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Elvis Costello is the most unlikely looking rock star Britain has ever produced.
The black horn-rimmed spectacles, the conservative hair style, the ever-present collar and tie are more reminiscent of an anaemic clerk than a rock idol.
Yet this 9st. weakling, who brought specs appeal back into rock, kicks sand in the face of the entire record industry.
In his last interview — nine months ago — Elvis snarled: "The music biz as a whole, the crassness of it all, still disgusts me."
He has harboured this grudge from the fruitless days he spent hawking his tapes around record companies trying to get a deal.
Nobody wanted to know this 23-year-old insignificant-looking computer operator from Hounslow. Then he entered the shabby offices of the then lowly Stiff Records.
Elvis was signed up and gave his first public performance at London's Nashville pub — alone on stage with just a guitar and a handful of bitter songs.
The effect was incredible. A few weeks later at the same venue almost 1000 people crammed into the bar to catch a glimpse of this strange phenomenon who was already being hailed as the new Dylan.
In America he has proved to be the most successful representative of Britain's New Wave.
He made 1978 his own with a massive Rock Against Racism concert in Brixton before 60,000 people. And 1979 looks like going the Costello way too.
His new album Armed Forces has shot straight to number two in its first week of release. "When I am as big as Fleetwood Mac it will require a lot of tight control and discipline on my part mentally." Elvis once told an interviewer.
He now needs all that discipline he can muster for it is his private life that has come under the public eye in recent weeks.
Despite his attempt to lead the life of a recluse he was spotted arm in arm in London with glamorous American model Bebe Buell, ex- girl-friend of Rod Stewart.
Elvis left his wife Mary — they have a three-year-old son Matthew — and is now living with Bebe.
It seems even EC can't escape the pop world's pitfalls.
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