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The trademark specs are one of the few constants in the chameleon career of Elvis Costello.
This is an artist who started out over 30 years ago as the slightly gawky-looking frontman of The Attractions, with a string of new wave pop hits including Oliver’s Army, Alison, Pump It Up and Accidents Will Happen.
Since then he’s experimented with virtually the whole musical spectrum – country (Almost Blue), soul (Get Happy!), classical (Il Sogno), as well as producing two-tone and punk/folk albums for The Specials and The Pogues respectively.
Rap and r’n’b are about the only genres he’s not touched – but don’t rule that out just yet.
He’s collaborated on albums with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and The Brodsky Quartet, with whom he reunites this spring for a short seven date UK tour.
Far from a simple revisiting of their 1993 album The Juliet Letters, Elvis promises new songs, new arrangements and a few surprise covers along the way:
“We haven’t done a tour as such for a good while,” he says.
“We were just looking for an opportunity to do some more shows together and it just hasn’t come about – we’ve been busy in our own independent work,” he adds.
“I also said I didn’t really want to do this again if we were just going to revisit what we’d done before, to base it solely on [The Juliet Letters], although some people I’m sure would like to hear those songs.
‘‘There’ll be a selection but we want them to have something new.
“We’ve got about ten new arrangements that we’re playing for the first time.
“They range all over the place – songs by other people, new songs of mine, some quite surprising; the other challenge is not to have it be all ballads – just because it’s strings it’s not all slow.
“You often see that in pop music, a string section is brought in to give it a bit of class or something. It’s an easy way to say ‘this has got class’, but it’s a little bit shallow thinking.
“We’re trying to use the combination of sounds with a little bit more wit than that, not just do something that’s an easy gesture, and also to present a challenge to ourselves, to play something where you’re really inside it and you’re actually making it work – a rhythmic piece that’s got some edges to it, because a string quartet can be a ferocious thing as well as a very beautiful thing.
“That’s what I’m looking forward to, the balancing, the contrasting of those things throughout the programme.
“It’s also the first time I’ve played guitar in this concert; in the past we’ve avoided that because it sort of drew comparisons with popular things like Yesterday, that’s the most famous one isn’t it, guitar with string quartet – but I think we’ve got past that now.
“We’ve proven the point that we’ve done it with just quartet and voice and one or two songs might benefit from the contrast of my accompaniment and the quartet playing, it’s like we’ve added another colour to it. I don’t play at the same level as they do, but it’s a contrast.
“As we’ve got to know each other more we’ve been able to arrange with more knowledge of what happens when we play together,” says Costello, who is married to the jazz singer Diana Krall, with whom he has twin two year olds, Dexter and Frank.
“When we started out it was all just a big experiment; we didn’t know whether it would work.”
Elvis insists the concerts will be far from stuffy with him and the quartet “sat up straight”, rather a night full of vim and surprises, not least from the energy and edge given to songs both new and old.
“Take a song like Shipbuilding; I wanted to write an arrangement and have an instrumental section,” says Elvis.
“I re-wrote Chet Baker’s trumpet solo and arranged it for orchestra before, but I’ve arranged it again and done it a different way. You take the same material and you keep going back to it and getting something new out of it because the original idea that Chet came up with was so good; it’s inspiring to try and find a way to make that work for the quartet.
“It’s not all serious as well; I think it can be a surprise that the quartet can take a rock ‘n’ roll song like My Mood Swings and find a way for them to play it without sounding like a gimmick, they’ve found a way to drive it along.
“We also have an arrangement of Accidents Will Happen, so we’re going right back to the very beginning of my career to brand new songs – I think it’s a good mix
“That’s the key with the Brodsky Quartet, the music coming off the page that’s just our starting point – the moment of playing it, the music really takes on its own life,
‘‘There’s also a lot of humour in the show and it’s much more relaxed than people imagine – it’s not just like a bunch of people playing at a tea party, it’s not like that at all – there’s just as many of the qualities of edge and nuances as playing with a rock and roll band.”
- Elvis Costello & The Brodsky Quartet play Symphony Hall on April 24.
Tickets from 0121 780 3333
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