Pool Of Sound - Elvis Costello

Although born in London, it has been stated that Elvis Costello is the greatest songwriter with Liverpool links since John Lennon and Paul McCartney.
Elvis has especially strong family links to Birkenhead. His grandparents, Pat and Mabel McManus, lived in Conway Street, where their son Ross (Elvis's father) was born in 1927. The family was steeped in music: Pat was a trumpeter in ships' orchestras on the transatlantic cruise liners that sailed from Liverpool, while Ross, as well as being a talented trumpet player himself, was to achieve national fame as a singer with the Joe Loss Orchestra. He was also behind one of the most popular commercials of the 1970s, "the secret lemonade drinker" ad for R White, for which his son provided backing vocals.
Elvis's mother, Lilian Ablett was, like Ross, a descendant of Irish emigrants and came from Liverpool's Smithdown Road. The two were both working in and around London when they met, and it was through music that they came together. Ross was playing and singing with jazz bands, while Lilian helped to run jazz clubs and also sold records at Selfridges in Oxford Street. They married in 1952, and Elvis was born two years later, in Paddington, West London. He was though christened at Holy Cross Church in Birkenhead as Declan Patrick MacManus (the spelling of the family surname had slightly altered over the years).
Elvis has said that, "as a child, all my holidays were in Merseyside", and he developed a strong affinity with the region: he was a passionate Liverpool supporter, for example, whose footballing hero was Roger Hunt. When his parents split up at the end of the Sixties his mother returned to Liverpool and took her son to live with her in West Derby. For Elvis, who was now sixteen, the move meant – as he later told an interviewer – 'going home, really'.

Allan Mayes, Alan Brown and Elvis in 'Rusty'.

Elvis lived in Liverpool from 1970 to 1973 and studied for his A levels at St Francis Xavier’s School, also gaining his first solid music experience in Liverpool as a performer. Earlier in 1970 he'd made his first solo (unpaid) appearance at a folk club in London, but during his time in Liverpool he began performing for money and also more regularly. He joined a band called 'Rusty', whose repertoire included songs by Van Morrison, Neil Young and Bob Dylan.
They did poetry readings, as poetry was still quite big then in Liverpool with the likes of Adrian Henry and Roger McGough. If there were going to be four poets doing a reading somewhere they would do the musical section. It was all arty and seems somewhat pretentious now, but at the time it was acceptable for people to be reading their poetry and singing their own songs. Declan, as he was known then, was getting a cab home from a gig and the cab driver owned a club.When he saw Declan getting into the cab with a guitar he said, "I've got this club called The Temple Bar. Oh, you play folk music? Why don't you come play a night every week in my bar?" Declan phoned Allan Mayes the next day and said: "We'd been offered this gig. Guy's never seen us play but wants us to run this place. We take the door money."

A teenage Declan

Now playing as a duo they ended up doing a regular gig every Tuesday for possibly a year playing a set, doing a solo set each, playing another set together and inviting local guys to come and play for free or pay some guys a couple of dollars. They met a lot of local folk musicians during that time. They also played at other venues as well as the Temple Bar such as the Lamplight in Wallasey, St George's Hall, Quarry Bank School and Liverpool University. He witnessed he death of his 17 year old schoolfriend Tony Byrne which seemed to affect him enormously. However he kept his Friday-night date to sing a few songs at the Lamplight, a folk evening lodged within the Remploy Social Club, which was attached to a factory staffed by people with disabilities. He has no memory of what he may have sung that evening as he was probably in shock. On the 28th of April 1972, they played support to a psychedelic folk trio called the 'Natural Acoustic Band' at Quarry Bank, John Lennon's old school.
Elvis's songs often contain echoes of the Merseyside he knew as a child and a young man. After completing his education he 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.
Elvis moved back to London in 1974 and has won multiple awards in his career, including a Grammy Award and has twice been nominated for the Brit Ward for Best British Male Singer. In 2003 'Costello and the Attractions' were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In 2004 Rolling Stone magazine ranked Elvis Costello at Number 80 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He played a homecoming gig at the Liverpool Philharmonic Hall on the 25th of June 2006 and in July 2008, as Declan McManus was awarded an honorary degree of Doctor of Music from the University of Liverpool. In 2010 he sang Penny Lane to Barack Obama at the White House, explaining that his mother came 'about half a mile away' from where the song is set…

see also :- http://www.thefootballvoice.com/2019/06/pool-of-sound-supercharge.html