Elvis Costello

Singer, songwriter, guitarist, producer

For the Record…

Selected discography

Sources

Elvis Costello has emerged from the punk-rock movement of the late 1970s to become one of the most critically acclaimed artists in contemporary music. While bands like the Sex Pisols and the Clash may have burned more furiously in the beginning, they did, nevertheless, burn out. Costello, on the other hand, definitely had longer range goals in mind, forsaking the mind-numbing three-chord drone and leather garb for a more melodic, yet still powerful, sound and knockkneed Buddy Holly appearance. In fact, his looks have probably done more than his music to endear him to fans. “He is so much the perfect rock critic hero that he even looks like one of us,” wrote Dave Marsh in Rolling Stone, “scrawny, bespectacled and neurasthemic, doesn’t know when to shut up, bone-dull onstage.” Still, his crafty lyrics and my-way-or-the-highway attitude are the main reasons for Costello’s noteriety.

Born Declan MacManus, he gained an early introduction to the music world through his father, a singer with the Joe Loss Orchestra, and by the time he was eleven the Beatles’ fan club enjoyed his membership. In 1971, when he was sixteen, he moved out of his family’s home and began working as a computer programmer at England’s Elizabeth Arden cosmetic factory. During the evenings he played bluegrass with Flip City in the pubs of Liverpool. By day he peddled demos of his own songs to countless English record companies, sometimes even playing acoustic guitar and singing for the execs. In 1974 he met Nick Lowe, staff producer and artist for Stiff Records, and in two years Costello was signed to the label.

With the aid of Clover, a California country-rock band, and Lowe producing (as he would the next four LPs), Costello recorded his debut LP in 1977, My Aim Is True. With his first single, “Less Than Zero,” released in April, the album became America’s hottest-selling import of the year. The combination of rockabilly, country, rock and biting lyrics also made it the first New Wave LP to break the American Top 50. After his debut in San Francisco, Costello stated in Rolling Stone that “revenge and guilt” were the driving force behind his lyrics. “Those are the only emotions I know about and that I know I can feel. Love? I dunno what it means, really, and it doesn’t exist in my songs.”

After the Sex Pistols bailed out on “Saturday Night Live” television appearance, Costello agreed to fill in and play “Less Than Zero.” Once his segment began, however, he switched songs on the producers and played “Radio, Radio,” a scathing commentary on media manipulation which would appear on his next album, This Year’s Model. He may not have looked as menacing as Johnny Rotten, but when Costello sneered “I want to bite the hand that feeds me,” he seemed just

For the Record…

Name originally Declan McManus; legal name currently Declan Patrick Aloysius MacManus; born 1954 (some sources say 1955) in London, England; son of Ross (a bandleader, singer, and trumpet player) McManus; married first wife, Mary, 1974 (marriage ended, 1985); married Caitlin O’Riordan (an actress and musician), 1986; children: (first marriage) one son.

Played bluegrass with Flip City during early 1970s; signed to Stiff Records 1976, released first record, 1977; featured solo artist backed by the Clovers, 1977, the Attractions, 1978-86, and the Confederates, 1986; record producer, 1979—; appeared in cameo role in British film, “No Surrender,” 1986.

Awards: My Aim Is True named album of the year in the Rolling Stone critics’ poll, 1977; selected songwriter of the year in Rolling Stone critics’ poll, 1979.

Addresses: Record company— Warner Bros. Records, 3300 Warner Blvd., Burbank, CA 91510.

as eager to let his feelings towards the establishment be heard. But, as Marsh pointed out in Rolling Stone, “given the proper amount of publicity, it is possible that ‘Radio, Radio’ could destroy Costello’s career.”

The album also featured the Attractions, Costello’s newly formed backup band that included Bruce Thomas on bass, Steve Nieve on keyboards, and Pete Thomas on drums. They provided support on tunes like “Pump It Up” while Costello delivered more of his patented lyrics (“Sometimes I almost feel like a human being”). “For all his surface cockiness, Costello is a man who’s trembling underneath,” wrote Kit Rachlis in Rolling Stone, “a man so suspicious of the world that it doesn’t matter whether you’re bearing gifts or a black-jack, because he’s not convinced it makes a difference.”

Costello’s third album, Armed Forces, included more biting words on “Oliver’s Army,” the reggae-tinged “Watching the Detectives,” and the rumbling “(What’s So Funny ‘bout) Peace, Love and Understanding.” As Mikal Gilmore stated in Rolling Stone, [Costello’s] “songs seem to be subterfuge: communiques that create the illusion of disclosure while masking the artists’ true passions and disillusions.” The tour to support the album was a particularly memorable, and violent, one to be sure. After a botched performance in Columbus, Ohio, a drunken Costello ended up in a barroom fight with the Steven Stills and Bonnie Bramlett entourage after he called Ray Charles “nothing but a blind, ignorant nigger”. (Oddly enough, Costello had been hired by Rock Against Racism, an organization founded in England in the mid-1970s, to headline a 1978 anti-Nazi rally in London.) Death threats followed Costello for the remainder of the tour while his manager, Jake Riviera (the one who coined the name Elvis Costello), and the roadies assumed the role of a goon squad. The band was also heavily into drinking and other vices that caused their playing to be at a nearly breakneck speed and blurred the impact of many of the tunes. Nearly a decade after the Charles incident, Costello told Rolling Stone that “there’s a tremendous amount of fun in terrorizing people that are so thick-skinned.”

After slamming one of the forefathers of soul music, Costello turned right around and released his own version with the LP Get Happy. With over twenty tunes packed between the grooves, the album seemed to be a rapid succession of stop-and-go bursts that had Costello’s tortured voice as a common denominator. “This is the singing of a man who’s so depressed that his bitterness is the one thing that keeps him sane,” Tom Carson wrote in Rolling Stone. Also in 1980 he released Taking Liberties, a collection of B-sides, British album cuts, and unreleased tracks intended for the diehard fan. “By ceremoneously gift-wrapping his trash,” wrote Debra Rae Cohen in Rolling Stone, “the artist treats himself with an archivists’ reverence usually reserved for the dead.”

The initial impact of Costello was beginning to wear off and the music began to settle down, even though his lyrics were as rich as ever. On Trust he explored more of the Dylan-styled double meanings, while Almost Blue was a hearty helping of country music, pure and simple. Artists like George Jones and Johnny Cash have covered Costello tunes, as have Roy Orbison, Chet Baker, and Dusty Springfield. Costello continued to release an average of one album per year with eight Top 40 LPs in the 1980s. Critics loved his Imperial Bedroom, but Punch the Clock, which contained his only single to break the Top 40, “Everday I Write The Book,” and Goodbye Cruel World were deemed a little awkward and uneven by critics.

In 1986 Costello put the Attractions on hold for all but one tune when he recorded King of America with a pickup band christened the Confederates (James Burton, Ronnie Tutt, and Jerry Scheff). With that done, he brought the Attractions back for the burning rocker, Blood and Chocolate, in order to satisfy demand for something a little harder. The tour to support both albums alternated between the Confederates, the Attractions, and solo acoustic sets by Costello. In addition, an audience participation device called the Spinning Songbook was employed. “I see myself sort of increasingly veering towards a kind of rock ‘n’ roll Three Stooges,” Costello told the Detroit Free Press.

During 1987 he began to collaborate with Paul McCartney, writing songs which would eventually appear on Spike, Costello’s 1989 release that included help from Roger McGuinn, Chrissie Hynde, and the Dirty Dozen Brass Band. It was also his first full album without the Attractions. Like most of his records, it may not outsell the big guns like Madonna or Prince, but then again, he’ll never be confused with those types either. “We’re not in the same game, are we?,” he said to David Wild of Rolling Stone. “The truth is, I would rather do it my way and lose money.”

Selected discography

My Aim Is True, Columbia, 1977.

This Year’s Model, Columbia, 1978.

Armed Forces, Columbia, 1980.

Taking Liberties (B-sides and unreleased tracks), Columbia, 1980.

Trust, Columbia, 1981.

Almost Blue, Columbia, 1981.

Imperial Bedroom, Columbia, 1982.

Punch The Clock, Columbia, 1983.

Goodbye Cruel World, Columbia, 1984.

The Best of Elvis Costello and the Attractions, Vol. I, Columbia, 1985.

Blood and Chocolate, Columbia, 1986.

King of America, Columbia, 1986.

Spike, Warner Brothers, 1989.

Also producer of records, including The Specials, 1979; East Side Story (for the Squeeze), 1981 ; and Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash (for the Pogues), 1985.

Sources

Books

Christgau, Robert, Christgau’s Record Guide, Ticknor & Fields, 1981.

The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, edited by Jim Miller, Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1976.

The Rolling Stone Record Guide, edited by Dave Marsh with John Swenson, Random House/Rolling Stone Press, 1979.

Periodicals

Detroit Free Press, April 21, 1989.

Detroit News, April 21, 1989.

Guitar Player, March, 1987.

Interview, February, 1989.

Lansing State Journal, April 13, 1989.

People, June 9, 1986.

Rolling Stone, November 3, 1977; January 12, 1978; May 18, 1978; June 29, 1978; March 22, 1979; April 5, 1979; May 17, 1979; April 17, 1980; December 11, 1980; April 2, 1981 ; June 1, 1989.

—Calen D. Stone