with a body of fiercely critical political songs—"Shipbuilding," which questioned the morality of the Falklands War of 1982, "Pills and Soap," issued under the pseudonym of the Imposter in 1983, and "Tramp the Dirt Down," a track from Spike (1989). Yet Costello could not be stereotyped as a new politico—the latter album saw him co-write with ex-Beatles member Paul McCartney and produce the upbeat ballad "Veronica."

But if the first decade and a half of Costello's musical career had been rich and varied, the 1990s added a range of further shades to his palette. In 1991 he provided the music for a major U.K. television drama—GBH by Liverpool playwright Alan Bleasdale—and penned one of his stronger albums, Mighty Like a Rose, before embarking on his most ambitious project to date. Joined by classical chamber group the Brodsky Quartet, he produced The Juliet Letters (1993), a marvelously eclectic retelling of the Romeo and Juliet romance, through ballad, rock, and contemporary music. A side project saw him write a whole album, Now Ain't the Time for Your Tears, for Wendy James, one-time Transvision Vamp singer.

In 1994 Costello was reunited with the Attractions and the resulting album, Brutal Youth, proved a feisty return to basic rock principles, with "13 Steps Lead Down" the stand-out song. The following year he released a collection of covers, Kojak Variety, featuring singer/songwriter Bob Dylan's "I Threw It All Away" and Ray Davies's "Days"; he then compiled All This Useless Beauty (1996), showcasing original songs he had given to other artists but had never recorded himself.

Most significant perhaps was his major collaboration with Burt Bacharach. Costello had covered a Bacharach/Hal David song, "Please Stay," on his covers album and had always been an admirer of those writers. When Bacharach and Costello co-wrote the song "God Give Me Strength," for Grace of My Heart, the movie based on the early 1960s Brill Building, it laid the way for a full-scale recording project involving the pair. Painted from Memory (1998) drew on Bacharach's supreme melodic and arranging skills and Costello's lyrical and interpretative talents, and songs like "Toledo" and "This House Is Empty Now" demonstrate a remarkable creative sympathy between the two, despite the generational divide.

Yet Painted From Memory enjoyed more critical than commercial success, a recurring theme of Costello's career. Nonetheless the concerts and tours that grew out of the album provided him with a world stage, and international sales of the collection, particularly in Japan, eventually marked it as a triumph. An intriguing companion album also appeared with musician/producer Bill Frisell creating a simultaneous jazz arrangement of the Bacharach/Costello set, an echo of a time when Miles Davis and John Coltrane issued their versions of the standard popular repertoire of the day.

Costello now saw concert action with Steve Nieve, his Attractions pianist, and then the movie Notting Hill (1999) saw the singer contribute a hit interpretation of the Charles Aznavour classic "She" to the soundtrack. The big screen beckoned again when Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (1999) featured cameos by Costello and Bacharach as Carnaby Street buskers.

His quest for experimenting in new fields continued. In 2001 he joined forces with a soprano star of the opera world, Ann Sofie von Otter, directing a collaboration that saw the singer add pop songs to her classical repertoire and include pieces from the Costello catalog on For the Stars. But in 2002 he rejoined the Attractions—although now missing Bruce Thomas—to record a new collection, When I Was Cruel. His best-received album for many years, perhaps since Mighty Like a Rose, it features Costello's acid wit and raw energy once more, reminiscent at times of his earliest recorded efforts as a newcomer with Stiff.

Elvis Costello's resume frames a variety of pursuits that mark him as a unique figure in the popular music landscape. He has never rested on his laurels; some even suggest that he has acted in reverse, burning boats when he could have settled for an easier life. His restlessness, his yearning for creative tests, has driven him to change horses almost annually. A songwriter who approaches Bob Dylan in terms of the sheer quantity of self-composed material, he has earned a place in the upper echelons of rock musicians.

There is, nonetheless, an argument that if he had plowed a narrower furrow—like Dylan, for example—he could have earned comparison with the greatest of solo troubadours. Instead, he has invariably pushed on from plan to plan, succeeding mostly, falling short occasionally. For that, his loyal fan base is surely grateful: Nearly every year has brought a new Costello to the fore—the punk, the country crooner, the rock and roller, the balladeer, and so on. His obsession with reinvention, coupled with his sheer audacity, makes him one of the most eclectic and invigorating players in the field.

SELECTIVE DISCOGRAPHY:

My Aim Is True (Rykodisc, 1977); This Year's Model (Rykodisc, 1978); Armed Forces (Rykodisc, 1979); Get Happy!! (Rykodisc, 1980); Almost Blue (Rykodisc, 1981) Imperial Bedroom (Rykodisc, 1982); Punch the Clock (Rykodisc, 1983) Goodbye Cruel World (Rykodisc, 1984); King of America (Rykodisc, 1986); Blood and Chocolate (Rykodisc, 1986) Spike (Warner Bros., 1989); Mighty Like a Rose (Warner Bros., 1991); The Juliet Letters (Warner Bros., 1993); Brutal Youth (Warner Bros., 1994); Kojak Variety (Warner Bros., 1995); All This Useless Beauty (Warner Bros., 1996); Painted from Memory (Mercury, 1998); When I Was Cruel (Island, 2002). Soundtracks: Notting Hill (Polygram, 1999); Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me (Warner Bros., 1999).