Complicated Shadows Read online

  First published in Great Britain in 2004 by

  Canongate Books Ltd, 14 High Street,

  Edinburgh, EH1 1TE

  This digital edition first published by Canongate in 2013

  Copyright © Graeme Thomson, 2004

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  Every effort has been made to trace the copyright holders of the photographs used in this book

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A catalogue record for this book is available on request from the British Library

  ISBN 1 84195 665 1

  eISBN 978 1 78211 163 4

  Typeset in Sabon by Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Polmont, Stirlingshire

  Book design by James Hutcheson

  www.canongate.tv

  For my own ‘Three Distracted Women’:

  Jen, Kat – and my mother, Kathleen.

  Contents

  Acknowledgements

  ‘Drunken Talk Isn’t Meant To Be Printed in the Paper’

  PART ONE:

  The Great Unknown

  CHAPTER ONE: 1954–73

  CHAPTER TWO: 1973–75

  CHAPTER THREE: 1976–77

  PART TWO:

  Don’t Come Any Closer, Don’t Come Any Nearer

  CHAPTER FOUR: 1977–78

  CHAPTER FIVE: 1978–79

  CHAPTER SIX: 1979–80

  CHAPTER SEVEN: 1980–81

  CHAPTER EIGHT: 1981–83

  CHAPTER NINE: 1983–86

  CHAPTER TEN: 1986–87

  PART THREE:

  Having It All

  CHAPTER ELEVEN: 1987–89

  CHAPTER TWELVE: 1990–91

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN: 1991–93

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN: 1993–95

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN: 1995–96

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN: 1996–99

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: 2000–01

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: 2001–04

  Notes and Sources

  Index

  Acknowledgements

  THERE ARE NUMEROUS PEOPLE TO THANK for their contributions to the writing of this book. Like Blanche DuBois in A Streetcar Named Desire, the biographer also finds himself relying on ‘the kindness of strangers’ to a slightly worrying degree. As such, the most significant input came from the memories, opinions, insights and revelations of those who know or have known Elvis Costello, and who provided the raw material for much of this biography in hundreds of hours of taped interviews conducted between August 2002 and April 2004.

  Everyone I spoke to gave their time freely and generously, and in particular I would like to thank: Robert Azavedo, Roger Bechirian, Bebe Buell, Marianne Burgess, Brian Burke, Paul Cassidy, Philip Chevron, John Ciambotti, Alex Cox, Chris Difford, Charlie Dore, Paul Du Noyer, Steve Earle, Dale Fabian, Jem Finer, Bill Frisell, Mitchell Froom, Bob Geldof, Charlie Gillett, Ian Gomm, Eric Goulden, Richard Harvey, Philip Hayes, Steve Hazelhurst, Larry Hirsch, Carole Jeram, Allan Jones, Clive Langer, Andrew Lauder, Allan Mayes, John McFee, Sean O’Hagan, Marc Ribot, Nick Robbins, Dave Robinson, Jerry Scheff, Paul Scully, David Sefton, Ricky Skaggs, Ken Smith, Mat Snow, Bruce Thomas and Ron Tutt.

  Not all of these interviewees are quoted directly in the book, but I thank them all individually, reserving special mention – for dedication above and beyond the call of duty – to: Brian Burke, Allan Mayes, Ken Smith, Steve Hazelhurst, Bruce Thomas and Philip Chevron.

  In addition, the input, interest and unwavering assistance of Richard Groothuizen at the Elvis Costello Information Service and Mark Perry and Mike Bodayle at the now sadly defunct Beyond Belief fanzine was invaluable, especially in the early research stages and in assisting with photographs; indeed, I can scarcely imagine where I would have been without them. I would also like to thank John and Martin Foyle and the numerous – and therefore, by necessity nameless – journalists, writers, record company employees and photographers who made the path of my research all the easier with their help and suggestions. Special thanks to Pennie Smith and Starfile (starfileonline.com) for their patience and flexibility.

  At the typeface, reliable and invaluable transcription help was provided by Dawn Hucker. Kate Beveridge also helped out with various time-consuming and hugely helpful tasks, running the gamut from tape transcription to correcting my spelling, a task she has been performing since I was old enough to write. For ploughing their way through the work in various draft stages and making numerous winning suggestions in bright ink, I would also like to thank my brother Gordon and my partner Jen.

  At Canongate, I tip my hat to Jamie Byng, Marney Carmichael, Jim Hutcheson and Andy Miller, whose collective input – and patience – aided the book in numerous ways, both technically and creatively. Thanks also to Deborah Kilpatrick for her meticulously efficient copy editing. Above all, I raise a glass to my editor Colin McLear for sterling work in the face of adversity. His contribution to the finished text is incalculable. Finally, I must also acknowledge the role Clare Pierotti played in getting the whole thing going – I think I still owe you a drink.

  To my colleagues and employers at all the publications I write for, for showing (varying, it must be said) degrees of understanding and patience while I finished the book – thank you. Special mentions to Michael Hodges, Mat Snow, Hugh Sleight, Gordon Thomson, Gavin Newsham and Bill Borrows, for help, guidance and wildly distracting e-mails.

  On a personal note, I pass my thanks back through the years to Chris Gaffney for lighting the Elvis torch, to Bevis Hughes for his help in keeping it burning, and to Martin Baker, my musical friend and foil before the flood. As ever, the lion’s share of love and thanks is reserved for my family – especially Mum and Gordon – for endless and ongoing support in all manner of ways. And to Jen, who was there at the beginning and still there at the end: for allowing me to frequently go emotionally AWOL, and for tolerating my obsessive jabberings on the occasions when I was present, always with humour, understanding and love – thank you most of all.

  Elvis faces his inquisitors during the combative press conference at CBS headquarters, New York, 30 March 1979.

  Credit: Starfile/Chuck Pulin

  ‘Drunken Talk Isn’t Meant To Be Printed in the Paper’1

  THE BAR OF A HOLIDAY INN is as good a place as any to die. Stranded in the nowhere lands between Cleveland and Cincinatti, Elvis Costello finally pulled the trigger in the game of Russian roulette he had recently been playing with his career. Drunk, wired and coiled tight with aggression, a one-sided, after-hours slanging match with Stephen Stills and his entourage escalated to the point where Elvis branded James Brown ‘a jive-ass nigger’ and Ray Charles as ‘nothing but a blind, ignorant nigger’. Never keen on half-measures, Elvis also described the British as ‘original white boys’ and Americans as ‘colonials’.

  Initially, the incident seemed like just another example of the increasingly desperate escapades that Elvis and The Attractions were making their speciality: too much attitude, too much of everything, swapped insults, a scuffle. But while Elvis emerged the following morning remembering little of what he had said or done, he would soon be reminded in intimate detail. The sorry tale that spilled out from the bar in Columbus, Ohio would slam the brakes on his swift ascendance in the United States. It was the story the circling US media had been waiting for, and they would make sure they seized their opportunity with both hands.

  * * *

  It had been going so well. Of all the loosely-labelled British punk and new wave hopefuls of the late 1970s, Costello alone had struck gold prospecting across the Atlantic. With a band that could swing and punch in a way which everyone – even the Americans, especially the Americans – could instinctively understand, he had managed to bully and inveigle h
is way into the hearts and minds of the critics and music-buying public with a trio of best-selling albums that had invited comparison with the best of Dylan, Springsteen and The Beatles.

  By March 1979, he was poised to go the extra yard, right up to the big league. Armed Forces had lodged in the US Top 10 as Elvis and The Attractions were marauding through the country on the ‘Armed Funk’ tour, their fourth US trip in a little over a year and, by far, the most important and intensive: fifty-seven dates in barely two months. With Elvis up for a Grammy for Best New Artist, CBS viewed Armed Forces in much the same way as they had regarded Bruce Springsteen’s third album, Born To Run in 1975: it was the record intended to make the artist not just a star, but a superstar.

  ‘We either make it all the way with Armed Forces or we don’t,’ said Elvis’s manager Jake Riviera on the eve of the tour. ‘If this album doesn’t break us in America then Columbia will still keep us, but we’ll be considered pretty much a spent force.’1

  Elvis was feeling the pressure. Uneasy about the way fame was making him feel and allowing him to behave, he seemed a heavily fuelled mixture of nerves, paranoia and arrogance. The tour matched his mood. Characterised by a series of nasty stand-offs and set-tos, the slow-burning sense of menace finally ignited on 15 March, following a show at The Agora Club in Columbus.

  It took more than a week for details of the Holiday Inn incident to spread. Stills’ backing singer Bonnie Bramlett had been a witness to the outburst, and wasn’t inclined to dismiss Elvis’s behaviour on the grounds that it had arrived in a moment of private, drunken idiocy. She began relaying details to the local press, and within a few days the Village Voice, New York’s highly influential and righteously liberal commentator, was running the story, openly accusing Elvis of racism. People magazine and other nationals rapidly picked up the baton, with the result that the records began disappearing from radio playlists, and even from some shops.

  As the furore gathered pace, Elvis adhered to his long-standing omerta towards the press. But by the time he arrived in New York on 30 March, he – and more significantly CBS – realised that something had to be done to counter-act the tide of negative publicity and ill-feeling. As well as the material damage to his career, an estimated 150 death threats came flooding in. In the circumstances, Elvis was left with no other option but to accede to Columbia’s insistence for an emergency press conference. It was finally time for him to face his pursuers. And himself.

  The conference was conducted in the appropriately soulless surroundings of the fourteenth floor of CBS headquarters on 57th Street in Manhattan. Part suicide, part mass-execution, it was witnessed by a throng of journalists who had been roundly ignored, alienated, and, at times, physically threatened by the Elvis camp over the course of the tour. Summoned with only a couple of hours’ notice, over fifty New York journalists had made the trip to the press conference, relishing the chance to take a retaliatory swipe at the man who had declared himself virtually untouchable.

  ‘Because of the attitude he’d had previously towards the press, he really set himself up,’ Rolling Stone writer Kurt Loder later said. ‘Here he is touring America, putting down Americans. There were some people – definitely – who were ready to push him on this one.’2 And push him they did, right over the edge.

  Elvis arrived expecting a rough ride. ‘I never – ever – thought I’d be in this position,’ he began nervously, and from the outset the articulacy so evident in his songs deserted him. He appeared to the world jumpy, wired, still trying to punch his way out of a corner despite the odds being stacked so heavily against him. It was standard practice for Elvis to up-the-ante whenever he felt he was under attack, and here he opted for a combative approach rather than a conciliatory one. Snapping at photographers and journalists alike, at no point did Elvis ever try to deny his remarks about James Brown and Ray Charles, although he did question whether they were reported verbatim.

  ‘In the course of the argument, it became necessary for me to outrage [Stills and his people] with the most obnoxious and offensive remarks that I could muster,’ he explained. ‘I said the most outrageous thing I could possibly say to them – that I knew, in my drunken logic, would anger them more than anything else. It was in the context of an argument that I used certain words and that is not my opinion, and that’s what I’ve come here to say.’

  He then expressed regret ‘if people got needlessly angry about it’, but made it clear he was offering no apology to Stephen Stills or Bonnie Bramlett, ‘who now seem to have chosen to seek publicity at my expense by making it a gossip item’. Nor was he going to say sorry to anybody else. ‘As I’m not a racist, why do I have to apologise?’ he asked.

  The press corps were quick to pick up on the overtones of the statement, which echoed the ‘please don’t ask me to apologise’ stance from This Year’s Model’s ‘Hand In Hand’. Inevitably, having spent such a long time being denied access to Elvis, they were not especially inclined to believe that he went around in private saying things that he didn’t believe.

  Playing such a dangerously high-handed game with the media throughout the tour had left little room for manoeuvre. When Elvis complained that his words had been quoted out of context, that nobody had bothered to contact him for an explanation, the full pent-up resentment of the press corps came back at him.

  ‘You weren’t available for comment,’ shouted Richard Goldstein from the Village Voice. ‘I tried for hours to reach you. You made yourself unavailable! Don’t blame it on the press. It’s not the press, it’s you! You said it and you were unavailable to clarify it.’

  If there was more than a hint of schadenfreude in the room, it was only to be expected. To many present, the remarks tallied neatly with the kind of bully-boy attitude that the Costello camp had made their speciality. Indeed, his behaviour in the Holiday Inn seemed to complement the withering contempt of much of his music, and soon the lyrics of Armed Forces were being artlessly picked over – particularly the references to ‘darkies’ in ‘Sunday’s Best’ and ‘white niggers’ and ‘itchy triggers’ in ‘Oliver’s Army’ – in the hope that they might take on more sinister connotations in the current context. As ever, Elvis showed no appetite for debate or dissection, which did little to help his cause. He simply kept repeating his mantra, over and over. ‘I am not a racist. It ain’t the truth, and that’s all I’m gonna say.’

  Even those members of the press who accepted his explanation still couldn’t understand why it was so necessary to offend Stills and his friends. Where did all this hostility come from? When asked why he didn’t just leave the bar and walk away, Elvis pondered: ‘I suppose you can always get up and leave,’ as if the thought of avoiding confrontation had only just occurred to him. Maybe it had. There were a lot of ‘whys’ flying around the room, but they could all be distilled down to one essence: ‘Why are you so angry?’

  Elvis didn’t really have an answer. Increasingly trapped in a persona that was so rigidly and aggressively combative it barely gave him room to breathe, he seemed almost consumed by the need to express rage. What he would previously do only for effect, he now did by instinct. What had once been a defined image was now – perhaps – the person he believed he really was.

  The initial impression of the man facing his inquisitors that March afternoon in Manhattan was of someone who couldn’t quite grasp what all the fuss was about, and who possessed neither the patience nor the inclination to explain himself fully to people he obviously despised. Only later did it become clear that not only the incident in Columbus and his desperate, back-to-the-wall last stand at the press conference, but indeed the entire ‘Armed Funk’ tour, had been an exercise in subconscious self-sabotage, destroying much of what he and The Attractions had spent two years creating.

  Perhaps he had simply become disgusted at what he saw and at what it allowed him to be. With a wife and child back in England, a glamourous model girlfriend, an excess of alcohol and cocaine in his bloodstream and a record at the top end of th
e charts on both sides of the Atlantic, Elvis had become a very mainstream exemplar of everything he had once professed to loathe. By the time he left CBS headquarters to return to the hyper-reality of the streets of New York, Elvis Costello – global rock star in waiting – was effectively dead. As he later admitted: ‘The press were looking for something to crucify me with and I fed myself to the lions.’3

  Now he could be whatever he wanted.

  PART ONE

  The Great Unknown

  Chapter One

  1954–73

  IT IS ALWAYS HARD TO DETERMINE exactly where genetic inheritance ends and destiny begins. Declan Patrick MacManus may have been raised in a household filled with music, but he was never groomed to play the role of professional musician. There was no formal tuition or education. From birth, he was simply immersed in an ocean of wide-ranging sounds as an integral part of a rounded, liberal and socially aware upbringing.

  Among the first half-dozen or so words that Declan ever uttered, according to his mother Lilian, were ‘Siameses’ and ‘skin, mummy’; straightforward requests for Peggy Lee’s ‘Siamese Cat Song’ and – more often – Frank Sinatra’s definitive version of ‘I’ve Got You Under My Skin’.

  ‘I used to request it before I could form proper sentences,’ he would later reflect. ‘I guess that’s a pretty young appreciation of Cole Porter.’1

  But it would be entirely wrong to suggest that there wasn’t also pedigree in the MacManus genes. Born on 25 August, 1954, in St Mary’s Hospital, Paddington, west London, the new arrival would – given time – simply become the greatest exponent of the family business.

  The musical bloodline can be traced back to the early 1900s. Declan’s paternal grandfather Patrick Matthew McManus2 was an accomplished trumpet player who learned his craft as a teenager at the Royal Military School of Music at Kneller Hall. The son of Irish emigrants, Pat was born in 1896 in the working-class, shipbuilding town of Birkenhead, directly across the river Mersey from Liverpool, and almost exclusively Irish in character in the latter part of the nineteenth century.