Elvis Costello



Declan Patrick MacManus, OBE (born 25 August 1954), better known by his stage name Elvis Costello, is an English post-punk singer-songwriter. He has won multiple awards in his career, including Grammy Awards in 1999 and 2020, and has twice been nominated for the Brit Award for Best British Male Artist. In 2003, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Costello number 80 on its list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

Costello began his career as part of London's pub rock scene in the early 1970s and later became associated with the first wave of the British punk and new wave movement that emerged in the mid-to-late 1970s. His critically acclaimed debut album My Aim Is True was released in 1977. Shortly after recording it, he formed the Attractions as his backing band. His second album This Year's Model was released in 1978, and was ranked number 11 by Rolling Stone on its list of the best albums from 1967 to 1987. His third album Armed Forces was released in 1979, and features his highest-charting single, "Oliver's Army" (number 2 in the UK). His first three albums all appeared on Rolling Stone's list of the 500 Greatest Albums of All Time.

Costello and the Attractions toured and recorded together for the better part of a decade, though differences between them caused a split by 1986. Much of Costello's work since has been as a solo artist, though reunions with members of the Attractions have been credited to the group over the years. Costello's lyrics employ a wide vocabulary and frequent wordplay. His music has drawn on many diverse genres; one critic described him as a "pop encyclopaedia", able to "reinvent the past in his own image".

Costello has co-written several original songs for motion pictures, including "God Give Me Strength" from Grace of My Heart (1996, with Burt Bacharach) and "The Scarlet Tide" from Cold Mountain (2003, with T-Bone Burnett). For the latter, Elvis was nominated (along with Burnett) for the Academy Award for Best Original Song and the Grammy Award for Best Song Written for Visual Media.

Early life
Costello was born on 25 August 1954 at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, and is of Irish descent on his father's side. He is the son of Lilian Alda (née Ablett, b. 1927, Liverpool) and Ross MacManus (born in Birkenhead, Cheshire; 1927–2011), a jazz trumpeter who sang with the Joe Loss Orchestra and who later performed as a solo cabaret act. Costello lived in Twickenham, attending both St. Edmund's Catholic Primary School in nearby Whitton, and then Archbishop Myers Secondary Modern R.C. School – which is now St Mark's Catholic Secondary School – in neighbouring Hounslow.

In 1971, the 16-year-old Costello moved with his mother to Birkenhead – not far from her home city of Liverpool – where he formed his first band, a folk duo called "Rusty", with Allan Mayes. After completing his education at St. Francis Xavier's College in Liverpool, Costello worked at a number of office jobs to support himself, most famously at Elizabeth Arden, where he was employed as a data entry clerk. This is immortalised in the lyrics of "I'm Not Angry" as the "vanity factory". He also worked for a short period as a computer operator at the Midland Bank computer centre in Bootle.

He moved back to London in 1974, where he formed a pub rock band called "Flip City", who were active from 1974 until early 1976. Costello's first broadcast recording was with his father in a television commercial for R. White's Lemonade ("I'm a Secret Lemonade Drinker") which aired in 1974. His father sang the song, and Costello sang backing vocals; the advertisement won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival. He continued to write songs and began looking for a solo recording contract. He was signed in 1976 to independent label Stiff Records on the basis of a demo tape. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested that the singer, then calling himself D.P. Costello, start using the first name Elvis.