Born Declan Patrick MacManus, Elvis Costello was raised in
London and Liverpool, grandson of a trumpet player on the
White Star Line and son of a jazz musician who became a
successful radio dance-band vocalist. Costello went into the
family business and before he was twenty-four took the
popular music world by storm.
Costello continues to
add to one of the most intriguing and extensive songbooks of
our day. His performances have taken him from strumming a
cardboard guitar in his parents’ front room to fronting a
rock and roll band on our television screens and performing
in the world’s greatest concert halls in a wild variety of
company. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink
describes how Costello’s career has endured for almost four
decades through a combination of dumb luck and animal
cunning, even managing the occasional absurd episode of pop
stardom.
This memoir, written entirely by Costello,
offers his unique view of his unlikely and sometimes comical
rise to international success, with diversions through the
previously undocumented emotional foundations of some of his
best-known songs and the hits of tomorrow. It features many
stories and observations about his renowned cowriters and
co-conspirators, though Costello also pauses along the way
for considerations of the less appealing side of fame. Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink provides
readers with a master’s catalogue of a lifetime of great
music. Costello reveals the process behind writing and
recording legendary albums like My Aim Is True,
This Year’s Model, Armed Forces, Almost
Blue, Imperial Bedroom, and King of
America. He tells the detailed stories, experiences, and
emotions behind such beloved songs as “Alison,” “Accidents
Will Happen,” “Watching the Detectives,” “Oliver’s Army,”
“Welcome to the Working Week,” “Radio Radio,”
“Shipbuilding,” and “Veronica,” the last of which is one of
a number of songs revealed to connect to the lives of the
previous generations of his family.
Costello recounts
his collaborations with George Jones, Chet Baker, and T Bone
Burnett, and writes about Allen Toussaint's inspiring return
to work after the disasters following Hurricane Katrina. He
describes writing songs with Paul McCartney, the Brodsky
Quartet, Burt Bacharach, and The Roots during moments of
intense personal crisis and profound sorrow. He shares
curious experiences in the company of The Clash, Tony
Bennett, The Specials, Van Morrison, and Aretha Franklin;
writing songs for Solomon Burke and Johnny Cash; and touring
with Bob Dylan; along with his appreciation of the records
of Frank Sinatra, David Bowie, David Ackles, and almost
everything on the Tamla Motown label.
Costello
chronicles his musical apprenticeship, a child's view of his
father Ross MacManus' career on radio and in the dancehall;
his own initial almost comical steps in folk clubs and
cellar dive before his first sessions for Stiff Record, the
formation of the Attractions, and his frenetic and
ultimately notorious third U.S. tour. He takes readers
behind the scenes of Top of the Pops and Saturday
Night Live, and his own show, Spectacle, on which
he hosted artists such as Lou Reed, Elton John, Levon Helm,
Jesse Winchester, Bruce Springsteen, and President Bill
Clinton.
The idiosyncratic memoir of a singular man,
Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink is destined
to be a classic.
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