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ELVIS COSTELLO picks up a tiny guitar- like instrument from its plush case resting on a huge hotel bed and cradles it lovingly as if it were a baby, against his barrel-like chest. It's a vintage ukulele, precision-tooled by Hawaiian craftsmen.
He likes guitars a lot but guitars are not for show. All receive a vigorous work-out. At a recent concert he used seven ones. Has he any idea how many he has?
"Oof," he exhales. "Dunno", A fair few. he says. But some were damaged when the storage lock-up he rented in Dublin was flooded by a canal. U2's The Edge which also uses the lock-up, lost some instruments too.
It's a Sunday afternoon in SoHo, New York, and the heavens are about to open with torrential summer rain. Costello cuts a regal, but vaguely battered figure. The glasses, of course, are there, but his hair, shot with steely silver these days, is retreating up both flanks of his head.
Also less in evidence is the pinched, frowning Elvis Costello of repute. The singer-songwriter has long had a reputation as an intense artist and a very intense man. His ever-more infrequent interviews hardly seemed comfortable, never mind fun, for any of the parties concerned. The sleeve of his first album, North told you everything you needed to know about this middle-aged punk survivor: Costello, suited and booted, black overcoat, striding down a street in the rain, in black and white, unshaven, glowering.
But North was the sound of Costello in transition, deploying wrenching, orchestrated piano ballads to deal with what he calls "the change of heart" after he split with former Pogues bass player Cait O'Riordan and began a romance with the Canadian jazz singer Diana Krall.
Now married to her and blissfully in love, this year's model Costello is more relaxed, less clenched almost playful. It is surely no coincidence that his coming album, The Delivery Man is exciting, energetic and soulful.
"I'm definitely, unashamedly happy", he says with very un-Elvis-like-giddiness. His voice is precise and confident, his accent polished but not plummy, occasionally , lapsing into mild Scouse. "I don't see my wife enough, We work a lot. But we try to keep our separation down to a minimum." She's been touring since February, promoting her highly successful album, The Girl In The Other Room. Her husband talks rhapsodically of writing songs with her for the record.
"[Songwriting] is about trusting yourself. I really do believe that everyone can write songs. They just don't trust themselves to do it. We can all write books, we can all sing songs. We can do it when we're children, we can all draw and sing. And then it's either beaten out of us, scared out of us, or our own inhibitions - our adult self - doesn't allow us to do it any more. And one of the great things about music is the freedom in it. Not rock, " he says with visible distaste "as we know it now that commodity. But rock 'n' roll at its purest. Jazz, certainly has it, it's about freedom." It's about freedom. To hell with prejudice, inhibition or fear. With boring, uptight, old rock, Elvis Costello - who has just turned 50 — all his 27 years as a recording artist making music on that basis.
Now, as he hits middle-age, he seems more energetic than ever. But would anyone think badly of him if he decided to chill out a bit, to sit back and enjoy the fruits of his labour.
"Well two things probably affect that," he says, poking his glasses up his nose. "I have not ruthlessly pursued success and I have not capitalised on success as cynically as I might have done. Therefore, I am not as assured … though obviously I am not hurting… I'm not as wealthy as I would be if I'd been very much more ruthless in the pursuit of certain successes I've had. Therefore I have the need to keep working, I have a lot of people I want to be able to look out for. I want to be able to move and live with the freedom have at the moment. I have responsibilities.
"And the second thing is — what else am I gonna do? I don't wanna be defined by a handful of songs I wrote 25 years ago…"
On a hot summer's night in New York at the Lincoln Centre's annual festival, Costello and his three-piece band The Imposters barrelled through a 2½hour set that roamed freely over a back catalogue numbering about 400 songs. (I Don't Want To Go To) Chelsea was energetic but messy ; Radio, Radio introduced by a brisk "one two-three- four" was greeted with lusty cheers; Indoor Fireworks was tender and lovely. The lengthy set also found room for a raft of new numbers from The Delivery Man; Bedlam, Needle Time to a rollicking There's A Story In My Voice. That last song, he told the sell-out audience of 2700, was, on record, a duet with Lucinda Williams.
Home these days is the New York apartment he shares with Krall, whom he married last December at Elton John's Surrey mansion. The couple also spend time at their house on Vancouver Island in the Canadian's home province of British Columbia. For much of his 17-year relationship with Cait O'Riordan, he lived in Dublin. That is when he wasn't in a studio recording one of his near-annual albums or touring. As part of his present touring schedule, Costello will perform in Canberra's Commonwealth Park — on November 21.
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