Elvis discusses his musical heroes
Mojo, 2002-03-01
- JB

 

Elvis Costello
Hero: Leslie Vinyl

First of all, Joni Mitchell. She's completely without fear and clearly smarter and more accomplished than many other people she's often compared to. I guess somewhere around the time of Blue and For the Roses she really came into her own and started singing a little lower and with a more intimate way of writing. My two favourite records are Blue and The Hissing Of Summer Lawns. That was the one where she couldn't hide the fact that she knew more than almost everybody writing about her. And you know how fatal that can be!

When you put the records on, each has an individual personality. There are many people who are making names for themselves by being like, "Look at my wounds", but this is all very honest, and the ease with which it's performed is really quite shocking. It has artistry. It's not the same as writing pages in your diary, dribbling, "Someone broke my heart" or "My mother doesn't love me."

Leslie Vinyl was the arranger for the Joe Loss Orchestra when I was a kid. My dad [Ross McManus] was with them. This man at the start of the '60s had the job of transcribing pop records so that they could be performed by a light entertainment orchestra. There'd be Matt Monro and there'd be my dad, singing ballads with a fairly typical backing. Then the '60s happened. The cultural clash between pop music output between '62 and '67 is so enormous, but this guy had such a brilliant talent to be able to listen to these records - Substitute, Good Vibrations, See Emily Play, whatever was in the charts - and make some kind of sense of them.

If it hadn't been for Leslie, I'd never have heard as many records. There's a funny little window between the world of Alma Cogan and the world of Jimi Hendrix, and that's the world I grew up in, so I owe him a real debt. This guy worked out, there's a note of feedback at the beginning of Substitute and he's put it on a clarinet. There's something marvellous about it. I can't help but be full of admiration.