Nick remembers early Elvis -
Extract - His mood brightens,however, when he starts talking about Elvis Costello, whose best work remains the records Nick produced for him.
When I was in Brinsley Schvarz, he used to come and see us all the time Nick recalls. He was always there, looking very intense. Even when he was with other people, he always seemed to he standing apart from them. The first time I actually spoke to him was in a pub in Liverpool. He was at the bar, and I thought, Well.., there he is again. Id better buy him a drink. Because I was famous then, you see. I was in the Brinsleys, man. We were pub rock
legends, earning 175 a night. We were big time. And I went over and he just glared at me. Damned unsettling. You know the way he is. Anyway, after that, whenever I saw him, we'd have a drink. I just thought he was a very intense fan. Then he moved to London and we lost touch. And then we started Stiff and one day I saw him at the local tube station.
Hed just been around to the office to buy a copy of So It Goes'. And we started chatting and he said hed been trying to get a deal, and then he told me the story he now trots out all the time.
At the time, he thought he was like something out of one of those oldfashioned films where a guy walks into a music publishers office and says, Boy, have I got a song for you! And he plays it on the piano and
the publisher leaps up and says, It so happens that Miss Fay Fontaine is next door! And they wheel in old Fay and she sings it gorgeously and its a fucking
great big hit and our boys away. And Elvis obviously thought this was the way to do it.
So hed been going around to these record companies and theyd ask him for a tape and hed tell them he was going to sing the songs, and then hed pull out an acoustic guitar. Of course, they were appalled. Theres something very intimidating about sitting with Elvis - he sings at full blast, and hes got an
incredibly loud voice and he emotes like mad.
So hed be there emoting away like theres no tomorrow and the guys phone would ring and it would be his wife or something and Elvis would be in the middle of some song and the guy would be going, 'Eight? Yes. Thatll he fine, darling. Lamb casserole? Wonderful! And poor old Elvis would be there wondering what to do. Should he carry on singing? Should he stop?
Should he carry on singing, but try to be a bit quieter?
Anyway, it turned out hed left a tape at Stiff and when I got to the office Jake [Riviera, later Costellos legendarily fiery manager] was raving about
Mystery Dance',because he thought Edmunds could cover it. Then we listened to the tape again, and Jake said, No. Fuck it.This guy can make a record of his own. Hes got tons of stuff here.'
I wasnt convinced, I must admit. The song that finally changed my mind was Alison'. I was stunned when I heard that. I'm absolutely mad for a weep and when Im in the humour, Im hopeless. And when I heard EC doing Alison for the first time, I wept like a baby.
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