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ELVIS: THE HAARLEM SHUFFLE
ELVIS COSTELLO AND THE ATTRACTIONS
Get Happy!! (F-Beat)
Paul Rambali
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On an otherwise typical day late last October, Elvis Costello strolled through the door of London’s Rock On record shop in Camden Town, the oldies emporium that laid the groundwork for the first of the new breed of independent labels (Chiswick), and played its part in the movement from pub-rock to punk. Ask Joe Strummer. Or ask Elvis.
Elvis had finished work producing The Specials’ album and “ Message To You Rudy” was already in the charts. In a few weeks’ time he and The Attractions along with Nick Lowe and engineer Roger Bechirian would be in Holland making the fourth Elvis Costello album, scheduled to come out a year after “Armed Forces”, but delayed by business matters until now. He had come to Rock On to raid their trove of obscure and classic records of the ‘50s, ‘60s and ‘70s.
A few hours later, Elvis emerged, clutching bags of singles and a handful of albums hearing the ‘60s blue and red labels of Stax and Atlantic – mostly Sam and Dave records, but generally anything that emanated from the downtown Memphis studio that housed Steve Cropper, Booker T. Jones, Al Jackson and Duck Dunn and put the big beat behind Otis Redding, Wilson Pickett, Sam and Dave, Eddie Floyd and more. An even 50 quid’s worth of this stuff walked out the door with EC. He presumably already had a lot of Tamla and such-like. And he presumably had the germ of an idea.
This is the result: ‘Get Happy!!’, Elvis Costello’s soul album, 20 tracks, 50 minutes, with the single first, just like a Motown.
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Cover and page scan.
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