|
This is an artist who started out over 30 years ago as the slightly gawky-looking frontman of The Attractions, with a string of new-wave pop hits including Oliver’s Army, Alison, Pump It Up and Accidents Will Happen. Since then, he’s experimented with country, soul and classical as well as producing for The Specials and The Pogues.
He’s collaborated with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach and The Brodsky Quartet, with whom he reunites for a show at Birmingham Symphony Hall tonight.
Far from revisiting their 1993 album The Juliet Letters, Elvis promises new songs, new arrangements and a few surprises. “We were looking for an opportunity to do some more shows together and it just hasn’t come about – we’ve been busy,” he said.
“I also said I didn’t want to do this again if we were just going to revisit what we’d done. We’ve got about ten new arrangements – songs by other people, new songs of mine; the other challenge is not to have all ballads – just because it’s strings, it’s not all slow.”
Elvis, who is married to jazz singer Diana Krall, with whom he has twin two-year olds, Dexter and Frank, insists the concert will be far from stuffy. “Take Shipbuilding; I wanted to write an arrangement and have an instrumental section,” he says. “I had re-written Chet Baker’s trumpet solo and arranged it for orchestra, but I’ve arranged it again.”
| 
