|
ATLANTA — British singer and songwriter Elvis Costello took his name from the most famous rock 'n' roller in history He greased and cut his hair much like his famous namesake, and when he burst onto the musical scene in 1977, his music evoked many of the sounds of '50s rock 'n' roll.
But at the age when Costello stopped playing with toy soldiers and became interested in music, he listened to the Beatles.
"When I was 11 years old, I thought Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly were archaic," Costello says in a clipped British accent from Minneapolis during a stop on a tour. "It took me until a year before I became a professional musician to realize how great the Sun stuff (Presley's early label) was."
Through an amazing nine LPs in six years, two of which have gone gold, Costello, who recently turned 29, has emerged as one of the finest pop song craftsmen since Bob Dylan.
To hear Costello tell it, his emerging musical tastes as a young adult were only as catholic as his measly bank account would allow. He was employed as a computer operator and had moved to Liverpool to live with his divorced mother. His father was a big-band jazz singer.
Musically he was the product of many disparate elements. He emerged from the pub-rock scene in England and enjoyed listening to Joni Mitchell and other "songwriters who had been around a while and weren't current.
"I liked elements of what was happening in 1977, and I had a real love of '60s pop music."
At first he sniffed at the punk group Clash. "The music that I liked at the time was a lot more sophisticated," Costello says, referring to the witty and thoughtful lyrics of American singer/songwriter Randy ("Short People") Newman.
But in 1977, during England's Silver Jubilee celebration, when all the old ladies on his block were having a party for the Queen, Costello holed up with the first Clash album and listened to it for 36 hours straight.
Shortly thereafter he dashed off one of his biggest hits, "Watching the Detectives." The song is about a young man who is trying in vain to get his girlfriend's attention while she's engrossed in a TV detective show.
Once he decided what he wanted to do musically, Costello snagged his recording contracts through talent and sheer nerve. After some unsuccessful forays into record company offices with his tape recorder, he waltzed unannounced into the office of Jake Riviera, then-supremo of Stiff Records, in 1976 and proceeded to wow him. Shortly thereafter, Costello snagged his CBS contract by staging an impromptu audition on the street in front of a London hotel where CBS representatives were attending a conference.
Costello remembers the year 1977 clearly, for that was when his first singles, "Less Than Zero," "Alison" and "The Angels Wanna Wear My Red Shoes," came out in England. It was also the year his debut album, My Aim Is True, was released.
Costello's reception from the British public was enthusiastic. The LP remained on the U.K. chart for 12 weeks, reaching the No. 14 spot, and received favorable notices from members of the music press who sensed a change in the air.
It was rougher going in the U.S., where Costello toured later that year at the age of 22.
"They just sat there as if on Valium and refused to give anything. This complacency was born from the music which had a stranglehold on them so long."
American audiences were more inured to the sounds of heavy metal groups Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin, ano the pop/rock of the BeeGees and Fleetwood Mac during the mid and late '70s.
When much of rock was decked out flamboyantly, Costello, whi, wore heavy horn-rimmed glasses, care on like a mean Woody Allen armed with a guitar — or like "Buddy Holly after drinking a can of STP oil treatment," to quote the Rolling Stone Record Guide. Inside baggy suits that looked like hand-me-downs, Costello moved spastically to supercharged rhythms.
Another barrier for audiences was that his lyrics compelled careful listening at a time when a lot of rock was just good times. Costello's songs included some incredibly intelligent, well-crafted material. His subject matter was similarly serious, including everything from ruminations on politics ("Less Than Zero") to personal relationships ("Alison").
In the face of frequently stony receptions, Costello says, he began to compensate with frenetic, uptight performances. He zipped from short tune to short tune without a word of explanation or introduction.
Because Costello was so much on edge, there were even some violent
| 
