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I know this one divided listeners, who were led to believe that it was something to do with an empty martini glass or a dissolute man in an undone bow-tie, while, at the time, I believed that I had written a cracking folio of lieder, only not in German. Actually, I wrote these songs in the dead of night and cut some of them three times over, screwing up and throwing away the drafts, as befits an intense and mortifying farewell note that turns into a love letter. I began by recording all the songs in one long, flawed demo take, including numbers I would never sing again and some which were almost improvised, at jazz virtuoso Errol Garner's old Steinway, a beast I could barely wrestle into submission. It's a thin line between being truthful and burdening your friends with a private sorrow, but then my model for confession had always been a wooden box in church. Even an unassailable record like Joni Mitchell's ''Blue'' admits the brightness of "California" and Bob Dylan's originally released draft of ''Blood On The Tracks'' had all that reverb on the voice to chase away the pain. So I listened to my elders and betters, buried raw songs like "In Another Room" until a daytrip to Clarksdale, Mississippi, five years later and chose to travel from the darkness to the light. The Imposters rhythm section proved to be the wrong hammer for the job and quickly departed, but not before we recorded a gem called "Impatience" with Marc Ribot on a Cuban ''tres'', a flourish of pizzicato strings and a horn section drawn from my pals in The Jazz Passengers. Steve Nieve was eventually joined by acoustic bassist Mike Formanek and drummer Peter Erskine, who played with the hushed and steady flow that the songs demanded. I wrote for a low group of woodwinds and brass around my baritone range and brought in a body of strings here and there, so the room was not entirely in black and white. In the very late '40s and early '50s, my mother used to smuggle jazz records into Liverpool via seafaring pals for fanatical customers who had read about the music of Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz but couldn't afford to hear it due to import duty on American records. Lee added his alto saxophone to the end of "Someone Took The Words Away," so after the session I had him sign the sheet music to my Mam. Obliging, in his terse style, he wrote, "Lillian, Thanks. Lee." Returning to Errol's big machine at Nola Studios, I cut "I'm In The Mood Again," which I finished at 1am. Then I walked outside onto 57th Street, thinking this was a movie that will probably never get made again. | I know this one divided listeners, who were led to believe that it was something to do with an empty martini glass or a dissolute man in an undone bow-tie, while, at the time, I believed that I had written a cracking folio of lieder, only not in German. Actually, I wrote these songs in the dead of night and cut some of them three times over, screwing up and throwing away the drafts, as befits an intense and mortifying farewell note that turns into a love letter. I began by recording all the songs in one long, flawed demo take, including numbers I would never sing again and some which were almost improvised, at jazz virtuoso Errol Garner's old Steinway, a beast I could barely wrestle into submission. It's a thin line between being truthful and burdening your friends with a private sorrow, but then my model for confession had always been a wooden box in church. Even an unassailable record like Joni Mitchell's ''Blue'' admits the brightness of "California" and Bob Dylan's originally released draft of ''Blood On The Tracks'' had all that reverb on the voice to chase away the pain. So I listened to my elders and betters, buried raw songs like "In Another Room" until a daytrip to Clarksdale, Mississippi, five years later and chose to travel from the darkness to the light. The Imposters rhythm section proved to be the wrong hammer for the job and quickly departed, but not before we recorded a gem called "Impatience" with Marc Ribot on a Cuban ''tres'', a flourish of pizzicato strings and a horn section drawn from my pals in The Jazz Passengers. Steve Nieve was eventually joined by acoustic bassist Mike Formanek and drummer Peter Erskine, who played with the hushed and steady flow that the songs demanded. I wrote for a low group of woodwinds and brass around my baritone range and brought in a body of strings here and there, so the room was not entirely in black and white. In the very late '40s and early '50s, my mother used to smuggle jazz records into Liverpool via seafaring pals for fanatical customers who had read about the music of Lennie Tristano and Lee Konitz but couldn't afford to hear it due to import duty on American records. Lee added his alto saxophone to the end of "Someone Took The Words Away," so after the session I had him sign the sheet music to my Mam. Obliging, in his terse style, he wrote, "Lillian, Thanks. Lee." Returning to Errol's big machine at Nola Studios, I cut "I'm In The Mood Again," which I finished at 1am. Then I walked outside onto 57th Street, thinking this was a movie that will probably never get made again. | ||
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{{ | <span style="font-size:120%">'''Elvis Costello & The Roots <br> Wise Up Ghost '''</span>{{n}} Blue Note, 2013 | ||
'''A strong set of new songs made in collaboration with Jimmy Fallon-soundtracking hip-hop troupe | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | |||
Having told myself (and anyone else who'd listen) that I was happy to take my songs directly to the stage, I was taken willing hostage to a scheme by Questlove and engineer Steven Mandel to keep me in a Tardis-like cupboard at NBC until we made a record together. At the turn of the century, in what seemed like the last game of musical chairs, I was briefly signed to Deutsche Grammophon and Def Jam-Island at the same time, then to the Nashville quasi-independent Lost Highway, then to Verve Records for our trip to New Orleans to complete ''The River In Reverse'' with Allen Toussaint. Now we were working without a label or a budget, building tracks up from Questlove's beats, Mandel's samples of "Can You Be True?" from ''North'' or "Radio Silence" from ''When I Was Cruel'', and slices from our own rehearsal jams on songs as widely spaced in time as "High Fidelity" and "Stations Of The Cross." Those broadcast references were fitting, as the words were initially cut-ups of my own lyrics, written in reaction to events on a news-ticker, 25 years long, from "Pills And Soap" and "Invasion Hit Parade" to "Bedlam" and "The River In Reverse." "Say something once, why say it again?" as David Byrne once proposed, to which I would reply, "Say something twice, maybe you'll hear it this time." So "Cinco Minutos Con Vos" viewed the same events as "Shipbuilding," only from another hemisphere, and among these outward-bound views — in the last days before we delivered the record to Blue Note — Quest went back into that little cupboard with Ray Angry and Pino Palladino to cut the music for "The Puppet Has Cut His Strings," a deeply upsetting series of images about my father's last breath, which I could only let myself utter in the company of new friends. | |||
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<span style="font-size:120%">'''Elvis Costello & The Imposters <br> Look Now '''</span>{{n}} Concord, 2018 | |||
'''One of Elvis's finest of this century, a chamber-pop treat featuring Burt Bacharach and Carole King | |||
{{Bibliography text}} | |||
So here we are, who we are and there you go… This is our latest waxing. All the Imposters parts and the vocal group arrangements for "Mr. & Mrs. Hush," <!-- "Unwanted Wanted Number," --> "Unwanted Number," "Suspect My Tears" and the Carole King co-write, "Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter," were recorded in the Los Angeles studios where I'd cut ''King Of America'', ''Spike'', ''Mighty Like A Rose'' and ''Painted From Memory''. I already had all of the string and horn arrangements in my head when we began the sessions, but put these ideas on the page so they could be added at Electric Lady in New York City. Then we returned to Vancouver to record my vocals. The opening song is "Under Lime," which tells of the immoral dilemma facing "Jimmie" — a late-'30s musical turn who I left "Standing In The Rain" on ''National Ransom'': ''"It's a long way down from the high horse you're on when you stumble and then you're thrown…"'' Burt Bacharach came in to lead the Imposters from the piano on "Don't Look Now" and "Photographs Can Lie," just two of the 20 or more songs that we've written in the last decade. Another tune for which Burt solved the musical puzzle is "He's Given Me Things," which closes with the lines: ''"He's given me things you never dreamed of / Where dreams are dashed and trash is praised / He has an awful lot of money / The past can be bought and then erased…"'' | |||
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{{tags}}[[Trust]] {{-}} [[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom]] {{-}} [[North]] {{-}} [[Look Now]] {{-}} [[The{{nb}}Attractions]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[The Roots]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Stiff Records]] {{-}} [[Pathway Studios]] {{-}} [[Islington]] {{-}} [[Clover]] {{-}} [[(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes ]] {{-}} [[The Byrds]] {{-}} [[Waiting For The End Of The World]] {{-}} [[The Velvet Underground]] {{-}} [[Mr. Moon]] {{-}} [[Clover: Homestead Redemption|Homestead Redemption]] {{-}} [[Alex Call]] {{-}} [[John McFee]] {{-}} [[Alison]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Kinder Murder]] {{-}} [[Brutal Youth]] {{-}} [[The Gwendolyn Letters]] {{-}} [[Wendy James]] {{-}} [[This Year's Model]] {{-}} [[Radar Records]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[Night Rally]] {{-}} [[Nick Lowe]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Lipstick Vogue]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[Concert 1977-11-04 Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]] {{-}} [[:Category:Stiff's Greatest Stiffs Live|Stiff Tour]] {{-}} [[Eden Studios]] {{-}} [[Acton]] {{-}} [[:Category:1st US Tour|1st US Tour]] {{-}} [[TV 1977-12-17 Saturday Night Live|Saturday Night Live]] {{-}} [[Sebastian Krys]] {{-}} [[This Year's Girl]] {{-}} [[Natalie Bergman]] {{-}} [[The Deuce]] {{-}} [[Curtis Mayfield]] {{-}} [[(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go|If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[The Rolling Stones]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#The Rolling Stones|Aftermath]] {{-}} [[Armed Forces]] {{-}} [[Get Happy!!]] {{-}} [[The Specials]] {{-}} [[Sunderland]] {{-}} [[Clubland]] {{-}} [[Message In A Bottle]] {{-}} [[You'll Never Be A Man]] {{-}} [[The Pretenders|Brass In Pocket]] {{-}} [[The Spinners|The Detroit Spinners]] {{-}} [[White Knuckles]] {{-}} [[New Lace Sleeves]] {{-}} [[Erik Satie]] {{-}} [[Shot With His Own Gun]] {{-}} [[Squeeze]] {{-}} [[Squeeze: East Side Story|East Side Story]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom]] {{-}} [[F-Beat]] {{-}} [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] {{-}} [[Geoff Emerick]] {{-}} [[The Beatles]] {{-}} [[George Martin]] {{-}} [[The Jam]] {{-}} [[Beyond Belief]] {{-}} [[Man Out Of Time]] {{-}} [[The Loved Ones]] {{-}} [[Shabby Doll]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers Tour]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Kitten Kuroi]] {{-}} [[Briana Lee]] {{-}} [[...And In Every Home|And In Every Home]] {{-}} [[You Little Fool]] {{-}} [[Almost Blue (song)|Almost Blue]] {{-}} [[Chet Baker]] {{-}} [[Shipbuilding]] {{-}} [[The Costello Show]] {{-}} [[The Confederates]] {{-}} [[King Of America]] {{-}} [[Blood & Chocolate]] {{-}} [[Demon|Demon Records]] {{-}} [[T Bone Burnett]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[The TCB Band]] {{-}} [[Ray Brown]] {{-}} [[Earl Palmer]] {{-}} [[Indoor Fireworks]] {{-}} [[Poisoned Rose]] {{-}} [[I'll Wear It Proudly]] {{-}} [[Suit Of Lights]] {{-}} [[Tokyo Storm Warning]] {{-}} [[I Want You]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt|Flowers In The Dirt]] {{-}} [[Spike]] {{-}} [[You Want Her Too]] {{-}} [[So Like Candy]] {{-}} [[Tommy's Coming Home]] {{-}} [[The Lovers That Never Were]] {{-}} [[Deutsche Grammophon]] {{-}} [[Joni Mitchell]] {{-}} [[Blue]] {{-}} [[Bob Dylan]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#Bob Dylan|Blood On The Tracks]] {{-}} [[In Another Room]] {{-}} [[The Clarksdale Sessions|Clarksdale]] {{-}} [[Impatience]] {{-}} [[The Jazz Passengers]] {{-}} [[Michael Formanek|Mike Formanek]] {{-}} [[Peter Erskine]] {{-}} [[Lennie Tristano]] {{-}} [[Lee Konitz]] {{-}} [[Someone Took The Words Away]] {{-}} [[I'm In The Mood Again]] | {{tags}}[[Trust]] {{-}} [[My Aim Is True]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom]] {{-}} [[North]] {{-}} [[Look Now]] {{-}} [[The{{nb}}Attractions]] {{-}} [[The Imposters]] {{-}} [[The Roots]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney]] {{-}} [[Stiff Records]] {{-}} [[Pathway Studios]] {{-}} [[Islington]] {{-}} [[Clover]] {{-}} [[(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes ]] {{-}} [[The Byrds]] {{-}} [[Waiting For The End Of The World]] {{-}} [[The Velvet Underground]] {{-}} [[Mr. Moon]] {{-}} [[Clover: Homestead Redemption|Homestead Redemption]] {{-}} [[Alex Call]] {{-}} [[John McFee]] {{-}} [[Alison]] {{-}} [[Pete Thomas]] {{-}} [[Kinder Murder]] {{-}} [[Brutal Youth]] {{-}} [[The Gwendolyn Letters]] {{-}} [[Wendy James]] {{-}} [[This Year's Model]] {{-}} [[Radar Records]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[Night Rally]] {{-}} [[Nick Lowe]] {{-}} [[Watching The Detectives]] {{-}} [[Steve Nieve]] {{-}} [[Lipstick Vogue]] {{-}} [[Pump It Up]] {{-}} [[Concert 1977-11-04 Newcastle upon Tyne|Newcastle]] {{-}} [[:Category:Stiff's Greatest Stiffs Live|Stiff Tour]] {{-}} [[Eden Studios]] {{-}} [[Acton]] {{-}} [[:Category:1st US Tour|1st US Tour]] {{-}} [[TV 1977-12-17 Saturday Night Live|Saturday Night Live]] {{-}} [[Sebastian Krys]] {{-}} [[This Year's Girl]] {{-}} [[Natalie Bergman]] {{-}} [[The Deuce]] {{-}} [[Curtis Mayfield]] {{-}} [[(Don't Worry) If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go|If There's A Hell Below, We're All Going To Go]] {{-}} [[Bruce Thomas]] {{-}} [[The Rolling Stones]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#The Rolling Stones|Aftermath]] {{-}} [[Armed Forces]] {{-}} [[Get Happy!!]] {{-}} [[The Specials]] {{-}} [[Sunderland]] {{-}} [[Clubland]] {{-}} [[Message In A Bottle]] {{-}} [[You'll Never Be A Man]] {{-}} [[The Pretenders|Brass In Pocket]] {{-}} [[The Spinners|The Detroit Spinners]] {{-}} [[White Knuckles]] {{-}} [[New Lace Sleeves]] {{-}} [[Erik Satie]] {{-}} [[Shot With His Own Gun]] {{-}} [[Squeeze]] {{-}} [[Squeeze: East Side Story|East Side Story]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom]] {{-}} [[F-Beat]] {{-}} [[Columbia Records|Columbia]] {{-}} [[Geoff Emerick]] {{-}} [[The Beatles]] {{-}} [[George Martin]] {{-}} [[The Jam]] {{-}} [[Beyond Belief]] {{-}} [[Man Out Of Time]] {{-}} [[The Loved Ones]] {{-}} [[Shabby Doll]] {{-}} [[Imperial Bedroom & Other Chambers Tour]] {{-}} [[Davey Faragher]] {{-}} [[Kitten Kuroi]] {{-}} [[Briana Lee]] {{-}} [[...And In Every Home|And In Every Home]] {{-}} [[You Little Fool]] {{-}} [[Almost Blue (song)|Almost Blue]] {{-}} [[Chet Baker]] {{-}} [[Shipbuilding]] {{-}} [[The Costello Show]] {{-}} [[The Confederates]] {{-}} [[King Of America]] {{-}} [[Blood & Chocolate]] {{-}} [[Demon|Demon Records]] {{-}} [[T Bone Burnett]] {{-}} [[Elvis Presley]] {{-}} [[The TCB Band]] {{-}} [[Ray Brown]] {{-}} [[Earl Palmer]] {{-}} [[Indoor Fireworks]] {{-}} [[Poisoned Rose]] {{-}} [[I'll Wear It Proudly]] {{-}} [[Suit Of Lights]] {{-}} [[Tokyo Storm Warning]] {{-}} [[I Want You]] {{-}} [[Paul McCartney: Flowers In The Dirt|Flowers In The Dirt]] {{-}} [[Spike]] {{-}} [[You Want Her Too]] {{-}} [[So Like Candy]] {{-}} [[Tommy's Coming Home]] {{-}} [[The Lovers That Never Were]] {{-}} [[Deutsche Grammophon]] {{-}} [[Joni Mitchell]] {{-}} [[Blue]] {{-}} [[Bob Dylan]] {{-}} [[Vanity Fair, November 2000#Bob Dylan|Blood On The Tracks]] {{-}} [[In Another Room]] {{-}} [[The Clarksdale Sessions|Clarksdale]] {{-}} [[Impatience]] {{-}} [[The Jazz Passengers]] {{-}} [[Michael Formanek|Mike Formanek]] {{-}} [[Peter Erskine]] {{-}} [[Lennie Tristano]] {{-}} [[Lee Konitz]] {{-}} [[Someone Took The Words Away]] {{-}} [[I'm In The Mood Again]] {{-}} [[Wise Up Ghost]] {{-}} [[Blue Note]] {{-}} [[Jimmy Fallon]] {{-}} [[Questlove]] {{-}} [[Steven Mandel]] {{-}} [[Lost Highway]] {{-}} [[Verve Forecast|Verve Records]] {{-}} [[The River In Reverse]] {{-}} [[Allen Toussaint]] {{-}} [[Can You Be True?]] {{-}} [[Radio Silence]] {{-}} [[When I Was Cruel]] {{-}} [[High Fidelity]] {{-}} [[Stations Of The Cross]] {{-}} [[Pills And Soap]] {{-}} [[Invasion Hit Parade]] {{-}} [[Bedlam]] {{-}} [[The River In Reverse (song)]] {{-}} [[David Byrne]] {{-}} [[Cinco Minutos Con Vos]] {{-}} [[Shipbuilding]] {{-}} [[Blue Note]] {{-}} [[Ray Angry]] {{-}} [[Pino Palladino]] {{-}} [[The Puppet Has Cut His Strings]] {{-}} [[Ross MacManus]] {{-}} [[Concord]] {{-}} [[Burt Bacharach]] {{-}} [[Carole King]] {{-}} [[Mr. & Mrs. Hush]] {{-}} [[Unwanted Number]] {{-}} [[Suspect My Tears]] {{-}} [[Carole King]] {{-}} [[Burnt Sugar Is So Bitter]] {{-}} [[Mighty Like A Rose]] {{-}} [[Painted From Memory]] {{-}} [[Under Lime]] {{-}} [[Jimmie Standing In The Rain]] {{-}} [[National Ransom]] {{-}} [[Don't Look Now]] {{-}} [[Photographs Can Lie]] {{-}} [[He's Given Me Things]] | ||
{{cx}} | {{cx}} | ||
Latest revision as of 23:51, 9 February 2022
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