Rolling Stone, November 11, 1999: Difference between revisions
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"He had a ska/blue beat hit in Germany," says Elvis with pride, "and a minor hit on "The Long and Winding Road," under the name Day Costello. That was the first time the Costello name – it's my great-grandmother's name – kind of like emerged from our family." | "He had a ska/blue beat hit in Germany," says Elvis with pride, "and a minor hit on "The Long and Winding Road," under the name Day Costello. That was the first time the Costello name – it's my great-grandmother's name – kind of like emerged from our family." | ||
Music runs deep in the MacManus family – Elvis' grandfather learned trumpet in an English military band and played aboard luxury liners during the Titanic days. Elvis’ twenty-three-year-old son, Matt, has started a band in London. Ross, 72, was raised in Birkenhead, England, and went from playing bebop jazz trumpet to winning acclaim as a vocalist with the popular Joe Loss Orchestra. For anyone wondering how Elvis Costello progressed from angry young man to [[Burt Bacharach]] collaborator, the answer emerges as father and son conduct what's clearly a very fond and long-lived dialogue about music and life. Clearly, for this family, there's no separating the two. | Music runs deep in the MacManus family – Elvis' grandfather learned trumpet in an English military band and played aboard luxury liners during the Titanic days. Elvis’ twenty-three-year-old son, [[Matt MacManus|Matt]], has started a band in London. Ross, 72, was raised in Birkenhead, England, and went from playing bebop jazz trumpet to winning acclaim as a vocalist with the popular Joe Loss Orchestra. For anyone wondering how Elvis Costello progressed from angry young man to [[Burt Bacharach]] collaborator, the answer emerges as father and son conduct what's clearly a very fond and long-lived dialogue about music and life. Clearly, for this family, there's no separating the two. | ||
'''Elvis:''' Originally my dad was a bop player; the dance band that he [later] sang with was based on the Glenn Miller model, that swinging beat. They included the tunes from the hit parade in the set in the dance hall, and they did a radio broadcast every Friday – not just the ballads but the rocking stuff. I've got a recording of this orchestra playing Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play." Can you imagine? So we never had that generational divide. I had my dad literally coming home and learning the hit-parade tunes every week; there's a record called ''Ross MacManus Sings Frank Sinatra''. | '''Elvis:''' Originally my dad was a bop player; the dance band that he [later] sang with was based on the Glenn Miller model, that swinging beat. They included the tunes from the hit parade in the set in the dance hall, and they did a radio broadcast every Friday – not just the ballads but the rocking stuff. I've got a recording of this orchestra playing Pink Floyd's "See Emily Play." Can you imagine? So we never had that generational divide. I had my dad literally coming home and learning the hit-parade tunes every week; there's a record called ''Ross MacManus Sings Frank Sinatra''. | ||
'''Ross:''' We had a radio program in which we did all the hits live. So I might be Jim Reeves, or I might be [[Roy Orbison]], [[the Beatles]] or [[the Rolling Stones]]. Elvis was listening to all this. The famous story about him is that his very first words were, "Skin, Mommy." He wanted | '''Ross:''' We had a radio program in which we did all the hits live. So I might be Jim Reeves, or I might be [[Roy Orbison]], [[the Beatles]] or [[the Rolling Stones]]. Elvis was listening to all this. The famous story about him is that his very first words were, "Skin, Mommy." He wanted "I've Got You Under My Skin," by [[Frank Sinatra|Sinatra]]. That and [[Peggy Lee]] singing the "Siamese Cat Song." I think he was determined to succeed and knew he would succeed. He had perfect faith in himself. Dec used to go out and do shows when he was thirteen, fourteen, fifteen. He developed bit by bit under his own steam. | ||
'''Elvis:''' The New Wave thing, there was a little bit of, "Don't back down" – my dad understood that. The most crazy things that happened in my career were because of the speed we worked at, the amount of drinking and craziness, and things spun out of control. But my dad, my parents, always knew who I was – that I wasn't going nuts. I remember that the woman that dad sang with for a number of years, Rose Brennan, told me my dad was always either flirting with the tallest, best-looking woman in the room or trying to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room, depending on his mood. "He was a terror," she said. I think that's where I get some of it from. A lot of the instinctive things I have about being onstage come from watching my dad and the discipline of that band. I saw that it wasn't actually glamorous, that it was sort of a job. So by the time I was a teenager, I wasn't all that convinced I would do music for a living, as much as I loved it. | '''Elvis:''' The New Wave thing, there was a little bit of, "Don't back down" – my dad understood that. The most crazy things that happened in my career were because of the speed we worked at, the amount of drinking and craziness, and things spun out of control. But my dad, my parents, always knew who I was – that I wasn't going nuts. I remember that the woman that dad sang with for a number of years, Rose Brennan, told me my dad was always either flirting with the tallest, best-looking woman in the room or trying to pick a fight with the biggest guy in the room, depending on his mood. "He was a terror," she said. I think that's where I get some of it from. A lot of the instinctive things I have about being onstage come from watching my dad and the discipline of that band. I saw that it wasn't actually glamorous, that it was sort of a job. So by the time I was a teenager, I wasn't all that convinced I would do music for a living, as much as I loved it. |
Revision as of 22:02, 6 March 2013
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