Today, we transition from our obsession with animated cartoons to our equally strong and enduring obsession with 20th century music. One of our favorites, bar none, is Elvis Costello, born on August 25, 1954.
One reason that he, along with the late (and much missed) Alex Chilton, remains a favorite recording artist is an absolutely uncanny ability to cover an extremely diverse range of songs, genres and styles/eras of music with flair and panache.
Here's Elvis with another of our favorites at this blog, Stephen Colbert.
The first time I recall seeing Elvis Costello was on an excellent episode of Saturday Night Live way back in the 1970's.
Costello, the smartest and meanest singer/songwriter in the first wave of 1970s British punk rockers, first arrived as a sneering spitfire (with just a touch of nudge nudge wink wink), backed by The Attractions, an outstanding band which could match his ferocity and up the ante with high-level musicianship.
The lengthy entry on Elvis Costello at All Music.com, indubitably A LOT less enthusiastic and open-minded about his music than the (occasionally) humble scribe who writes this blog is, writes "Elvis Costello soon galloped away from the loud, fast rules of punk rock, demonstrating his musical and verbal facility with Armed Forces, a 1979 album that contained "Oliver's Army," "Accidents Will Happen," and his cover of Nick Lowe's "(What's So Funny About) Peace, Love and Understanding."
All Music.com adds, "rapid musical evolution and switches in style became the rule in Costello's career, as he amassed a catalog that seemed to touch upon every conceivable genre of popular music.
Starting with 1989's Spike, Costello seized the freewheeling opportunities of a solo act, bouncing from dense pop to classical compositions to collaborations with 1960's icons Paul McCartney and Burt Bacharach."
"This sense of adventure increased in the 2000s as he toured with the Imposters, cut Americana albums with his old cohort T-Bone Burnett, and collaborated with both New Orleans R&B legend Allen Toussaint
and the venerated hip-hop group the Roots."
The son of British bandleader Ross McManus, Costello (born Declan McManus) worked as a computer programmer during the early '70s, performing under the name D.P. Costello in various folk clubs. In 1976, he became the leader of country-rock group Flip City. During this time, he recorded several demo tapes of his original material with the intention of landing a record contract. A copy of these tapes made its way to Jake Riviera, one of the heads of the fledgling independent record label Stiff.
Riviera signed Costello to Stiff as a solo artist in 1977; the singer/songwriter adopted the name Elvis Costello at this time, taking his first name from Elvis Presley and his last name from his mother's maiden name.
With former Brinsley Schwarz bassist Nick Lowe producing, Costello began recording his debut album with the American band Clover (later known as Huey Lewis & The News) providing support. "Less Than Zero," the first single released from these sessions, appeared in April of 1977.
By the summer of 1977, Costello's permanent backing band had been assembled. Featuring bassist Bruce Thomas, keyboardist Steve Nieve, and drummer Pete Thomas, the group was named The Attractions; they made their live debut in July of 1977.
Costello's debut album, My Aim Is True, was released in the summer of 1977 to positive reviews.
Along with Nick Lowe, Ian Dury, and Wreckless Eric, Costello participated in the Stiff label's Live package tour in the fall. At the end of the year, Jake Riviera split from Stiff to form Radar Records, taking Costello and Lowe with him. Costello's last single for Stiff, the reggae-inflected "Watching the Detectives," became his first hit.
This Year's Model, Costello's first album recorded with The Attractions, was released in the spring of 1978. A rawer, harder-rocking record than My Aim Is True, This Year's Model was also a bigger hit, reaching number four in Britain and number 30 in America.
Released the following year, Armed Forces was a more ambitious and musically diverse album than either of his previous records. It was another hit, reaching number two in the U.K. and cracking the Top Ten in the U.S.
In the summer of 1979, he produced the self-titled debut album by The Specials, the leaders of the ska revival movement. In February of 1980, the soul-influenced Get Happy!! was released; it was the first record on Riviera's new label, F-Beat Records.
Later that year, a collection of B-sides, singles, and outtakes called Taking Liberties was released in America; in Britain, a similar album called Ten Bloody Marys & Ten How's Your Fathers appeared as a cassette-only release, complete with different tracks than the American version.
Costello and The Attractions released Trust in early 1981; it was Costello's fifth album in a row produced by Nick Lowe.
Costello's next album, Imperial Bedroom (1982), was an ambitious set of lushly arranged pop produced by Geoff Emerick, who engineered several of The Beatles' most acclaimed albums.
Costello tried to replicate the success of Punch the Clock with his next record, 1984's Goodbye Cruel World.
After the release of Goodbye Cruel World, Costello embarked on his first solo tour in the summer of 1984. He was relatively inactive in 1985, releasing only one new single ("The People's Limousine," a collaboration with singer/songwriter T-Bone Burnett issued under the name the Coward Brothers) and producing Rum Sodomy and the Lash, the second album by the punk-folk band The Pogues. Both projects were indications that he was moving toward a stripped-down, folky approach, and 1986's King of America confirmed that suspicion. Recorded without The Attractions and released under the name The Costello Show,
King of America was essentially a country-folk record, and it received the best reviews of any album he had recorded since Imperial Bedroom.
During 1987, Costello negotiated a new worldwide record contract with Warner Bros. and began a songwriting collaboration with Paul McCartney.
Two years later, he released Spike, the most musically diverse collection he had ever recorded.
Spike featured the first appearance of songs written by Costello and McCartney, including the single "Veronica."
Two years later, he released Mighty Like a Rose, which echoed Spike in its diversity, yet it was a darker, more challenging record.
In 1993, Costello collaborated with the Brodsky Quartet on The Juliet Letters, a song cycle that was the songwriter's first attempt at classical music.
That same year, Costello licensed the rights to his pre-1987 catalog (My Aim Is True to Blood and Chocolate) to Rykodisc in America. Costello reunited with The Attractions to record the majority of 1994's Brutal Youth, the most straightforward and pop-oriented album he had recorded since Goodbye Cruel World. The Attractions backed Costello on a worldwide tour in 1994 and played concerts with him throughout 1995. In 1995, he released his long-shelved collection of covers, Kojak Variety.
In the spring of 1996, Costello released All This Useless Beauty, which featured a number of original songs he had given to other artists but never recorded himself.
A jazz version of the record made with Bill Frisell was put on hold when Costello's label began to freeze up due to political maneuvering.
Undaunted, Costello and Bacharach hit the road and performed in the States and Europe. Then, after Bacharach left, Costello added Steve Nieve to the tour and traveled around the world on what they dubbed the Lonely World Tour. This took them into 1999, when both Notting Hill and Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me featured significant contributions from Costello. In fact, he appeared with Bacharach in the latter as one of a pair of Carnaby Street musicians, albeit street musicians with a gorgeous grand piano at their disposal.
In 2003, he returned with North, a collection of classically styled pop songs pitched halfway between Gershwin and Sondheim.
That fall, Costello released two albums of his own original material: a classical work entitled Il Sogno and the rock music concept album The Delivery Man, featuring The Imposters.
Issued in 2006, My Flame Burns Blue was a live album with Costello fronting the 52-piece jazz orchestra the Metropole Orkest; the release featured classic Costello songs (with new orchestral arrangements) alongside new compositions and a performance of Il Sogno in its entirety.
The next year or so was relatively quiet, but at the end of 2012 he released a new compilation called In Motion Pictures, which rounded up songs he contributed to films. Costello devoted himself to working with hip-hop band The Roots in 2013. Originally planned as a reinterpretation of songs from his vast catalog, the album
Wise Up Ghost turned into a full-fledged collaboration and was greeted by positive reviews upon its September 2013 release on Blue Note.
In 2015, Costello announced that he was completing work on his memoirs, and that the book, titled Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink, was scheduled for publication in October 2015. Costello also compiled a companion album, Unfaithful Music & Soundtrack Album, which featured a career-spanning selection of songs from his catalog, as well as two previously unreleased selections.
In July 2018, Costello revealed that he was recovering from a "small but very aggressive cancer." By the time he delivered the news, he was not only on the mend but had a new album with The Imposters in the can. Look Now, the group's first record together in a decade, appeared in October 2018.
Look Now was followed quickly in 2020 with Hey Clockface, the first album credited to Elvis Costello as a solo act in ten years. Inspired by revisiting the master tapes for "This Year's Model" for a soundtrack contribution to David Simon's The Deuce, Costello decided to rework the album of the same name by preserving the original
Attractions backing tapes and adding new Spanish-language vocals by contemporary Latino musicians such as Juanes.
The resulting Spanish Model appeared in September 2021.
At the same time Costello was working on a new set of songs using the skills of Attractions' drummerPete Thomas and keyboardist Steve Nieve, along with longtime Imposters' bassist Davey Faragher. Recorded remotely, The Boy Named If eschews any hint of introspection in favor of the vitriolic sonic kick of early Costello records and big, tangled emotion. Released in early 2022, the album also features a duet with Nicole Atkins.
For more, check out the Elvis Costello discography - and listen to as many of his recordings as possible.
We extend big time fedora tips to Wikipedia and YouTube, which provided lots and lots and lots of material for this post. Also must credit All Music.com in the acknowledgments, as much as we, diehard music lovers all, loathe their correspondent's mindless fixation on chart success, whether albums and singles made the Top 40 - and frequent use of such cringe-worthy lines as "the album was a commercial and critical failure." Dozens of records we absolutely love and can't get enough of at Way Too Damn Lazy To Write A Blog after numerous listenings were described by knucklehead writers as "commercial and critical failures."
Today's post (the second music-themed one of 2024) shall delve into classic 1950's style rock n' roll and rockabilly. One of the very best early rockers was Gene Vincent (February 11, 1935 - October 12, 1971).
My personal favorite Gene Vincent clip is that of he and his excellent band performing in Brussels in 1963. TRUST ME, to get the opportunity to rock out like this, literally lying down on the stage while soloing at high intensity on those Fender axes, is every guitarist's dream come true.
More importantly, the preceding clip also illustrates that, due to severe injuries he suffered in motorcycle and automobile accidents, Gene pushed through difficulties and an extraordinary amount of physical pain all the time.
Paul McCartney, who crossed paths with him often during the Beatles' early days, remembers Gene.
Gene's band The Blue Caps were among the great early rock groups and featured guitarist Cliff Gallop.
Gene and The Blue Caps followed Elvis Presley in appearing on The Ed Sullivan Show.
The Stray Cats paid tribute to Gene and Eddie "Summertime Blues" Cochran with the following excellent tune, GENE & EDDIE.
Not surprisingly, the Stray Cats' rendition of Gene's biggest hit, Be Bop A Lula, is not too shabby!
The tune that Gene and Eddie did together, WHITE LIGHTNING, remains one of the blazing early rock classics.
Gene and Eddie often performed together.
Now let's hear the original, which appeared in Frank Tashlin's brilliant, prescient and often satiric 1956 movie The Girl Can't Help It.
John Waters, an enthusiastic fan of The Girl Can't Help It, agrees and clearly enjoys both the rock n' roll and the gnarly quality of Gene and he Blue Caps.
Turns out both Gene and Eddie were in The Girl Can't Help It. Eddie's performance of 20 Flight Rock inspired rockers in movie theaters around the world.
Fortunately, some good documentaries were produced covering the life and career of Gene Vincent.
The last Gene Vincent performance I have seen is his set from the 1969 Isle of Wight festival. While early rock n'roll and rockability had long since given way in popularity by then to psychedelia and prog rock, who cares - Gene still sounds great.
This Isle of Wight performance is also seen in the following documentary, Gene Vincent: The Rock N' Roll Singer.
Rockabilly fans, go for that double dose of Stray Cats, Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, Carl Perkins, Sun Records era Elvis and early Beatles with gusto. Football fans, enjoy the 58th Super Bowl.
Pleased to see that my hometown team, the San Francisco 49ers, shall be in the game. I'm hoping for an exciting, high scoring and touchdown-filled contest that goes into overtime! Many outstanding players - tight ends George Kittle and Travis Kelce, running back Christian McCaffrey, wide receivers Rashee Rice, Deebo Samuels and Brandon Aiyuk and, last but not least, top-notch quarterbacks Patrick "MVP" Mahomes and the unassuming but remarkably effective Brock "underestimate me at your peril" Purdy - will rock the gridiron in Vegas.
Do we love it when Frankenstein, Dracula and the Wolfman whip out Fender Stratocasters, Gibson Les Pauls and Flying Vs and proceed to rock? Yes, very much.
That thought, invariably, brings to mind a fellow who played Frankenstein and rocked a Flying V with panache: one of the all-time movie greats, Christopher Lee (May 27, 1922 – June 7, 2015).
On the short list of celebrated movie and television actors who also had a music career, among other things, Sir Christopher Lee led his own metal band and made a bunch of excellent records.
The promo videos for Christopher Lee's Metal album are appropriately operatic.
After all, he does sing Symphonic Metal.
Here, submitted for your approval, are just a few trailers from Sir Christopher Lee's many, many classic movies.
Not surprisingly, the coming attractions begin with Hammer Films.
Director, classic cartoon, sci fi and psychotronica buff Joe Dante waxes poetic about Hammer Films' Gothic epic The Curse Of Frankenstein.
Content to not just play Frankenstein and Dracula at Hammer Films, Lee also portrayed Sherlock Holmes!
In closing, we doff our top hats that could have been worn by Count Dracula or Vic Frankenstein to the genre-busting career of Christopher Lee.
Alas, for the umpteenth time in 2023 - and we haven't even hit Memorial Day yet - the gang of reprobates and rapscallions here end a post by noting the passing of yet another legend from the world of music. That's powerhouse entertainer Tina Turner, like Mr. Lee Simply The Best. Go here right now and watch Tina's bravura performance of River Deep Mountain High from her 1989 induction to the Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame, then check out her appearances on Late Night With David Letterman.
As our most recent post spotlighted favorite musicians, we're taken aback by the news that another all-time favorite, the great guitarist Jeff Beck, has passed at 78.
Mr. Beck, who literally played at the hall in our neighborhood last year and toured well past his 75th birthday, passed on January 10 of meningitis.
Began following Jeff Beck's musical career when he succeeded Eric Clapton in The Yardbirds and at one point was part of a two-guitar rave up lineup with Jimmy Page.
Jimmy inducted Jeff into the Rock & Roll HOF.
Enthusiasm for the guitarist's work extends to his numerous Jeff Beck Group solo albums and appearances with other bandleaders (Stevie Wonder, Jan Hammer, Stevie Ray Vaughn).
While Jeff has passed and left a six decade legacy of recorded music and videos, we sincerely hope that there will be many more albums and concerts forthcoming from his equally brilliant bandmate Tai Wilkenfeld, who won't turn 40 for three years.
Not surprisingly, guitarists have a thing or two to say about Jeff!
Ace guitaristas Rick Beato and Tim Pierce offer this excellent remembrance of Jeff and discussion of what he meant to the world of music.
Very much enjoy Rick Beato's scholarly analysis of Jeff Beck's unique approach to the guitar.
While mourning is definitely not my preferred way to kick off 2023, losses are a part of life.
Will honor the most original guitarist and music in general by binge-watching a bunch of Jeff Beck concerts.
While enjoying the above Franz Kline painting and attempting, with difficulty, to digest the news that numerous Northern California places where I, my family and friends have lived and enjoyed visiting over many decades have been absolutely clobbered (and continue to be clobbered) by violent winter storms as the new year begins, shall direct focus to the world of 20th century music. Jazz fans in our readership: come on down!
From January 2023, we time travel back to 1973 and a rather amazing TV appearance by jazz trumpet genius Freddie Hubbard (1938-2008).
Although at that point, Mr. Hubbard had left Blue Note Records and began waxing more overtly commercial and pop-influenced albums for Creed Taylor's CTI label, this set reflects that in concert, the ace of trumpet exemplified the fire-breathing sensibility of hard bop. Junior Cook (tenor saxophone), George Cables (piano), Kent Brinkley (upright bass) and Michael Carvin (drums) assist skillfully.
Way back in those halcyon days, attended a concert featuring Klaus Doldinger's Passport and Herbie Hancock's Headhunters, two groups that blended rock, funk and jazz creatively and seamlessly. Fortunately, both Herbie and Klaus have enjoyed lengthy careers. Here they are, Klaus Doldinger's Passport, live at the 1974 Frankfurt jazz festival.
In the Klaus Doldinger ensemble as special guest: the great tenor saxophonist Johnny Griffin.
Saw Mr. Griffin tear it up with his quartet on several occasions at San Francisco's mecca of music, Keystone Korner in North Beach, way back when.
Key to several Miles Davis ensembles was drummer Tony Williams, the cornerstone of 1960's Miles quintets who subsequently led incendiary rock-jazz fusion bands. One of the best Tony Williams Lifetime groups is seen here at the 1971 Montreux Jazz Festival.
Nobody exemplified the merging of musical genres and questioning of sonic conventions more than pianist/composer/bandleader Herbie Hancock.
On the topic of Herbie Hancock and his mighty funk-jazz-rock band, here they are on a 1976 Danish TV special. It is one of the few and far between video appearances by mighty studio ace guitarist Wah Wah Watson a.k.a. Melvin M. Radin who, as expected, is brilliant and original. As The Wrecking Crew and The Nashville A-Team (led by guitarists Hank "Sugarfoot" Garland, Grady Martin and Chet Atkins) did in the 1950's and 1960's, the ever-inventive Wah Wah Watson played on everyone's records in the 1970's and 1980's.
For another spin on fusion + modern jazz, here's Ornette Coleman and his epic Prime Time Band, rocking the house hard at Palalido in 1980. Ornette created his own unique musical universe starting in the 1950's, then added multiple electric guitars and Fender basses to his ensembles in the 1970's, resulting in an enjoyably surreal supersonic mix.
And, while on the topic of genre-bending, genre-redefining, genre-exploding and genre-extending recording artists, there's the prolific visual artist and unconventional bandleader Don Van Vliet a.k.a. Captain Beefheart.
The Cap'n, a.k.a. Don Van Vliet, in between frequent drawing and painting, led an ensemble way out on the far frontiers of what was considered rock music from 1965 to 1982.
Now, in all honesty, Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band, was closer to Ornette and Albert Ayler than to Connie Francis or ABBA.
What could outdo or at least equal Captain Beefheart & The Magic Band live from Paris? Captain Beefheart on Late Night With David Letterman!
Author and music expert Frank John Hadley described Don Van Vliet best: Unconventional to the nth power, Captain Beefheart (Don Van Vliet) constructed a gnostic blues world where Howlin' Wolf curls Salvador Dali's moustache and Little Walter espouses dadaism.
Of the two early-1970s albums juxtaposed here, The Spotlight Kid most interestingly turns twelve-bar music on its head with Beefheart's multi-octave son-of-Wolf voice, his pixilated lyrics, his marvelous Chicago-style harp, and his specially instructed Magic Band's asymmetrical rhythms.
Changing focus from 1930's and 1940's cartoons to more recent entertainment, we raise a toast to Jack Black, who is celebrating his 53rd birthday today (and shares the August 28 natal anniversary with Jack Kirby).
Thinking of Jack Black's movies, TV shows and records will bring the music-obsessed gang here much-needed cheer, as we are sad about the recent passing of jazz great Joey DeFrancesco. An excellent way to start cheering up is by watching Jack's impassioned performance from the grand finale of the Late Night With Conan O'Brien show.
After listening to Tenacious D's comedic and wonderfully goofy Beatles Tribute, feel a bit less heartbroken about the loss of the Hammond B-3 wizard.
The 2003 movie School of Rock lifts the spirits as well. As an actor, musician, writer and animation voice artist, Jack Black possesses that rare ability to be endearing, enthusiastic and simultaneously likable and cartoonlike.
The Kung Fu Panda franchise is, paws-down, our favorite of all the 21st century animated features to emerge from Disney, Pixar and DreamWorks.
Have read that a Kung Fu Panda 4 is in the works and slated for theatrical release in March 2024. Don't know if this is fact, rumor or marketing.
First recall seeing Jack in the 1990's as one of the many talented comedians on Mr. Show, which is still hilarious and NSFW.
In 1997, the Tenacious D HBO series debuted and got Jack and bandmate Kyle Gass on the map.
Not surprisingly, the epic story of Tenacious D would be the cornerstone of a feature film.
Jack, quite literally the son of rocket scientists, is among the many overnight sensations who had years of ups and downs auditioning for sporadic parts in TV shows and movies before hitting the big time.
As noted in the previous interview, here's Jack, playing a juvenile delinquent in the Lee Majors TV series The Fall Guy.
And also playing a role in the tremendously treacly Touched By An Angel TV series.
Closing today's post with Tenacious D clips and Cee-Lo Green's rousing rendition of that incredibly catchy Carl Douglas hit Kung Fu Fighting - the theme song from our favorite Jack Black film, Kung Fu Panda.
This blogger, darn near glued to the AM radio in the 1960's, when this medium was devoted entirely to Top 40 hits and sports, was always fascinated by the highly unusual song that would turn up in a mix full of icons (from Elvis Presley to The Beatles to Sinatra). In other words, songs that elicited ????????
Love the icons, but also love the outliers, so it is admittedly facetious to term their hits "non-wonders." One all-time favorite song remains the wonderfully indescribable "Let It Out" a.k.a. Let It All Hang Out by the even more indescribable group from Memphis, The Hombres.
Some of these tunes were not novelty records at all, but hits by popular regional bands. . . no surprise there, as such popular regional groups as The Kingsmen and Paul Revere & The Raiders had #1 hits (both recorded Louie Louie).
Lousiana's own John Fred And His Playboy Band had one ridiculously catchy hit.
There were a slew of these records in 1965-1967. Some were profoundly influenced by r&b music, such as Philadelphia's Soul Survivors.
Others personified the sound of soul music!
Quite a few worthy 1960's rock groups, such as Love with Arthur Lee and the San Francisco Bay Area's Beau Brummels did not make it into this post because they actually had more than one Top 40 hit! Very much drawing from the influence of The Beau Brummels, The Beatles and the Pet Sounds era Beach Boys, as well as The Left Banke, a stylish Baroque Pop group which had TWO hits in 1966-1967, the one hit record by The Mojo Men is pure pop delight.
Other bands heard on the radio in the mid-1960's were less from state-of-the-art recording studios in the George Martin - Brian Wilson tradition than from their garages. Fun With Fender, Gibson and Silvertone electric guitars sometimes translated into massive garage band hits. As the cornerstones of Rhino Records' vinyl and CD compilations, Nuggets volumes 1 and 2: Original Artyfacts From The First Psychedelic Era 1965-1968 + Original Artyfacts From The British Empire & Beyond, these tunes are also on Rhino's YouTube playlist.
A group that influenced later punk rock bands, San Jose's psychedelic rockers Count Five, their one album championed by Lester Bangs in his book Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung, had just one national hit single, but made the most of their moment in the spotlight. Their hit Psychotic Reaction would later be a much covered garage rock classic, performed by bands ranging from The Cramps to Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers.
The mid-1960's was a time in which Captain Beefheart, closer to the surrealist soundscapes of Ornette Coleman and Albert Ayler in his records just a few years later (Trout Mask Replica and Lick My Decals Off, Baby) than anything in pop, actually appeared on Where The Action Is singing his one hit, Diddy Wah Diddy.
Getting back to that one hit wonder sideline, the novelty record, sometimes a true oddball piece of genius, such as the aforementioned Rubber Biscuit by The Chips, would make it into the Oldies But Goodies playlist.
The first song this music nut remembers hearing on Top 40 radio that was definitely a Dr. Demento style novelty number, besides Bobby "Boris" Pickett's The Monster Mash, was this ditty by Napoleon XIV.
There were others, not just the great comedy records by Stan Freberg and Allan Sherman but the following, the only hit record by Jim Backus & Friend (Hermione Gingold?), backed by Appleknocker & His Group! Don't remember hearing this on our AM stations, but it is so funny, Delicious merits inclusion here as an inspired novelty record.
The song that got the ball rolling in the novelty record field was the infamous Okeh Laughing Record, from the same label that brought the world King Oliver, Louis Armstrong, Mamie Smith and Bix Beiderbecke.
Thirty years later, Tex Avery made a very funny and very diabolical cartoon based on this record.
Decades later, the 1-hit wonders captivated my imagination so much I was thrilled to see Tom Hanks' movie about a 1960's band, That Thing You Do.
Also absolutely love the Wonders' rather Dave Clark 5 like title song, their one hit.
As Mr. Hanks is now appearing in a 21st century movie about 20th century icon, educator, children's program mastermind and nice fellow Fred Rogers, ending on a reference to Tom's film strikes this writer as the best way to say adieu and wish all readers a good weekend.
