Irish Independent, December 4, 2011

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Irish Independent

UK & Ireland newspapers

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Ross MacManus


Sunday Independent

Flexible co-vocalist with the Joe Loss band, and the father of Elvis Costello

Ross MacManus, who has died aged 84, was a popular singer and trumpet player and in later years became well known as the father of Elvis Costello; his choice of career as a band singer, although affording him security and a measure of recognition, precluded him from developing his talent fully, as his son has observed publicly on several occasions.

Ronald Patrick Ross MacManus was born at Birkenhead on October 20,1927, and began singing at the age of nine, as a chorister at St Thomas's Catholic Church, Birkenhead. He later said, "Plainsong requires a very flexible voice and this has helped me a lot."

On his release from national Service with the RAF in 1950 he formed his own band, Ross MacManus and his New Era Music. His intention was to make his mark as a trumpeter, but he found his singing was the band's main attraction when it came to securing bookings.

In 1955 MacManus joined Joe Loss and his Orchestra as trumpeter and featured vocalist. From that moment, MacManus claimed, Loss insisted that the performing name "Ross MacManus" belonged to him: "He would say, 'If you want to be a star, go off to a record company and be a star. If you want to work every night and get weekly wages for as long as you want, stay with me — but don't complain.'" The pay was indeed good, and with a young, growing family to support, he didn't complain.

Under Joe Loss's management, MacManus did record once using his own name, for Decca. The song was "I Can't Take My Eyes Off You," later a huge hit for Andy Williams, but MacManus's version flopped.

He did, however, pursue a kind of shadow career, recording cover versions of hit records under a variety of pseudonyms. In 1973 he wrote and recorded the theme song of "The Secret Lemonade Drinker," an award-winning series of television commercials. His son, Declan, then a teenager, played drums and sang backing vocals on the recording. MacManus also wrote and recorded songs for the soundtrack of the 1975 film Secrets of a Superstud.

For its weekly radio show, the Joe Loss band performed the latest hits live, work entailing enormous flexibility of style and a constantly changing repertoire. MacManus would practise the songs at home, with Declan taking it all in, even before he could talk.

When Declan metamorphosed into Elvis Costello, his approach to being a performer was, he said, far from starry-eyed: "I saw that it wasn't actually glamorous, that it was sort of a job. So that by the time I was a teenager, I wasn't all that convinced I would do music for a living, much as I loved it."

His father, however, came to regard his son's achievements with undisguised awe: "I often say to people, 'The fairies stole my little boy, Declan, and brought me this genius, Elvis, in his place.'"

Ross MacManus is survived by five sons. His wife predeceased him.

© Telegraph


Tags: Ross MacManusJoe Loss OrchestraSecret Lemonade DrinkerBirkenheadSaturday Night LiveRadio, RadioLess Than ZeroOswald MosleyMy Aim Is TrueStiff RecordsJohn LennonRay DaviesBuddy HollyAccidents Will HappenPump It UpVeronicaEveryday I Write The BookAlisonWatching The Detectives(I Don't Want To Go To) ChelseaShipbuildingTokyo Storm WarningAlmost BluePainted From MemoryBurt BacharachCait O'RiordanSpin magazineTin Pan AlleySpectacular Spinning SongbookThe O2DublinIreland

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Sunday Independent, December 4, 2011


The Independent eulogizes Ross MacManus.


Barry Egan profiles Elvis Costello.

Images

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The man who could write the book on music


Barry Egan

Elvis Costello has never been afraid to try something new, no matter how potentially alienating that new direction may be, writes Barry Egan

2011-12-04 Irish Independent page 34 clipping 01.jpg

Elvis Costello says he never liked the word maturity. It implies decay. And decay is one thing of which you could never accuse the ferocious talent that is Costello.

Born Declan Patrick MacManus in August 1954 in London — his father, Ross MacManus, who died recently, was a musician — he has always brought a touch of the zealot to his work. Complacency is anathema to the man who first announced himself to America at Christmas 1977 on the popular television show, Saturday Night Live. The cheeky Brit in too-big glasses stopped his performance of "Less Than Zero" (penned as a response of sorts to British fascist Oswald Mosley) to sing a lacerating, guitar-scratching version of the anti-censorship "Radio, Radio":

I wanna bite the hand that feeds me
I wanna bite that hand so badly
I want to make them wish they'd never seen me

His debut album from 1977, My Aim Is True, on Stiff Records, remains an enduring classic. Up there with John Lennon and Ray Davies, Elvis himself remains one of the most compelling and masterful singer-songwriters England has ever produced.

Some people, as the New Yorker magazine noted some years ago, have Costello frozen in Lucite as the skinny, "sneering, knock-kneed rocker with the Buddy Holly glasses and the New Wave suits who, in the late Seventies, unleashed a series of furious, lyrically tricky but not uncatchy albums and singles. Or else they are dimly aware of a restless and protean figure who amid the ripening of a career sampled, and often mastered, other genres and styles. They may think he was authentic once and pretentious later."

The truth is, we love all the different Elvis Costellos. We love him for the whoosh of "Accidents Will Happen" and "Pump It Up" and the aching melancholia of "Veronica" and the magnificence of "Everyday I Write the Book" and the beauty of "Alison," my favourite Elvis song.

I love the timelessness of "Watching the Detectives." I love the purity of "(I Don't Want to Go To) Chelsea," the sadness of "Shipbuilding," the verve of "Tokyo Storm Warning" and ... I could write until my fingers bleed about Elvis' songbook. I even loved his country covers album, Almost Blue, and enjoyed his Painted From Memory collaboration with Burt Bacharach.

Elvis, who lived in Dublin for many years when he was married to Pogue bassist Cait O'Riordan, has never been afraid to try something new, no matter how potentially alienating that new direction may be. You get the impression that he just likes music, often relentlessly so, regardless of its era or place in time. "After a while, everyone has to fess up to having older records in their collection; he told Spin magazine in 2008. "But I think we're past those juvenile arguments about music, like, 'Our generation, our music.' Because right now you're living in a time when everybody you speak to can listen to everything they want to."

He has incorporated new manner of styles into his work: country, reggae, Tin Pan Alley, pop, r'n'b, soul, Tex-Mex, Tango, new wave. "I'm just a songwriter," he said.

Returning to a bright notion of concerts he did over 25 years ago — where songs are chosen by the crowd for Elvis and his band to perform — he is bringing his Spectacular Spinning Songbook to Dublin on May 9 at the 02 Arena.

Elvis has promised "songs of love, songs about sex, songs about death and dancing, but not necessarily in that order".


Page scans.
2011-12-04 Irish Independent page 34.jpg 2011-12-04 Irish Independent page 35.jpg

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