Elvis/The Attractions 1996 - tenth anniversery of last tour
Today , June 26 2006 , is the tenth anniversery of the start of what turned out to be Elvis' last tour with The Attractions. Share your memories of it with the Costello Fan Forum .
June 26, 2006
June 5, 2006
"I'm talking about the general flow towards a world I don't want to live in — a world where we're not taking better care of each other"
New York Daily News reports -
( extract)
He may have lost his home, his possessions and 40 years of important music memorabilia. But you won't hear a peep of complaint out of New Orleans flood survivor Allen Toussaint.
"For me, it's just a joyous thing to be able to go back now and play in New Orleans," the musical legend says. "It's fitting to be there. My home is being rebuilt. And the city will be better."
Optimism of that order fires much of the music on a stunning new album matching the talents of Toussaint with those of someone who seems to have his fingers in every genre on earth: Elvis Costello. Titled "The River in Reverse," the disk filters expressions of anger and frustration over recent events in the city through a sieve of humor and joy.
"We didn't want to preach," Toussaint explains. "These are songs, not speeches." But they never would have been recorded were it not for the wreckage of Katrina and the many musical benefits that came in its wake.
But it was Toussaint's work on the Lee Dorsey hits of the '60s (like "Working in a Coal Mine") that first attracted Costello. "They were different from all the other songs that were called soul at the time," the singer explains. "They didn't sound like soul records from up north in Memphis, New York or Chicago. They had a different approach to rhythm. I'd always associated New Orleans with jazz. I didn't realize there were all these riches there."
In fact, Toussaint's compositions have always transcended the Big Easy's brew of soul, jazz and R&B. His melodies move with their own pop grace. Unsurprisingly, when Costello first thought about proposing the joint project to Toussaint, he considered making a songbook salute to the older star's catalogue. He suggested such an album to his A&R man, Joe McEwen, who, in turn, asked if they could flesh it out with new material. The ridiculously prolific Costello had one piece already: He'd written a song inspired by Katrina ("The River in Reverse") in a scant 10 minutes and debuted it at one of the New Orleans benefits. Costello thought if Toussaint arranged it, it could make a good jumping-off point for a real collaboration.
They first tested the waters together with a rewrite of the classic New Orleans tune "Tipitina." Costello added new lyrics, and together they turned that into the breathtaking new "Ascension Day."
"That broke things wide open," Costello says.
The duo wrote three more songs together in about 25 minutes. They had planned to record the result in New Orleans, but when they were to begin the album the city was still closed. So they opted to start in Hollywood.
Things were going so swimmingly, Costello and Toussaint were afraid they might finish before they ever got down to Louisiana. But, eventually, things found a slower rhythm, and the pair wound up cutting a significant portion of the music in the devastated town.
Once there, Costello wanted to see the worst of it for himself. "The studio was a five-minute drive from the Lower Ninth Ward," he explains. "I didn't feel it was a morbid thing to go. Each of us should see what was there with our own eyes."
Some of the frustration over what he saw shows in the music. "Broken Promise Land" refers to the government's poor response to the crisis. The watery title track seems to, as well, although Costello says he feels it transcends the event. "I'm talking about the general flow towards a world I don't want to live in — a world where we're not taking better care of each other," he explains.
Probably the strongest political statement on the album — Toussaint's "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?" — is also the disk's most clever cut. As Toussaint sings: "What happened to the Liberty Bell I heard so much about?/ It didn't ding dong/It must have dinged wrong/It didn't ding long."
The wit of those lines underscores Toussaint's relentlessly upbeat attitude. To him, even the diaspora of New Orleans musicians created by the hurricane has a positive side. "These players have become our ambassadors," he explains. "Now they're bringing New Orleans to everyone."
The Toronto Sun reports -
(extract)
Recording The River In Reverse also brought Toussaint and Costello back to the Crescent City about a month and a half after Katrina.
They'd initially began their work -- with Costello's Imposters bandmates Steve Nieve on B3 organ and drummer Pete Thomas and Toussaint's four-man horn section and guitarist Anthony Brown -- in Los Angeles.
But Costello felt the move was important to Toussaint even if the Englishman wasn't quite prepared for the scene that greeted him so soon after the storm.
"The signs of destruction were everywhere but specifically in the most badly affected areas, it's pretty devastating experience to see with your own eyes," said Costello. "A television picture won't prepare you for it, when you're actually at eye level with it, and see some personal belongings just hanging in a tree, and a car on top of a roof, and a refrigerator upside down. It was like a surrealistic scene."
The National Post reports -
(extract)
The dapperly-attired Costello, whose plastic-rimmed shades are the only visible reminder of a career flouting convention, recalls the first time he met Toussaint and recorded in New Orleans, in 1983.
"For outsiders," he says, "it's quite hard to break into that town. I used to get my agent to book me in there, because I'd be pretty confident that the concert would be cancelled for lack of ticket sales and then I'd have a couple of days off. On this occasion, I got to record with Allen."
The experience stuck with him, even if the result (a cover of Yoko Ono's Walking on Thin Ice) vanished quickly into his cluttered back catalogue; the two would work together again in 1988 for a song on Costello's album Spike, and they found themselves sharing stages for Katrina benefit concerts last year. Costello, ever the musical explorer, approached the pianist to do an "Allen Toussaint songbook."
"I knew there were a number of songs that I felt strongly about," he says, "several of which I thought there was no finer moment than now for them to be heard."
He picked out early '70s numbers such as Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further? and Freedom for the Stallion, both of which deal with race relations in America. Costello was spending a lot of time in New York City, and since Toussaint was living there in exile after his New Orleans home was flooded, the pair began writing together, inspired by current events. "I never had looked for as much as what happened in this collaboration," explains the serene (and equally dapper) Toussaint. "Usually an artist is sent to me, in a way 'nekkid,' and I'm to take it from there. That's a totally different element from what happened here. To have this much real collaboration, I must say, was a luxury and a blessing."
Together, the two penned five songs, which evoke sorrow, anger, determination, jubilation and human weakness. Perhaps the most memorable new composition is The Sharpest Thorn, which sounds like a drunken but rueful waltz. "Although we know we must repent," sings Costello, "We hit the scene and look for sins / That haven't even been invented."
Says Costello, "It's a simple tale about somebody who goes out, full of pride, to join a parade, and comes home at the end of the day with confetti in his hair and his pocket's been picked, and [he's] a little wiser and humbler."
Other songs also evoke evil and judgment; Costello attributes this, half-jokingly, to his and Toussaint's Catholic upbringing. In Broken Promise Land, he sings, "There's a place where infidels and showgirls meet." Costello sees this lyric as a key to this aspect of the album. "There are some people who will tell you that what happened to New Orleans was some sort of divine retribution, because it's a sinful place -- where's the charity in that remark?"
Of course, there was a time where the last thing anyone would expect from Costello was charity. In 1977, he told the New Music Express that all he knew of emotions were "revenge and guilt."
"I'd drunk 14 Pernods when I said that," recalls Costello rather sheepishly. "There was a degree of bravado in that remark. I might have been trying to clear a little space around myself to get on with my job by saying something that would be like, 'Wow! Get over that!' I realized after a few years that you couldn't base your career on one view of music or one narrow set of emotions."
May 21, 2006
The song I would like played at my funeral but only if I don't have to attend
TheObserver ( London) features -
Soundtrack of my life: Elvis Costello
Exclusive: the singer, composer and occasional wit trawls through his boxes of rarities to write about his inspirations. Just don't go looking for them on eBay - or anywhere else
The song that taught me not to play with matches
That's No Reason To Cry (From 'Fire Truck Blues') Frank Sinatra
Following the critical acclaim for the Bob Gaudio-produced Watertown, Frank Sinatra entered Western Studios in May 1971 to create what was to be the second of four 'Elements' concept records for Reprise. Unfortunately, the Santa Ana winds of that year fanned wildfires throughout the Los Angeles area and the project was scrapped on grounds of taste. This incredibly moving reading of David Ackles's 'That's No Reason to Cry' is all that remains. It was accidentally released on an Italian compilation of later Sinatra material in 1987.
The song that triggered my obsession with golf
I'm Tee-Ed Off With You Bing Crosby And Alice Cooper
Someone slipped me a cassette of this back in the Eighties and I couldn't believe my ears. Following David Bowie's hit duet with Crosby on the 'Little Drummer Boy', Bing and the shock rocker shared a novelty tune about their mutual passion, golf. It has been rumoured that Alice's gender was kept secret from Crosby in order to lure him away from the golf course but this rehearsal tape consists more of one-liners than any actual singing and it is Alice who is on the receiving end of the crooner's still very sharp tongue.
The song that made me appreciate the genius of interpretative singing
Rainy Night In Soho Rod Stewart
Before he became a singer of standards, Rod was a fine interpretative artist of songs from further in the shadows. This wrenching version of the Shane MacGowan classic is all that is left of the unfinished Songs of London Town, Stewart's intelligent riposte to the vanities of Britpop. It is thought that he became troubled by the public's identification of him with the subject matter of another MacGowan song, 'The Old Main Drag', which was also under consideration, and he abandoned the project.
The song that made me wish that I had been born in Pontiac
Staying Alive The Detroit Saints
I picked up this 45 in a second-hand shop in Flint, Michigan in the early Eighties and fell in love with it. It has never been collected on any punk compilation to my knowledge. In 1979, a disenchanted Iggy Pop returned to his home state after falling out with RCA over their failure to turn Lust For Life's critical success into substantial sales. Assembling a gaggle of garage band musicians, appropriately enough, in the Detroit suburb of Pontiac, he recorded lacerating versions of current disco smashes, including this profound and profane deconstruction of the Bee Gees' massive hit.
The song I would like played at my funeral but only if I don't have to attend
Out Of Left Field (From 'Uncle Penn') Elvis Presley
'When you least expect it, fate stumbles in.' From these opening lines, this is a triumph. Recuperating from his near-death experience in the summer of 1977, Presley turned not to gospel but to Southern soul ballads and, specifically, the songs of Dan Penn. His voice unshackled from the pharmaceutical fog of years of abuse, this was his best performance since 1969. His rendition of 'Raining in Memphis' would be played at his state funeral, when the end finally came, but it is this moment of self-realisation that is most affecting.
Strange and possibly not true
1. After his dalliance with the songs of Sinatra, the teenage Costello transferred his affections to prog rock. He wrote the sleeve notes to Yes's Tales from Topographic Oceans, but had his credit removed after typographical differences.
2. Costello's golf addiction surfaced on 1979's 'Green Jacket', a homage to the US Masters. Producer Nick Lowe, an Aussie Rules fan, forced him to call the song 'Green Shirt'.
3. Costello produced Rum, Sodomy and the Lash by the Pogues, but only after Rod Stewart had turned it down.
4. Almost Blue, Costello's country album, was so called because in the early Eighties he had seriously considered switching his football loyalties to Everton.
( Submitted by kieslowski and Mark Perry)
April 23, 2006
Elvis selects Booker T tracks
Booker T. & the MGs - Stax Profiles (Selected by Elvis Costello), released April 25 '06
Concord Records comments -
(extract)
Elvis Costello was a teenager when Booker T. & the MGs began hitting the British charts with their deceptively simple R&B instrumentals. The Memphis quartet’s most successful single in the U.K. was 1969’s “Time Is Tight,” with which Costello leads off this personal 15-track selection. Besides that tune and such other signature songs as “Hip Hug-Her,” “Hang ’Em High,” “Green Onions,” and “Boot-Leg” (the latter two presented here in live versions), the singer has picked numerous lesser-known nuggets. In his booklet notes, Costello offers insightful commentary on each performance. He observes, for instance, that on “Soul Clap ’69” (a hit in the UK only) Steve Cropper’s mellow guitar playing predicted the fade of the Beatles’ “Come Together” and drummer Al Jackson, Jr.’s beat was a blueprint for his later work with Al Green. Booker T. & the MGs were clearly ahead of their time, and their music remains utterly timeless.
February 22, 2006
'Official ' site revamped
Elvis' 'official' site has been revamped , including this summary of recent activities -
( extract)
Elvis Costello and the Imposters made their South American concert debut in October 2005 with appearances in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires and had planned to record again in the spring of 06. However, following the Katrina catastrophe, Costello was given the opportunity to perform at two benefit concerts with the great New Orleans piano player, songwriter and producer, Allen Toussaint.
They had first collaborated in the 1980s, when Toussaint produced a commissioned version of Yoko Onos Walking on Thin Ice. He later provided a wonderful piano part for Deep, Dark Truthful Mirror, a track on the album, Spike. Now, finding that Toussaint had temporarily re-located to New York City, following the loss of his home in the flood, Costello approached the Toussaint about a more substantial collaboration.
Following a short but intense period of writing they entered the studio with a combination of The Imposters lead by Toussaint at the piano and Steve Nieve playing Hammond B3. Toussaints regular guitar player, Anthony Brown and his horn section also augmented the band.
The River In Reverse was recorded in two weeks and produced by Joe Henry. Sessions began at Sunset Sound, Hollywood and concluded at Piety Street Studios in New Orleans. It is thought to be one of the first major recording project to take place in the city since the Katrina disaster. The album will include renditions of a number of songs from the Toussaint catalogue, including Whos Gonna Help Brother Get Further? and Freedom For The Stallion.
The title track is one of the recent Costello compositions to feature a characteristic Toussaint horn arrangement. Ascension Day is Toussaints beautiful minor key variation of Professor Longhairs Tipitiina with new words by Costello, while International Echo is the work of both songwriters.
The River In Reverse will be issued by Verve Forecast in May 2006.
January 17, 2006
You try to make a song, not a speech
The Times-Picayne ( New Orleans) reports -
On a dreary afternoon in December, Allen Toussaint and Elvis Costello sit astride a grand piano in a Bywater studio, equally dapper, eminently inspired.
Ostensibly, they are posing for a photographer. But with the tools of their trade so close at hand, they cannot resist.
At Costello's request, Toussaint lays his hands upon the keys and conjures a spooky, minor-key variation on the Professor Longhair classic "Tipitina."
Soon Costello joins in. In his ragged glory of voice, he preaches a sermon of queens in waiting and people pleading and no birds singing, alternate lyrics he's titled "Ascension Day."
"We'll all be together," he sings, emoting for an audience of two, "come Ascension Day."
The final note drifts away. A long, pregnant pause follows, until Costello breaks the silence.
"That was pretty, wasn't it?"
Yes, it was. Toussaint smiles, pleased.
He and Costello hail from different worlds. The genteel Toussaint is an icon of New Orleans music, a Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame pianist, songwriter and producer. The brash, British-born Costello first made a name for himself as a scrappy, New Wave songwriter with Buddy Holly glasses, outsized ambitions and a massive chip on his shoulder.
But each possesses an innate gift for plumbing the emotional depths of lyric and melody. And together, they have forged a simpatico partnership.
Costello had long admired Toussaint from afar. In Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, they shared stages at a series of benefit concerts in New York. Costello subsequently resolved to record an album with Toussaint, consisting of classics, long-forgotten gems and fresh collaborations.
Like "Ascension Day," the overall project synthesizes their sensibilities. Costello chose much of the material; Toussaint arranged it. Steve Nieve, the keyboardist in Costello's band, the Imposters, played organ; Toussaint handled the piano. The Imposters rhythm section backs the Toussaint horn section. Costello solos over a foundation laid down by Anthony Brown, Toussaint's guitarist.
They commenced at Hollywood's Sunset Studio in late November, then moved to Piety Street Studio, a converted Bywater post office that narrowly escaped Katrina's floodwaters, for a week in December. Verve Records plans to release the finished album, "The River in Reverse," in May.
"Elvis is a scholar of the music," Toussaint said. "He loves New Orleans music, as well as music from everywhere. This will be New Orleans flavor, on an Elvis Costello CD."
. . . . . . .
Both Toussaint and Costello have orchestrated prolific careers across the spectrum of popular music.
Toussaint is New Orleans music's renaissance man. His 40-year rsum as a producer and songwriter is laden with marquee names and melodies: Lee Dorsey. Irma Thomas. Aaron and Art Neville. Dr. John. The Meters. "Working In a Coal Mine." "Southern Nights." "Java." "Mother-in-Law." "Fortune Teller."
In the late 1970s, Costello, heart on his sleeve and devil may care, delivered urgent, literate dispatches with punkish attitude. He's evolved into a versatile, tireless and much-loved performer and songwriter, writing with everyone from his wife, jazz singer Diana Krall, to 1960s pop composer Burt Bacharach and Sir Paul McCartney.
New Orleans has occasionally factored into Costello's creative process. The Dirty Dozen Brass Band guested on his 1989 album "Spike." He dubbed his most recent tour "The Monkey Speaks His Mind," after a song by Dave Bartholomew, Fats Domino's producer and co-writer.
And a young Costello admired Toussaint's songwriting, if unwittingly.
"I now know that I knew a lot of Allen's songs, but I didn't know he'd written them," said Costello, nattily attired in a jacket, tie, scarf and sunglasses, during a break at Piety Street. "I didn't know he'd written 'Fortune Teller' and many staples of the beat groups in England when I was a kid.
"The first records that he produced that really struck me and I got curious about were the Lee Dorsey records, because they sounded so unique. Then the legend of who this person was grew up: Oh, he's the person who wrote that song and that one and that one, and did the arrangements, and produced them. As you get more curious, you get deeper into it."
Toussaint, New Orleans chic in blazer, slacks and sandals, confessed to not being as familiar with Costello's catalog.
"I'm sorry to say I wasn't. I have gotten familiar since, and let me tell you, he has been very busy. Very busy. He's going to be very tired when he gets to heaven.
"And it's quality stuff. He's a very high-quality person, and a very heart-filled person. And he's so wide awake."
Were it not for Katrina, Toussaint might not have discovered just how wide awake.
As Toussaint rode out Katrina alone in the Astor Crowne Plaza on Bourbon Street, Costello was in Vancouver, receiving reports from a friend at the Windsor Court. As the city flooded, Toussaint boarded a school bus to Baton Rouge, then caught a flight to New York City, now his home in exile.
Six days after Katrina, Costello performed Toussaint's "Freedom for the Stallion" at the Bumbershoot festival in Seattle, "just because I felt like it." He closed the set with another Toussaint composition, "All These Things."
A few days later, Wynton Marsalis invited Costello to a benefit concert at Lincoln Center. Costello in turn asked Toussaint to join him on "Freedom for the Stallion." Afterward, the musicians retired to Dizzy's Club Coca-Cola, a small venue within the Lincoln Center complex.
"It was just like an after-hours session that you read about in books but you rarely see with musicians of that caliber," Costello said. "Ellis Marsalis and Marcus Roberts taking turns on a piano stool. Wynton would play a chorus, then Cassandra Wilson would get up and sing. Robin Williams improvised a song called 'Red Beans and Condoleezza Rice.' We were there until 4 in the morning, just watching."
The next afternoon, Costello saw Toussaint perform at Joe's Pub, a Manhattan club.
"About halfway through the show," Costello said, "I thought, 'It's time to do this (record).' "
He was even more convinced after the Sept. 20 "From the Big Apple to the Big Easy" benefit at Madison Square Garden, when Toussaint and his band backed a succession of stars, including Costello. The following Saturday, they shared a bill at a benefit sponsored by The New Yorker. Costello debuted a song he'd written that afternoon, "The River in Reverse."
Days later, Costello received a call from a Verve Records executive, proposing a joint album with Toussaint.
"So I wasn't the only one thinking this was a good idea," he said.
. . . . . . .
Costello and Toussaint blocked out time in early December. Costello enlisted Joe Henry to produce the record. The avant-punk singer-songwriter's successful second career as a producer includes a Grammy for soul singer Solomon Burke's acclaimed 2002 comeback album, "Don't Give Up On Me." In 2005, Henry gathered together Toussaint, Irma Thomas, Ann Peebles, Billy Preston and Mavis Staples for "I Believe to My Soul," a contemporary record that taps into the spirit of classic soul.
Costello and Toussaint framed their recording as a "meeting," Costello said. "It is a dialogue between people from different parts of the world. At this moment, even the New Orleans people don't live in New Orleans."
The blueprint would not mimic "Painted From Memory," Costello's 1998 collaboration with Burt Bacharach.
"We were commissioned to write one song up front, and we liked that so much, we wrote 11 more," Costello said of the Bacharach project. "With this, I began with the thought that in the '50s, Ella Fitzgerald, for example, would do a songbook record. It was not unusual in those days, because very few performers wrote their own songs. I thought, 'Why can't that exist today?' "
The lesser-known songs in the Toussaint catalog appealed to Costello.
"I wouldn't perhaps choose 'Southern Nights' or 'Working in a Coal Mine.' They're great songs, and they certainly don't need to be sung again by me.
"The songs that I love, some are more off the beaten track. Even Allen expressed surprise at a couple of my choices. That doesn't mean they shouldn't be heard again. And when you hear the record, you'll understand why."
Toussaint trusted Costello's instincts.
"He always asked my opinion: Did I think he could do this one or that one well?" Toussaint said. "With his nature, he could do any of them well, to be perfectly frank. I never would have thought of things like 'Wonder Woman,' something I wrote for Lee Dorsey so many years ago. Or 'Tears, Tears and More Tears.' "
For his part, Costello respected Toussaint's arrangements.
"The horn arrangements and background voices are all part of the composition," Costello said. "They're not just things that have been added on, the way they sometimes are in recordings. If you take those building blocks away, you don't have as much. Every element fits together. That gives you strength."
What sets their new renditions apart, Costello said, "is my voice and the personalities of the players on the record."
Those personalities include the horns. Toussaint says he "has to have New Orleans horns all the time." To that end, he recruited Brian "Breeze" Cayolle and Amadee Castenell on tenor saxophones, "Big" Sam Williams on trombone -- who, Toussaint said, "is extremely impressive to everyone" -- and trumpeter Joe Fox, formerly of 1970s funk ensemble Chocolate Milk.
"He lives in Birmingham now," Toussaint said, "but he is definitely one of us. He has that New Orleans-ism."
. . . . . . .
Writing together deepened Costello and Toussaint's connection.
"When you co-write songs, you try and open up a conversation," Costello said. "On 'Where Is the Love,' I made the opening statement, then Allen responded. On another one, we literally wrote, change by change, how it should resolve; I had the opening but couldn't seem to close it.
"On another one, Allen came in with a whole piece of music that was already finished and didn't need anything musically from me. So I was the lyricist. We went from never having written together to trying out all the different ways you might collaborate."
Toussaint was impressed with his new partner's work ethic and skills.
"He has such a mind for the music, and he's always about what he does," Toussaint said. "If we were collaborating on something, the next day he would have loads to bring to the table. He's always working on so many things. And not just scraps -- he takes things to their completion. He has covered continents, such a wide range. And he's welcome in so many areas."
Toussaint's minor-key "Tipitina," showcased on the recent Katrina benefit CD "Our New Orleans," inspired Costello to write fresh lyrics. And so "Ascension Day" was born.
"That's the way music goes," Costello said. "In classical music days, they used to do variations on a theme. As Allen would say, Professor Longhair is the Bach of New Orleans music. 'Ascension Day' isn't better than the original, it's just a variation on the original for the present moment."
Costello says his new compositions "live in the present moment. Which inevitably means they reflect things that have occurred, or what you might feel about those things."
So are they informed by Katrina?
"As Allen said, very wisely, you want to leave space in the material for other people's imaginations. You try to make a song, not a speech."
Still, subtle changes convey much.
"When I wanted to sing 'On the Way Down,' I asked Allen, 'Is it all right if I leave out the word "girl" in the second verse?' Because I'm not meaning it about a girl who's left her neighborhood behind.
"It's pretty clear what I mean," Costello said. "There are promises that need to be kept here (in New Orleans). And if there was ever a moment for a song about dignity, like 'Freedom for the Stallion,' it's now. It's a timeless song. Other songs, like 'Who's Going to Help Brother Get Further,' sound like they could have been written yesterday.
"It's not for me to assume that I have the definitive rendition, but I can take it to some people that haven't heard it."
. . . . . . .
After he arrived in New Orleans, Costello drove through the 9th Ward, reinforcing the decision to record some of the project in New Orleans.
"It felt right," Costello said. "Although I didn't write any of the material here, to have certain things that you felt or imagined confirmed . . . That drive the other morning? That confirmed it.
"This was always a welcoming city. But I've never known people so ready to talk about their own experience, inevitably because it was catastrophic. People will open up and tell you a lot of history. I've had a lot of interesting conversations just wandering around."
His conversation with Toussaint will likely intrigue fans of both.
"This has been a concentrated collaboration," Toussaint said, "and I'm glad it happened. It's been quite enriching."
November 23, 2005
Elvis /Imposters 'hope to record again in 2006'
Starpulse reports -
Extract -
On February 28, 2006, Deutsche Grammophon will release Elvis Costello's 'My Flame Burns Blue,' a live album with the legendary Metropole Orkest, a 52-piece jazz orchestra from The Netherlands, as recorded in concert at The Hague. A bonus disc offers a forty-five minute suite from "Il Sogno," Costello's first full length, orchestral work.
The album alternates between imaginatively reinvented Costello favorites like "Almost Blue," "Clubland" and "Watching the Detectives" (arranged "in the style of a 1950s television theme"), Costello compositions seeing release for the first time on a Costello album and unexpected collaborations. "This recording captures a very joyful evening at the North Sea Jazz Festival and collects together songs and arrangements that have been developed over the last decade," writes Costello in his detailed liner notes.
For the opening track, "Hora Decubitus," Costello was invited by Charles Mingus's widow, Sue, to contribute lyrics to the jazzman's compositions. This song was completed in the immediate aftermath of September 11. "I could offer nothing more than a simple affirmation of life and rejection of vengeance," writes Costello. For the title track, Costello also wrote lyrics for Billy Strayhorn's final composition, "Blood Count."
Other highlights seeing release on a Costello album for the first time include "Speak Darkly, My Angel," "Can You Be True?" and "Upon a Veil of Midnight Blue," which was written for and recorded by west coast bluesman Charles Brown as "I Wonder How She Knows."
n January 2006, Elvis Costello and Steve Nieve will begin a worldwide tour of symphony halls performing with local orchestras. The concerts consist of a suite from "Il Sogno" followed by songs arranged for voice, piano and orchestra by Costello, Sy Johnson, Bill Frisell, Vince Mendoza and Steve Nieve.
Elvis Costello and the Imposters made their South American debut in October 2005 with a series of appearances in Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires. They hope to record again in 2006.
( Submitted by sweetest punch )
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September 2, 2005
Elvis/Dublin - It's been three years
...since Elvis played Dublin, Ireland. Your Postmaster General has a right old moan about it.
May 30, 2005
Fretting while the scarlet tide make history
Elvis has written a long account of the happenings leading up to and during his concert in Norwich , England last week. He started the show late because of a football match he wanted to watch on television .
Extract -
OK, for a short while things did go from bad to worse. Milan continued to cut through the Liverpool defence like a chainsaw through a bucket of ghee. By half-time the scoreboard read 3-0 and I felt a horrible repressed memory welling up from childhood: the morning in 1966 when the paper reported that Bill Shanklys invincible Liverpool side had been crushed 5-1 . . . apparently by a team named after a famous household cleaner. Now this game was also turning into a humiliation too dreadful to witness. I decided to do the unthinkable and go on stage early.
During half-time, as my crew completed the final checks on our equipment, I fielded a commiserating call from my one friend who is Chelsea fan and a stricken text message from a pal in Istanbul. I began warming up my voice and tried to locate the most reverberant location backstage. This turned out to be the stairwell leading to the now deserted TV room. Oh well, I thought. I might as well see the first few minutes of the second half. I found that Didi Hamann was on the field, as he should have been at the start, and that Liverpool were on the ball, looking far more organised. I pulled up a chair just in time to witness Steven Gerrards magnificent header.
I affected a nonchalant air and strolled back downstairs to indulge in the strange rituals and superstitious practices that precede every performance. Well, theyve made it look a bit more respectable, I said, to no one in particular, as crew members hurried by in every direction. My stage manager called out five minutes and I decided to use two of them by taking another quick peek at the screen. It couldnt hurt.
A member of the university staff was the only person in front of the television. He had a startled look on his face. The score read 3-2. I heard someone bellowing down the stairwell, HOLD ON . . . and it was me.
The crew quickly deserted the stage and burst into the room just as Gerrard burst into the box and was flattened. You could see from Alonsos eyes that he wouldnt put away the penalty but he is 23 and much quicker to the goalkeepers parry than Milans veteran defenders. Unbelievably, Liverpool had levelled the score in just over five minutes. The members of the Imposters (my band) now joined the television audience. Collectively they know as much about football as I know about lacrosse. However, they tolerate my football-related monologues with the indulgence of an elderly aunt humouring an eight-year-old attempting to explain the mythology of Star Wars. Soon they were swept up in the drama.
When a substitute was seen pacing the touchline, doing menacing neck rolls like a boxer in a title fight, Pete Thomas, the drummer, let out a comic shriek of Who is THAT? I was inspired to a ludicrous bout of deadly serious Motson-like myth-making. That is Djibril Ciss and he has recovered from a career-threatening double fracture of his leg in record time and he is destined to win this competition.
Our American bass player, Davey Faragher, remarked that, with his dyed yellow hair and strange tattoos, Ciss looked more like a character from a superhero comic strip. Frankly, if the commentator had told us that he was part-amphibian and had webbed feet, it would have seemed quite credible then. However, by the time the striker was introduced, Liverpools most talented playmaker, Gerrard, was filling in at right back and Garca and Alonso seemed too exhausted to lift the ball over the head of Jaap Stam, who would have otherwise been left in the dust by Cisss astonishing acceleration.
Normal time concluded without a conclusive result and we could delay the show no longer. Steve Nieve, the pianist, who had just had the rules explained to him, confidently predicted that Liverpool would prevail in any penalty shoot-out. An ominous rumbling finally penetrated our theatre of football. We approached the stage to the sound of a slow handclap and catcalls. The promoter had spent the second half cowering backstage rather than taking responsibility for any coherent announcement explaining the ongoing situation. This was left to one of my soundmen, who is an Arsenal fan, and you know how they like to lie doggo and then win with the last kick of the game.
I cant say that our entrance to the stage was greeted with wild acclaim. The lights finally went down and the booing actually increased. The lights came up and at first glance the people of Norfolk seemed to be divided into two sub-groups. Those who like to eat biscuits and go to bed early after a little light jiving and a handful of the kind of untamed flatlanders who are sometimes portrayed in Seventies horror films brandishing flaming torches at a lynching.
It had been suggested by my Chelsea-supporting friend that I might further ingratiate myself with a Norwich crowd by echoing the recent emotional outburst of Delia Smith. So my opening remark was Lets be having you and I promptly received a glass of water across the neck of my guitar.
Now I have had many things thrown at me over the years but none of them has been less terrifying than half a glass of lukewarm water. At least it could have been some beer, preferably still in the bottle. Ive had people seriously intent on killing me, and not just in the late Seventies, when a man wasnt dressed without a hatchet in his head at couple of our more lively gigs. As recently as Woodstock 3 , in 1999, Nieve and I faced down what looked like an irate mob of method actors auditioning for a remake of Apocalypse Now. Once the audience have their faces painted green and twigs in their hair, you know you are in deep trouble. Those crazy kids seemed to want to maim us for no other reason than that we were older than them. They were throwing full cans of lite beer and Diet Coke at us, but we pressed on regardless and managed to get out of town unscathed before they started to enact any of the more grisly scenes from Lord of the Flies.
Back in Norwich, it started to become apparent that some people had not got the message about the late start. The drunk who threw his glass of water was ejected by security but not before I identified him, in strictly literal terms, as a tosser, along with a couple of other adjectives that might have offended some Daily Mail readers, even if they are not usually that prominent at my shows, because I hate their guts. The offender was promptly taken outside and beaten to a pulp . . . by his girlfriend, who was angry about missing the show.
Once we got rolling, the boisterous start gave a different flavour to the show, although the Imposters played with their customary swagger and panache, not unlike the Liverpool team of the Hansen/Dalglish era. I tried my best to keep my eyes from the TV screen over the bar at the back of the room but the words Oh s***, hes missed might have accidentally crept into the lyrics of Good Year for the Roses .
And suddenly it was all over. I could see people in the bar area punching the air and a rolling cheer overwhelmed the applause for Kinder Murder. Our security man, Paddy Callaghan, capered in the shadows at the edge of the stage with a balletic grace that belies his frame and this was all the confirmation I needed to cue Youll Never Walk Alone, a song that we had never performed before as a band.
The audience took up the anthem like a mini-Kop and saluted the Liverpool victory with the massed illumination of their mobile phones. It was a bizarre and moving sight. I managed to make only a couple of football-related dedications during the rest of the two-hour set. Im not sure that Bentez would really appreciate The Delivery Man but you can guess what I meant by it. We had already played I dont want to go to Chelsea, so I couldnt dedicate that one to Gerrard but we did end with The Scarlet Tide.
The next day I had to check the headlines to see that it wasnt all some kind of crazy dream. Liverpool made the first edition and our antics made the late night final after a couple of Angry of West Runton-type people decided to get their names in the paper. Our promoter demanded 400 to compensate for the 16 souls who had asked for their money back, the cheap swine. Hes never had more publicity in his life. On the other hand, I was happy to offer free tickets for our next Norfolk show, if such a thing should ever occur, in the event that a ticket-holder had to catch the last bus home or relieve a baby-sitter.
Continue reading "Fretting while the scarlet tide make history" »
May 23, 2005
Armed Forces book
Armed Forces (33 1/3)
by FRANKLIN BRUNO
Paperback: 151 pages
Publisher: Continuum International Publishing Group (May 1, 2005)
Language: English
ISBN: 0826416748
This book is just bursting with fascinating information. Time has allowed me to only have a flick through it . However I found myself repeatedly going ' Of course , how did I miss that before'.
Bruno has really done his homework. Greil Marcus gave him the complete tapes of his 1982 interview with Elvis and so we get a lot of previously unpublished quotes . Engineer/co-producer Roger Bechirian gave him an interview in Oct.04. The notes from the various re-issues are considered - and queried - where necessary.
The books layout is interesting. Over the 151 pages he hops from aspect to aspect. The songs , the allusions , the sleeve designer , the recording , the musicians , the microphones used in the studio ( a Beyer Soundstar ) .....and Columbus, Ohio. The events of April 15, 1979 are referred to over and over again. Quotes , old and new , from nearly all the participants help give the most complete account I've seen. However his reference to the New York press conference two weeks later , where Elvis tried to explain his comments, mentions that a transcript of same exists , citing the Uncut feature as one source. Extensive as that feature was I hope he actually heard a sound recording of same. To remind myself this evening I played back the same recording , looking at Allan Jones transcript/commentary. Repeatedly Jones edites out asides and gives emotive descriptions to tones of questioning that are just not evident to my ears. True Elvis does himself few favours but it is not the disaster Jones describes.
That aside some astonishing connections are made. From Tiny Steps to Abandoned Masquerade on Ms Krall's album for one. And many , many others.
Needless to say , it should be read with album itself playing.
Get it, try it.
May 3, 2005
A Life In Liner Notes
The Onion reports -
On April 26, Rhino released a two-disc edition of Elvis Costello's 1986 album King Of America, completing a reissue project that's taken five years and encompassed 16 double-disc sets. Best of all for Costello fans, the King Of America reissue includes the last of Costello's personally written liner notes, which, across 16 booklets, at a minimum of 12 pages each, has been the equivalent of a 100-page autobiography. Costello has been remarkably forthright throughout, detailing his varying addictions and obsessions, and in the Get Happy!! notes, he even dissects the infamous, nearly career-derailing moment when he was goaded into calling Ray Charles "a blind, ignorant nigger." Here are some of the highlights of the Costello story, album by album, and in his own words.
April 11, 2005
God Give Me Strength , 10 years old today
God Give Me Strength was first performed 10 years ago on April 11 1995.
Read all about it.
April 7, 2005
Elvis Costello by Liz Phair
Rolling Stone are getting all excited about The Immortals , The 100 greatest artists of all time , with ' features ( on) fifty of
the greatest rock & roll artists of all time, celebrated by fifty of the most important rock & roll artists of our time '. Elvis is at 80 , with Liz Phair 'paying homage.' At the moment the text is exclusive to their print edition.
( Submitted by Jill Rydman)
March 7, 2005
Elvis' sleevenotes
Elvis' notes for his albums can now be read online .
1977 My Aim Is True
1978 This Years Model
1978 Armed Forces
1979 Get happy
1980 Trust
1981 Almost Blue
1982 Imperial Bedroom
1983 Punch The Clock
1984 Goodbye Cruel World
1985/6 King Of America
1986 Blood and Chocolate
1987/8/9 Spike
1991 Mighty Like A Rose
1991 Kokak Variety
1992 The Juliet Letters
1993/4 Brutal Youth
1995/6 All This Useless Beauty
2002 Il Sogno
( Submitted by mcramahamasham)
February 14, 2005
the very creepy, over-opinionated, ill-informed weirdos that I have been trying to shake off my tail for the last twenty-five years
The programme on sale at the shows in the U.K. has news of Elvis' plans for the immediate future. A fan has this summary -
Usually these things have as much substance as a balloon, but there is some news in this one that you may find of value. The following is extracted verbatim. Where the grammar of the original is flawed, I have supplied the missing words in square brackets.
"During our second visit to Memphis this year, we played a show at the Hi-Tone cafe - the small club in which we first performed during "The Delivery Man" sessions. The "Live in Memphis" DVD will be released by Eagle Rock on the 19th April. It features a guest appearance by Emmylou Harris, with whom I duet on "Heart Shaped Bruise" from "The Delivery Man" and also on Johnny Cash's "I still miss someone" and the Gram Parsons tune "Wheels".
I also understand that Concord Records are soon to issue a CD of my appearance on the wonderful radio programme "Piano Jazz" hosted by Marion McPartland. The format is very informal and I found myself discussing and performing songs that I have loved throughout my life, many of them standards. The collaboration with Marion McPartland was utterly spontaneous and very enjoyable. I have promised to return to the studio in the future and only sing songs that I don't already know.
Another upcoming release is the Rhino/Demon records re-issue of "King of America". This album which is a close musical relative of "The Delivery Man" was first released in 1985 and is now presented in a definitive edition including a number of previously unreleased outtakes and highlights from an "Elvis Costello and His Confederates" concert at the Broadway Theatre, New York City. Once again, I have tried to write accompanying notes that may interest those who enjoy this record.
The last few years have brought many of unexpected accolades and opportunities, and appearance in "The Simpsons", an abduction into "The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame" - about which I have returned to my original "Groucho Marx" position, if I may paraphrase: "I wouldn't want to be the member of any club that would have me as a member" - an Oscar nomination with my brother T Bone Burnett for "The Scarlet Tide", getting to smoke real Cubans and drink fake whiskey with Sean Penn during a guest appearance on the comedy show "Two and a Half men" and a recent bizarre Grammy nomination for a foxtrot, "Let's misbehave" from the motion picture "De Lovely".
I am currently working on songs telling an imaginary story about Hans Christian Andersen, PT Barnum and Jenny Lind. Some of you may have read that I am writing an opera, because the commission came from the Royal Danish Opera but in fact the story will be told originally in song form and developed into a full production in the future. The songs will be debuted in Copenhagen in October '05.
The Lincoln Center Festival, New York City in the summer of 2004 was a recent highlight. I performed over eighty songs during the three nights.
2005 will see a creative initiative using the Internet in my name. My previous attempt to communicate through this medium quickly descended into farce. I caught a horrid glimpse [into] the deluded and possessive vortex in which swirl the very creepy, over-opinionated, ill-informed weirdos that I have been trying to shake off my tail for the last twenty-five years. I hope that we shall be able to avoid such unpleasantness in the future and encounter only sweet-natured people such as your good selves.
Obviously I hope to continue to make rock and roll music records with the Imposters and also work with Steve Nieve and other friends such as the Brodsky Quartet but at a time in which the record industry is going through such upheaval, it is impossible to predict exactly where and when this will occur. Until those matters are resolved, we hope that you enjoy tonight's concert. We look forward to returning to your town before too long.
Yours through music. Elvis Costello
January 20, 2005
Elvis/ Hans Christian Andersen opera 'will open in 2006'
The Associated Press report -
Extract - Elvis Costello, Britain's musical chameleon, is creating an opera based on Danish fairy tale writer Hans Christian Andersen's impossible romance with a Swedish woman, a spokesman for Copenhagen's new opera house said Thursday.
"The Secret Arias" is based on songs written by Andersen for Jenny Lind, a soprano dubbed the "Swedish Nightingale," whom the Dane pined for, despite her never returning his affections, said Henrik Engelbrecht, head of dramaturgy at the Royal Theater.
"Elvis immediately loved the idea and when we met him 18 months ago to discuss it, he had already a clear idea about the opera," Engelbrecht told the AP.
It is believed that Andersen wrote his tale "The Nightingale" with Lind, who lived from 1820-1887, in mind.
The work will open in 2006 in the new opera house's small experimental stage that can seat 200. The cast hasn't yet been decided.
After Copenhagen, "The Secret Arias" likely will go on an international tour, and be released as a compact disc and DVD, Engelbrecht said.
Costello, who has recorded with Swedish soprano Anne Sofie Von Otter and the Brodsky Quartet, will perform the songs during a concert this fall at the new $441 million opera house, which opened Jan. 15.
Continue reading "Elvis/ Hans Christian Andersen opera 'will open in 2006'" »
December 30, 2004
Elvis pays tribute to Clarksdale
The Clarksdale Press Register reports -
Extract -
With three Grammy nominations in hand, Elvis has a January release entitled Clarksdale Sessions expressing his fondness of this community.
"Costello has only been in Clarksdale maybe a couple of times, but says he loves it here because he doesn't face the usual fan pressures," says Guy Malvezzi.
Malvezzi and Jimbo Mathus, co/owners of Delta Recording Services, 257 Yazoo St., are among Costello's closest ties with Clarksdale.
Malvezzi said unlike some recording artists who are aloof and difficult to deal with, "Elvis is one of the nicest, down-to-earth guys you'll ever meet.
"He gave Clarksdale, the (Delta) Blues Museum, the Shack Up Inn and our recording a real plug in his album credits," Malvezzi said.
Malvezzi said Costello was in Oxford doing some recording when he "decided to visit our Delta Blues Museum."
Costello made a sweep through Ground Zero Blues Cafe, the museum and Delta Recording during his most recent visit to Clarksdale, Malvessi said.
"He took some friends out to eat at Madidi for dinner and dropped a chunk of change," Malvessi said. "Then, he went to Super Soul and bought four suits."
December 17, 2004
Costello Cooking Up New EP, DVDs, Tour
Billlboard reports -
Extract - Never one to rest on his laurels, Elvis Costello has a variety of projects on the horizon, including a 10-inch vinyl EP of previously unreleased recordings, two DVDs and a 2005 itinerary packed with touring.
First up is the seven-song vinyl release "The Clarksdale Sessions," due Jan. 25 via Lost Highway. The set chronicles a rehearsal session for Costello's latest album with the Imposters, "The Delivery Man," captured on tape at a one-room recording studio in Clarksdale, Miss.
In addition to "The Delivery Man" tracks "The Monkey" (an alternate version of "Monkey to Man") "Country Darkness," "Needle Time," "The Scarlet Tide" and the title song, "Sessions" sports a cover of the Chips Moman/Dan Penn composition "Dark End of the Street" and the previously unreleased original "In Another Room."
A collection of music videos and TV performances, "The Right Spectacle," will arrive on DVD Jan. 17 in the U.K. via Demon, with release plans in other territories still being finalized. And although details are still being nailed down, March will bring the release of a live DVD via Eagle Rock Entertainment, taped at a small club show in the United States this summer.
(Submitted by Invisible Pole)
November 20, 2004
Costello songs in Rolling Stone 500 Best Songs
In the new Rolling Stone -
318
Alison
Elvis Costello
1977
Written by: Costello
Produced by: Nick Lowe
Released: Nov. '77 on Columbia
Charts: Did not chart
Some people think "Alison" is a murder ballad. "It isn't," Costello told ROLLING STONE in 2002. "It's about disappointing somebody. It's a thin line between love and hate, as the Persuaders sang." Contrary to myth, the backup band was not Huey Lewis and the News.
Appears on: My Aim Is True (Rhino)
354
Watching the Detectives
Elvis Costello
1977
Written by: Costello
Produced by: Nick Lowe
Released: Nov. '77 on Columbia
Charts: Did not chart
In the summer of 1977, Costello was still an aspiring songwriter when he took the Clash's debut back to his London flat and "listened to it for thirty-six hours straight," he recalled. "And I wrote 'Watching the Detectives.' " A clever but furious burst of cynicism, the song merges punk aggression with noir menace, as Costello snarls about a lover who'd rather watch TV.
Appears on: My Aim Is True (Rhino)
284
(What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding
Elvis Costello
1979
Written by: Nick Lowe
Produced by: Lowe
Released: Jan. '79 on Columbia
Charts: Non-single
"What's So Funny" was written by Lowe, Costello's pal and producer. The original, by Lowe's country-rock band Brinsley Schwartz, was mellow and cute, but Costello snarls the song intensely enough to make the title question seem brand-new, with thundering drums and droning piano. It's like Abba playing punk rock.
Appears on: Armed Forces (Rhino)
October 4, 2004
Preview of Glasgow show
The Herald ( Scotland) has a preview of Wednesdays show , with a commentary on past shows by Elvis in Scotland .
Extract - Barrowland seems an unlikely venue for Elvis
Costello's only European show in support of his
excellent new album, The Delivery Man. His recently
discovered taste for the finer things in life would
appear to preclude an evening's bug-eyed bawling in
the east end of Glasgow.
But, arguably, his most memorable booking came away
from the cities. Stopping off in Shetland on his way
back from a rather trying holiday cruise to Greenland
in 1987, Costello ducked into Lerwick's Thule Bar for
a Guinness and was smitten to discover a couple of his
own songs on the jukebox. He returned in April 1988
for a number of short solo appearances at the island's
annual folk festival. The halls were tiny, and he
relished the intense interaction with his audience.
For instance, it was in Shetland that Costello
realised that Tramp The Dirt Down his infamous
protest song explicitly wishing the death of Margaret
Thatcher was going to make a substantial impact. "I
sang it in one place that was very brightly lit and I
could see the audience quite clearly," he recalled.
"There was one guy nodding away, applauding every line
and, on the other side, another guy was being
physically restrained from getting up on stage and
hitting me. He just fused. And I thought, 'Well, I've
really got a winner now'."
Never happy unless at extremes, Costello also
previewed an extemporaneous new song at the festival's
children's concert, concerning less weighty themes.
"Summertime above the Arctic circle," he barked at the
bewildered children. "And all the huskies go bow wow
wow!" On his way home, he made an impromptu appearance
at a benefit show for the striking National Union of
Seamen at Aberdeen Music Hall and as promised
returned to Shetland in 1991 with his band.
Elvis in German Rolling Stone
The latest issue of German Rolling Stone has a 16 page feature on Elvis . Features - in German - include extracts from the new biography of Elvis.
September 23, 2004
Elvis Costello's 10 greatest tunes.
Entertainment Weekly reckon these are Elvis' 10 best.
September 14, 2004
Random Notes
From Rolling Stone
Elvis Costello / The Delivery Man / Il Sogno - September 21st
The New Wave icon, now fifty, is also putting out two records on the same day. Il Sogno is Costello's first full-scale orchestral composition. He originally wrote it as a ballet score, commissioned by an Italian dance company, but it was reconfigured for this recording by the London Symphony Orchestra. The Delivery Man is tougher and bluesier: a Southern-gothic song cycle that Costello cut over a single weekend in Oxford, Mississippi, with his band the Imposters. "The methodology is different," Costello says of the two albums, "but they come out of the same head." DAVID FRICKE
(Submitted by John Foyle)
September 12, 2004
Evolving Elvis
Extracts - There's a question Costello dreads when contemplating the public's reaction to two such dissimilar CDs.
"I would hate for people to listen to them and say, 'Which is the real you?'" he explains. "They're both the real me. It's all coming out of my head."
He admits "Il Sogno" ("The Dream") is probably the biggest leap for fans who know him as "that guy who bangs a guitar and yells into a microphone."
Undoubtedly, most fans will feel more comfortable with "The Delivery Man." Costello says the music explores "that place in the road where country and soul meet."
Costello cut the new music with his band, the Imposters, in as fast and simple a style as possible.
"The watchword for this album was 'mobile,'" he explains. "We wanted something that could be played by a band on a flatbed truck."
While Costello's music may honor the down-home intersection of Nashville and Muscle Shoals, his lyrics maintain the density and sophistication that he's known for. Parts of "Delivery Man" tell a complex tale of three women, two of them "portrayed" by guest singers Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams.
All three women project different loves and fears onto the Delivery Man (named Abel), whom Costello describes as someone who committed murder as a child and may kill again.
Listeners will be hard pressed to follow the story line for a simple reason - there isn't any.
"I didn't want to make the album that literal," Costello says. He feared following too strict a sequence would tie him down - and listeners, too. Also, Costello says he didn't want the CD to be confused with a musical, a form he mostly loathes.
But clearly he gave the backgrounds of the characters quite a bit of thought.
During our interview, he went on at great length about them, offering details that are nowhere to be found on the record.
Fans are unlikely to care much, considering the caliber of Costello's performance in a cut like "Button My Lip," the CD's opener. It contains what could be his most thrillingly violent vocal since his punk days.
"That's appropriate," Costello says. "My character is contemplating homicide."
Several songs address world issues, notably "Bedlam," which is set in the Mideast. Costello also renders his version of "The Scarlet Tide" (sung by Alison Krauss on the "Cold Mountain" soundtrack), a piece commonly interpreted as anti-war.
"It's not an anti-war song," Costello says. "It's an anti-dread song."
Costello wrote it in reaction to America's obsession with terrorism.
"It distorts our ability to see further than the next threat," he reasons.
Despite the anger, violence and heartbreak that dominate "The Delivery Man," it also contains a whiff of dark wit.
"Everything that I thought fanciful/And mocked as too extreme/Must be family entertainment/Here in the strange land of my dreams," he sings on "Bedlam."
Costello's mirth mirrors his attitude in life. Having just turned 50, he claims to be happier than ever these days. He calls his marriage to Krall "fantastic. It's such a great thing to admire the person you love.
"I always thought adults were having much more fun than teenagers," he adds. "It turns out to be absolutely true."
September 10, 2004
Back In The USA-Today
Costello goes orchestral
By Elysa Gardner, USA TODAY - September 10, 2004
He has been called an angry young man, a post-punk poet and an heir to pop bards from Cole Porter to Lennon and McCartney. But until recently, few would have thought to compare Elvis Costello to Claude Debussy or Leonard Bernstein.
Both revered composers were cited by critics reviewing Costello's first full-length orchestral work, Il Sogno, commissioned four years ago by Italian dance company Aterballetto for its adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream. The rock veteran, who turned 50 in August, shrugs off the praise. "But I'm flattered they said that," he concedes, "rather than saying it sounds like Lawrence Welk or something."
Fans will have an opportunity to judge when a new recording of Sogno, performed by the London Symphony Orchestra, arrives Sept. 21. That same day, Costello and his band, The Imposters, will unveil The Delivery Man, a narrative-based song cycle conceived on "that place on the road where soul and country meet." Delivery Man also features vocals by Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams.
For Costello, who has collaborated with artists ranging from Burt Bacharach to classical mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter to jazz singer/pianist Diana Krall, whom Costello married last year, the diverse twin releases aren't creatively out of character.
The singer/songwriter allows that his restless eclecticism "sets me up in my competition with myself. You reach a point where there's this unstated question of 'which (project) is really you?' Of course, the answer is they're all me, at different times."
Sogno is itself stylistically diverse, nodding as Bernstein did to jazz and show music in its orchestrations, which Costello penned with Shakespeare's Midsummer characters in mind. "The people from the court have typically classical-sounding gestures. The workers have folk dances and marches, and the fairies are jazz fairies they're swinging fairies."
Costello considers the recording a logical successor to his last studio effort, 2003's North, though that collection of starkly intense ballads was written later.
"But if I just followed North with this instrumental, orchestral record, people would have thought I was going away from the other things I love."
So Delivery Man took shape. Costello already had the songs and the title character, inspired by a true story he had alluded to in an earlier song, Hidden Shame, written for Johnny Cash. "He's an enigmatic presence who comes to this small town. He carries the secret of having committed murder as a child, though it's not stated anywhere on the record."
In the end, Costello decided to leave out some of the more character- specific songs "because I wanted to admit other things happening in the world."
Among the added tracks is a new version of the Oscar-nominated The Scarlet Tide, which Costello co-wrote with T-Bone Burnett for the Civil War epic Cold Mountain a film that, Costello says pointedly, "proposes women have to put the world back together after the foolishness of men to wage war has destroyed it."
He expresses similar reverence for Krall: "I'm not a little bit bashful about saying that I'm as happy as I've ever been." Of his wife's acclaimed
2004 CD The Girl in the Other Room, for which the couple wrote songs together, Costello says, "I got a kick out of some pompous reviews that said the songs were obviously all my doing. She wrote all the images and lines; she just didn't have experience editing them. That was my job."
Costello hopes that their artistic partnership will evolve. "It's great to work with someone with whom you share your life. Of course, the influence you have on each other is subtle and hard to define and it's not really anybody's business."
Speculating on his professional future, Costello is similarly blunt.
"My vocation is to follow my curiosity and my passion," he says. "I have no other responsibility none to the record company, none to the audience, certainly none to critics. If I disappoint someone who expects something different, they can just buy one of my other records or wait for the next one."
September 7, 2004
Elvis' ' impudent energy'
Michael Tilson Thomas talks about his collaboration with Elvis Costello -
Extract -
Q How'd this project with Costello come about?
A He got in touch with me and he came to San Francisco and we were looking at the piece and talking about it. He's a very creative musical mind, and the thing that most impressed me is that he was actually writing this piece with a pencil and really trying to understand every note and how it all works. I really liked his whole feeling of curiosity about music.
Q Are you a fan of his old records?
A Sure. And I like the impudent energy of the pieces that he and his band can still turn out after all these years.
Q Why does ``Il Sogno'' work for you?
A I don't think in 5,000 years that you would imagine this music was Elvis' because it's quite far out there in terms of the tonalities. It's pastel-colored, and really quite remarkable.
September 6, 2004
Elvis bio - first review
Record Collector (London) has a review of
COMPLICATED SHADOWS
The Life And Music Of Elvis Costello
by
Graeme Thomson
Extract -Undertaking several dozen personal interviews with Elvis cohorts past and present, Thomson fleshes out the most complete portrait yet of one of the most enigmatic and uncompromising musicians of the last 30 years. Thus, we have insights from school chums, fellow strugglers on the 70s folk club circuit, key figures in the pub rock hierarchy, and, most intriguingly, a succession of frequently unflattering reminiscences from estranged Attraction Bruce Thomas.
Its this willingness to show his subject as a tarnished human being that especially pleases, side-stepping the blind adulation that all but destroys the credibility of most Costello tomes. Thomson is undoubtedly a massive fan and his critical appraisals are spot-on, but hes not averse to pointing out mistakes Elvis has made along the way. The singer has occasionally been a nasty piece of work, he has made some bad records, and we aint glossing over any of that here. Theres also much discussion of his troubled love life, but it never descends into scandal-sheet salaciousness.
Elvis Costello is about to take over the world
Performing Songwriter magazine have this claim for a major feature on Elvis -
Elvis Costello is about to take over the world.
No, hes not going to reveal himself as a nefarious arch-villain in league with Doctor Octopus and Lex Luthor. But judging from his fall release schedule, there does seem to be some kind of master plan at work.
August brought reissued versions of Almost Blue, Goodbye Cruel World and Kojak Variety, each sporting a generous bonus disc of previously unheard material, and September will unleash two brand new records. The Delivery Man is a kind of Southern Gothic song cycle, full of raucous screamers, country-fried soul ballads and duets with Lucinda Williams and Emmylou Harris. Il Sogno is a complex and gorgeous collection of symphonic instrumental music, written for a ballet version of Shakespeares A Midsummer Nights Dream. All told, that is approximately one hundred and ten songs. Five-and-a-half hours of new music. If Elvis doesnt conquer the world, then hell at least dominate a spacious corner of your local record
September 2, 2004
Classical Curse of Costello
Apparently Il Sogno signals the end of classical music.
August 14, 2004
I'm not the Holy Ghost. I'm just a songwriter
The Independent On Sunday (London) has a feature on Elvis to mark his upcoming 50th birthday.
Extracts: -
"The thing is, it's about trusting yourself. I really do believe that everyone can write songs. They just don't trust themselves to do it. We can all write books, we can all sing songs. We can do it when we're children, we can all draw and sing. And then it's either beaten out of us, scared out of us, or our own inhibition - our adult self - doesn't allow us to do it anymore. And one of the great things about music is the freedom in it. Not rock," he says with visible distaste, "as we know it now, that commodity. But rock'n'roll at its purest. Jazz certainly has it. It's about freedom."It's about freedom. To hell with prejudice, inhibition or fear. With boring, uptight old rock. Elvis Costello has spent all his 27 years as a recording artist making music on that basis. Now, as he hits middle-age, he seems more energetic than ever with a work slate that is ridiculously full and varied.
But would anyone think badly of him if he decided to chill out a bit, to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour.
"Well, two things probably affect that," he says, poking his glasses up his nose. "I have not ruthlessly pursued success and I have not capitalised on success as cynically as I might have done. Therefore, I am not as assured... though obviously I am not hurting... I'm not as wealthy as I would be if I'd been very much more ruthless in the pursuit of certain successes I've had. Therefore, I have the need to keep working. I have a lot of people I want to be able to look out for. I want to be able to move and live with the freedom I have at the moment. I have responsibilities.
"And the second thing is - what else am I gonna do? I don't wanna be defined by a handful of songs I wrote 25 years ago..."
Singing "She" in the film Notting Hill, he says, that was a detour. Did that take bravery - cheesy song for cheesy film? Even the film's writer, Richard Curtis, warned him: "I'm going to ruin your reputation."
"There's no bravery in it," he says dismissively, "there's no such thing. Bravery is a misused word in terms of art, or even in pop music - not to call it art. It was fun. Singing a song like that is going to a fancy dress party. Those sort of things, they're the true detours. The work that I've done aside from rock'n'roll are full-blooded collaborations or investigations of one particular way of working. You can't do [something like] writing Il Sogno in your spare time. It's an all-consuming thing. And to do it well you have to throw yourself totally into it. What you have to be prepared to do is let go of how you look doing it. If you want to look hip - that wouldn't go with my..." and here he spits the word with visceral distaste "...image. I don't give a fuck about being a rock'n'roll star. I just want to do the things that interest me."
Does he get a kick out of offending purists?
"It's not my motivation but I'm ready for it. I know that I'm going to read patronising dismissals of Il Sogno simply because I wrote it. By people who won't have heard it. I had the same thing happen, particularly in England, with North. People dismissing it, and describing it in terms that really proved they hadn't even heard it. Because they were making assumptions based on hearsay. They couldn't possibly have heard it and described it as they did."
"But, you know," he says, with a defiant prickle in his voice, "if North got the worst reviews of my career in England, it got the best reviews of my career in Germany. It was number one in the jazz charts in America. I mean, you can't please all the people. I don't live in England. I'm not very with the English sensibility, I haven't been for many years. And I'm getting further and further away from it. It's very distant to me and seems very small and - I don't mean this to be rude - but kind of insignificant. That's not to say the people of the country are insignificant - I have some of my closest friends there, my family lives there. But the cultural scene and its seethingness doesn't interest me."
Does he find it insular?
"It's like a tiny crowded bar, with everybody elbowing for room. And it just bores me."
But the best evidence of the new lease of life Costello is enjoying is the vibrant, organic-sounding The Delivery Man. It's a cracking record, at times hungry and enthusiastic, at others simple and heartfelt. It's his least mannered, most unforced album in years, even as it ambitiously aims to encompass parts of a Gothic story-cycle about the character of the title, meditations on the War on Terror, and more general thoughts on the nature of violence and fear.
He considers "Bedlam" to be as vitriolic about the Dubya era as "Tramp the Dirt Down" was about Thatcher. He aims a few digs at the Jessica Lynch capture/rescue fiasco. "She's Pulling Out the Pin" is a classic piece of Costello lyrical imagery, twinning the plight of the female suicide bomber with that of the pole dancer letting down her hair. Costello says the song "juxtaposes the most heartless part of our culture and the most desperate part of another culture. Two women's fates. It's just a bald telling of it. It doesn't have a judgement. They're both desperate, dead-end jobs," he says. Interestingly, this song will not be on the US version of the album because, he says, "it slows the flow". Might it also be that any hint of understanding of the plight of "terrorists" is too contentious an idea for the US?
"There's no moral point of view in it," Costello insists. "I don't feel myself equipped. I'm not the Holy Ghost. I'm just a songwriter."
But he has, surely, made much creative hay out of moral certainty before?
"Oh, I have moral certainty that I know better about this than some of the people who are pulling these levers right now!" he laughs.
He thinks British dance culture offers the "greatest musical choice", more so than any other genre, and positively bobs with enthusiasm for The Streets's A Grand Don't Come For Free. He sees Mike Skinner as part of a continuum of storytelling English songwriters, from Ray Davies through The Specials and Madness.
Ask him how he feels about hitting 50, twice the age of Mike Skinner, and he swings back to the music, as he must: "I was glad that this Lincoln Centre [thing] gave me an opportunity to have a hugely charged way of celebrating it."
But aside from the music?
"I never wanted to be young," he shrugs, that faint, knowing Costello smile playing on his lips. Maybe he's casting his mind back to those late-1970s/early-1980s tours of America when drink, drugs and women nearly did for him. "I didn't like being young. It just never appealed to me that much. I always thought the adults seemed to be having all the fun. And now I am old, and I'm having lots of fun!" Has he had a chance for a post-mortem on the New York shows yet? "Ah, it was what it was. There's no point in a post-mortem. It's on to the next thing."
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August 6, 2004
Am I Worthy?
Blub in the Herald-Displatch:
When chanteuse Diana Krall began collaborating on songs with Elvis Costello, she says, "It was very exciting, and also daunting. I had to get over that overwhelming sense of, "Oh, my God -- am I worthy of his time?"Apparently, the answer was yes. Not only did Krall and Costello end up co-writing half the 12 tracks on her new CD, "The Girl in the Other Room," but the two married in December.
Due April 27, "Room" features tunes penned by Mose Allison, Tom Waits and Joni Mitchell, as well as Costellos "Almost Blue." But Krall also spreads her wings as a composer and lyricist. "I started writing when I was a student but didnt really have the confidence to (pursue) lyric-writing in great depth," she explains. "Ive never done anything so personal
July 30, 2004
EC 2002 Journal available online
Remember that Journal Elvis had on the Island site in 2002? Sour Milk Cow on the Costello Fan Forum posted them online.
July 10, 2004
Now That Your Picture's In The Paper
The New York Times includes a major EC article in advance of the Lincoln Center shows:
"When I first heard it," said Mr. Thomas, who conducted the London Symphony Orchestra recording, "I thought this is a guy who really is in a process of searching out a lot of interesting answers in music. The interesting thing is that he doesn't always use melodies to hold the thing together. Sometimes he just uses a kind of flavor of harmonic language, which is quite elusive and subtle, especially as he evokes the dream world. There's some music that is so wondrously adventurous and non-tonal that you'd never suspect Elvis Costello has written this, because it's so out there."Mr. Costello said: "I'm not concerned with this music's relationship to my own past. Perhaps you can tell it's me, but I hope it doesn't remind you of another year in my life. I have absolutely no nostalgia about my past. I never liked being young, and I feel absolutely at a peak of my life. There are some terrific records that I'm glad I made. But I don't want to stand and fall on a handful of songs because there are still a lot of songs to be sung."
July 7, 2004
Rhino Revamps Costello's 'Cruel,' 'Blue,' 'Kojak'
Billboard tells all about the next set of re-issues.
Extract - Bridging the sets is "Goodbye Cruel World," an album of originals that is often reviled among the Costello faithful. Nonetheless, it reached No. 35 on The Billboard 200 and produced a hit single in "The Only Flame in Town," which features Darryl Hall. An alternate version and a live take of the song appear on the bonus disc.
The work of producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley has been blamed by Costello for the album's weaknesses, and the set's best cuts -- "The Comedians," "Inch by Inch," "The Deportees Club" -- have come across better when he's presented them in different live arrangements or when covered by others.
Among the bonus disc cuts are Costello's demos and live recordings of several more album tracks, seemingly seeking to prove that point. And it's probable that Costello's new liner notes -- exhaustive and unique to each title -- will further explain his contentions with the original album and defend his songs.
Other than Nick Lowe's appearance on "Baby It's You," a holdover from the Ryko edition, the only other guest appearance comes from another Langer/Winstanley-produced act: Costello covers Madness' "Tomorrow's (Just Another Day)" with the ska pop group's help.
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