Dallas Observer, 1995-05-04
by Robert Wilonsky


Taking Liberties:

Recorded immediately after 1991's _Mighty Like a Rose_ and before _The
Juliet Letters_ with the Brodsky Quartet, this all-covers disc instead
recalls the E.C. of old--the man who released _Get Happy!_ and _Taking
Liberties, the would-be soul singer, the rock revisionist, the jazz
crooner, the modernist with respect for his elders.

But the Costello who covers Screamin' Jay Hawkins' "Strange" or Little
Richard's "Bama Lama Loo" is not the same young irritated would-be punk
who decimated Sam and Dave, the Merseybeats, or Booker T and the MG's
15 years ago on _Get Happy!_;he no longer has the same reckless abandon,
the same something-to-prove that made his music once so immediate even
when he wasn't singing his own wordy lyrics.  The Costello of _Kojak
Variety_ is instead a middle-aged man more comfortable with the ballads,
but one who nonetheless sticks to the rockers and soul numbers like a
musician seeking to rediscover a lost passion.  Which, ultimately, is
what elevates _Kojak Variety_ from novelty piece to essential addition
because here's where Elvis reveals his influences past and future, and
here's where he's reborn.

If Costello sounded too cynical and fed-up on recent albums, like a lost
and tired man singing through a yawn and a sneer, _Kojak Variety_ is his
most open work in years, driven by soul instead of the puny black heart
that made _Mighty Like a Rose_ so unlistenable.  His take on Ray Noble's
"The Very Thought of You" pales when compared to _Taking Liberties'_
sparse, unnerving, brief "My Funny Valentine," but it underlines just
how great a _singer_ he has become after all these years.

And it reminds us how powerful a performer Costello can still be: whether
he's crooning the Burt Bacharach-Hal David composition "Please Stay" or
belting Willie Dixon's "Hidden Charms" or screaming Little Richard's
"Bama Lama Loo," Costello never sounds out-of-place or ill-suited to
the material.  He is, like Sinatra, a man who so thoroughly buries 
himself in his material that it becomes hard to believe he didn't write
the words himself, something never more obvious than when he's 
interpreting the music of Bob Dylan ("I Threw it All Away") or Ray
Davies ("Days")--the fathers of Elvis Costello, their bastard son.

---End of review

Trainspotter alert: It should be "Bama Lama Bama Loo" but that's the
way it appeared in the review.