Dec 14

Elvis Costello

Greatly Appreciated

ELVIS COSTELLO
 
 
Elvis Costello  (born Declan Patrick MacManus, 25 August 1954) is an English singer-songwriter.  He began his career as part of London’s pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk and new wave movement of the mid-to-late 1970s.  Shortly after recording his first album, he formed the Attractions as his backing band.  His first three albums all appeared on Rolling Stone’s list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.  Steeped in wordplay, his music has drawn on many diverse genres; one critic described him as a “pop encyclopedia”, able to “reinvent the past in his own image”.  In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Costello number 80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
As it turned out, three competing and complementary strains of music arose seemingly overnight by 1974:  In addition to power pop, they were what most of us know as “punk rock” – e.g., Ramones, Sex Pistols, Patti Smith Group (with Lenny Kaye on lead guitar), Dead Boys – and “new wave” – e.g., Elvis Costello, Blondie, Talking Heads, the Runaways – the latter band, the first successful all-female rock band, is now the subject of a major motion picture.
 
(April 2010)
 
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Mad Love, Linda Ronstadt’s new-wave album featured several songs written by Elvis Costello.
 
(January 2012)
 
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The extravagant glasses that Elton John has worn throughout his decades-long career all started when young Reg Dwight began wearing glasses in his teens “not because he needed them, but in homage to Buddy Holly”, as Philip Norman wrote in his biography of the English legend.  Lead singer Freddie Garrity of Freddie and the Dreamers is another British star who wore Buddy Holly glasses on stage; in the 1970’s, pub-music star Elvis Costello was doing the same.  Allmusic describes Freddie and the Dreamers as “the clowns of the British Invasion” due to their outlandish hits like “Do the Freddie”, but there is a lot more to them than that (though I will have to get into that another time). 

 

(June 2013/1)

 
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In early 1978, Joey Vain and Scissors had the good/bad fortune to play as the opening act for Elvis Costello on campus at the Glenn Miller Ballroom.  This was the biggest crowd they had ever played for, but the audience evidently was expecting Ramones clones and were hostile during their set.  The discouragement from that experience soon led to the band breaking up.  Jerry Kunkel would shortly be appointed head of the Fine Arts Department at the University of Colorado, Jerry Budwig moved to San Francisco, and Peter Roos became the drummer for the Nightflames, whose first concert was opening for Joey Vain and Scissors at their final performance in March 1978. 

 

(March 2015)

 

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In seemingly no time, the music scene was crowded with top bands and artists whose work has held up well over the decades since, among them Patti Smith Group (whose debut album, Horses came out before Ramones, in December 1975), Television, Richard Hell, the Heartbreakers (the punk band not Tom Petty’s group, though he was a part of the scene as well), Talking Heads, the Dead Boys, Blondie, the Clash, the Cars, Elvis Costello, Pat Benatar, Joy Division, the Specials, the Go-Go's, the Police, etc., etc., etc. There were so many that rock critics and others began distinguishing bands in the safety-pin set as “punk” and others that were less confrontational as “new wave”.  
(December 2016)
Last edited: March 22, 2021