Whilst wishing friend and occasional Rock Turtleneck contributor Dan Cassidy a happy birthday the other night, Mr. Cassidy pointed out that he shared a birthday with none other than Elvis Costello.
Costello, born Declan McManus on August 25, 1954, is a brilliant wordsmith with an insatiable musical curiosity. To paraphrase Dan Aykroyd insulting Jane Curtin on SNL's "Weekend Update" back in the 70s, Elvis hops from musical genre to genre "with the frequency of a cheap ham radio." A few of those genres, off the top of my head: punk, new wave, chamber pop, power pop, country, bluegrass, classical, torch ballads, show tunes, instrumentals, soundtracks, jazz, soul, standards, blues, zydeco and rockabilly.
Elvis was ostensibly a punk rocker when he debuted on the music scene in 1977 - he even had the nerve to steal his first name from the King of Rock & Roll, who wasn't even dead yet. But it became quite clear quite quickly that beneath his angry visage, Costello was really a singer-songwriter who just happened to use punk as his entry point, not unlike the way Bob Dylan used the folk scene.
Elvis Costello would have thrived in the Brill Building or Tin Pan Alley, Athens GA, Seattle, Memphis, Manchester or Liverpool. And for that reason, he is truly a Man Out of Time.
To wit, here's Mr. Costello playing "Man Out of Time," from my second favorite EC album Imperial Bedroom, on Late Night with David Letterman in 1982.
HB and TCB EC and DC.
"...he even had the nerve to steal his first name from the King of Rock & Roll, who wasn't even dead yet."
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry, what do you mean by "dead yet"? Am I missing something?
tcb,
g feinn
I was just listening to Momofuku when I saw this post.
ReplyDeleteLOVE EC. The only major act I've seen twice.