Elvis Costello Signs Innovative Multi-label Deal With PolyGram Worldwide NEW YORK--(ENTERTAINMENT WIRE)--February 2, 1998--Acclaimed musical artist Elvis Costello has entered into a creative, multi-label, worldwide recording agreement with PolyGram. This unique deal is structured to maximize PolyGram's varied label resources to provide multiple outlets for Costello's broad range of musical activities. In making today's announcement, Chris Roberts, President of PolyGram Classics & Jazz Worldwide and Danny Goldberg, Chairman and CEO, Mercury Records Group, explained that the basic arrangement is for pop projects to be released through Mercury Records and for the other works to be channeled through the various labels in the PolyGram Classics & Jazz division, which include Verve, Deutsche Grammophon, London, Decca, and Philips. Costello responded, "I am delighted by the prospect of my new recording agreement. I have a lot of music in my head and I could not ask for a more imaginative way with which to deliver it to the listeners. My initial conversations with the senior executives from Mercury and PolyGram Classics and Jazz have been filled with fresh ideas and challenges, while my welcome from everybody in the building could not have been more generous and encouraging. I hope all those concerned will allow themselves one blast on their trumpet before we get down to work." Costello's first project for PolyGram, scheduled for release on Mercury Records in the third quarter of 1998, is a collaboration with Burt Bacharach which will be based on the new songs they have been composing together throughout 1997. Also, a new composition penned by Costello and his wife, Cait O'Riordan, will be featured on the Mercury soundtrack to the upcoming Coen Brothers film, The Big Lebowski. Danny Goldberg stated, "Elvis Costello is a true renaissance artist. It's an unbelievable honor to anticipate working with his diverse musical visions." Costello is no stranger to the non-pop side of creative music. In the jazz world, he recently recorded and performed with The Jazz Passengers, released a live concert album, Deep Dead Blue, with Bill Frisell in the U.K., and wrote lyrics for the Charles Mingus composition "This Subdues My Passion", which was performed with The Mingus Big Band at the Free Jazz Festival in Brazil. In the classical arena he collaborated with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters. They recently reunited for a short concert tour of Spain and are currently developing a number of new works. He performed with Deutsche Grammophon recording artist, Anne Sofie von Otter and the Swedish Radio Symphony Orchestra in Stockholm, and composed a piece entitled Three Distracted Women which was premiered in Paris in 1996. Costello is also a featured vocalist on contemporary classical composer John Harle's release, Terror + Magnificence (Argo). Costello performed the songs of Mistress Mine, a powerful suite Harle created from his music for a production of Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. The Academy of St. Martin in the Fields, under the direction of Sir Neville Mariner, recently performed Costello's music for Tom Thumb. South Bank Music Centre enlisted Costello as Artistic Director for the progressive Meltdown Festival, and also commissioned him to write for the viol group, Fretwork, with countertenor Michael Chance, commemorating the Tercentenary of the death of Henry Purcell. Chris Roberts commented, "More and more we are seeing artists previously known in one defined genre breaking out and challenging themselves to express their musical talents in other areas. Elvis is a perfect partner for Classics and Jazz in that his artistic work is both diverse and full of integrity while still being accessible to his legions of pop fans as well as a whole new adult audience." During the course of his nearly twenty-five year musical career, Elvis has recorded over seventeen albums, a dozen of those with his former group, The Attractions, from 1977 to 1985. Costello has recorded and appeared with Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Sam Moore, The Chieftains, The Count Basie Orchestra, and the gospel group The Fairfield Four, whose recording, "Couldn't Hear Nobody Pray", is currently nominated for a Grammy Award. Costello is a passionate student of all musical idioms and a voracious record collector, scouring thrift and pawn shops wherever he goes. His breadth and depth of musical knowledge is staggering, as is the range of musical references heard in his music. As Jon Pareles said in The New York Times, " . . . he is also a one-man torrent of ideas; his lyrics are packed with brilliant one-liners and couplets, his tunes are lucid and memorable. He has inspiration to match his craftsmanship." Many of Costello's three-hundred or so songs have been recorded by a diverse group of artists who reflect the eclecticism of his music, including Johnny Cash, Charles Brown, June Tabor, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Chet Baker, and George Jones. As a record producer, Costello has worked with groups such as The Specials, Squeeze, and The Pogues. Costello is the recipient of several prestigious international awards including a Q Magazine Award, two Ivor Novello Awards, the BAFTA award, and the coveted Nordoff-Robbins Silver Clef Award. PolyGram is a global entertainment company with annual revenues over $5.5 billion. It is the world's leading record company with such pop and classical record labels as: A&M, Decca/London, Def Jam, Deutsche Grammophon, Island, London, Mercury, Motown, Philips Music Group, Polydor, and Verve. Through its PolyGram Filmed Entertainment division, PolyGram is also a leading producer and distributor of film, television, and video. Its film companies include Gramercy Pictures, Interscope Communications, PolyGram Films, PolyGram Television, PolyGram Video, Propaganda Films, and Working Title Films. PolyGram is quoted on the Amsterdam and New York stock exchanges (ticker symbol: PLG). CONTACT: PolyGram Holding Inc. Dawn Bridges Sr.Vice President, Corporate Communications 212.333.8357 or Verve Jodi Petlin Vice President, Media Development