Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Pretty self-explanatory
Post Reply
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by johnfoyle »

Time Out (London), Nov. 9-16 1994



Return of the native



Elvis Costello’s new EP,‘London's Brilliant Parade’,
examines his love-hate relationship with the city of
his birth. In buoyant mood, he takes Steve Grant round
his personal landmarks, from a childhood in
Paddington, the South Bank, site of highbrow
collaborations for croissant-eaters, to the place
where he met his wife.

` Time Out want to do a concept interview,’ Elvis
Costello tells a friendly guy at the cavernous
Hammer-smith Palais sometime during our
motorised trek across London. We’re celebrating the
prodigal’s return to his birthplace for a series of
Friday night gigs at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire, the
release of an EP entitled ‘Londons Brilliant
Parade`and the euphoria surrounding his last album,
Brutal Youth’, described by the NME as ‘the most
singularly “Elvis Costello” record Elvis Costello’s
ever made’.

While that remark may sound every bit as paradoxical
as one of EC’s best lyrics, it was a mighty compliment
for a mighty collection of songs which took him hack
to the arms of the Attractions, the mean trio with
whom he performed on the classic albums from 1978’s
‘This Year’s Model, to their last collaboration ‘Blood
And Chocolate’ in 1986. On ‘Brutal Youth’,
bass-playing duties are shared between Attraction
Bruce Thomas and Nick Lowe, the vinyl-dripping
all-talent who produced the songs Costello is still
best known for: ‘Watching The Detectives’, ‘Oliver’s
Army’. ‘Alison’, ‘Accidents Will Happen’ and ‘(I Don’t
Want To Go To) Chelsea’. (Actually, one of the places
mentioned in the title song, ‘London’s Brilliant
Parade’, is Fulham Broadway, tube-stop for Stamford
Bridge, home of the bubbling boys in blue. When I
suggest a photo outside the main gates he splutters
with amused rage, every bit the diehard Liverpool fan.
Yes folks, he still don’t wanna go to Chelsea...)

Lowe has, inevitably, been unavailable for the London
dates and the subsequent national tour, but the
Attractions, focused by Steve Nieve’s swirling,
spooky, dirty organ and piano hooks, Thomas's
full-frontal bass and the surgical-boot insistency of
Pete Thomas on drums, promise some great fat-sounding
evenings. ‘I hope people let their hair down and leap
around like they did in the old days.'

Over 18 albums in 17 years, Elvis Costello has never
stopped very long to survey the scene, which is why
his relationship with the music media is never far
from prickly. As likely to collaborate on an Alan
Bleasdale or Roddy Doyle TV drama series, produce a
Celtic folk band or whistle Monteverdi as to bash out
the frenetic mocker ‘Pump It Up’, Elvis is a mellower,
more solid but still recognisable update of his old
snarling self. Though he came in on the back-end of
punk rock, this once self-styled cartoon nerd was
never into safety pins, tartan-kilts , razor-blades or
volleys of spit. ‘Punk was never about music, it was
about street-theatre and attitude,’ he says. What
Costello and his boys did was reinstate the three
minute pop song as the standard of excellence,
bringing back simplicity, danceability and structural
clarity to the music while simultaneously writing
lyrics of enormous wit, intelligence and even pathos.

Costellos writing runs from the startling — ‘She’s
filing her nails while they’re dragging the lake’ (the
shortest film-pitch in history?)- to the
open-endedly ambiguous . Rock music is too pacey to
carry too many levels of ambiguity, but Costello is
still Britain’s best when it comes to constructing
lyrics. ‘Oliver’s Army’, which he wrote in Belfast, is
named for the man who founded the first ‘genuinely
national armed forces',the hated Oliver Cromwell, who
reminds him of his Hammersmith convent-school youth.
He was a devil incarnate to the Christian brothers .
' We used to sing very Catholic pieces, they’d be
frowned on today as not being in the spirit of church
unity, things like “Oh Glorious Spirit of
St Patrick’s” and ‘Faith of Our Fathers”, lots of take
on the history of England from the old-religion
martyr’s perspective . And we’d sing the Latin mass
without knowing what it meant but loving every line.’

Costello writes music about music in the same way that
Quentin Tarantino makes films about film, but as yet
Tarantino has no body of work which includes the
equivalent of an underrated collaboration with the
Brodsky Quartet, or a song like ‘Shipbuilding’
(included on the new EP) with its soaring trumpet
voluntary from Chet Baker, or the penultimate song on
‘Brutal Youth’, ‘All The Rage’, which is as fine a
song as he’s ever written, starting off like some mid-
tempo Tamla Motown ditty, rising to a recriminatory
Lennon-style vocal climax. ‘Though I'll never
be/Unhappy like you want me to be/ Still, it’s all the
rage’. He's not quite all the rage again, but he’s
definitely back with a vengeance.

Don’t look at me, I’m having the time of my life /Or
something quiet like it/When I’m walking out and about
in London’s Brilliant Parade.../There were horses in
Olympia/and a trolley bus in Fulham Broadway.


46 Avon more Road, W14

Elvis suggests that we start at the Earl’s Court Road,
not far from St Mary’s 1k Hospital , Paddington ,where
he was born in August 1954 to musician Ross McMauus
—later a successful vocalist with the Joe Loss
Orchestra
— and Lillian Costello, whose jobs included
bathing the baby Declan in the sink of their basement
flat and working in the record department of
Selfridges’s ‘when it was a place of glittering.
childhood wonder and not the tacky tourist trap it
seems like now.'

He remembers the quietness of the street in contrast
to the ‘hostile boom of contemporary London', the
horses and carts that delivered coal and milk, the
delivery vans from Harrods that brought ‘loaves of
bread to these little old ladies holed up in
second-floor bedsits’; the mix of neighbours who were
even then a contrary and cosmopolitan hunch. The
ground floor flat now looks ‘8Os-prosperous with
blinds and a fresh lick of paint, though at present
nobody’s home.
This is the setting for the sleeve photography on
‘Brutal Youth’, the infant Elvis pictured in cowboy
outfit aiming truly at the camera, with a black infant
chum who eventually moved back to Trinidad, and on the
balustrade with sister Cath.

He remembers the live in Welsh landlady, being
conscious of his grandfather dying of cancer back in
Liverpool, the frequent visits north by his parents,
the frightening sound of the chugging steam-engines
from the adjoining Olympia branch-line. Later on,
during our journey north he mentions his search to
find the orphanage in Southall where his grandfaher
was sent ’without any good reason at all' after the
First World War, uprooting him from his native
Birkenhead and making him ‘ready for life’ as a
wartime army bandsman at the Kneller Hall military
academy in Twickenham. There was also a flight of
steps leading three floors up to the roof, interesting
given Costello’s morbid fear of heights and vertigo,
reflected in some of the titles from the last album,
‘Thirteen Steps Lead Down’, ‘You Tripped at
EveryStep’and a line about Hungerford Bridge, of which
more later.

The most intriguing aspect of the flying visit is a
blue plaque directly opposite his own former address
but high up on the brick work commemorating the fact
that Edward Elgar lived there briefly in the l890s,
and doubly coincidental given that EC is currently
reading a book about the composer, ‘starting at the
end where all the interesting stuff is, but isn’t it
incredible? Still, he was nearly a century old when he
died, if they put up a plaque for every address he
lived in, every road must have one!'

At the Hammersmith Palais , in Kensington and Camden
Town/There`s a part that I used to play.




Le Palais, 242 Shepherd’s Bush Road, W6.


A quick schlep north-west across the flyover to the
sumptuous Hammersmith Palais where Elvis played with
the Attractions on Monday nights in the late ‘70s and
early ‘80s and where his dad sang with the Joe Loss
Orchestra for 14 years in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Renamed
Le Palais, the exotically dimmed venue will always be
the ‘Palais’ to those who remember the dance-band era
or the night of the Clash’s famous concert, which Elvis
attended. ‘Hope you play here again,’ says a friendly
employee, who reminds us that the venue was used for
the dance-sequences in Dennis Potters ‘ Lipstick on Your
Collar’.'

‘I can see how it sparked his imagination,’ says
Elvis, recalling how as a small boy he accompanied his
dad on Saturday afternoons ‘where the professional
dancers practised because sometimes there’d only be
five couples on the floor and this massive band all
dolled up in dress-tails and bow-ties. There’d be a
couple of token wallflowers in the corner, the odd
pervert, foxtrots, quicksteps and that horrible old
toilet and mothballs smell that Gordon Burn captured
in “Alma Cogan”. Dad would turn up but dancers don’t
like to practise to singers because it interferes with
their beat, too much rubato.

For me, the big events were not to do with dad,
because, well, that was his job, but sometimes I would
catch a glimpse of the pop bands arriving in some
beat-up van looking shagged out and very young. I
remember the Hollies coming in from Huddersfield and
thinking they were gods, and the bands always looked
so young, barely out of their teens, rather like they
do now which I think is great because in the ‘70's the
big rock stars were all people who’d grown hair or
beards or had breakdowns or gone to America and made
pots. I prefer rock to be about youth. It doesn’t do
so much for me because I was there in 1972, I don’t
need Bobbie Gillespie and Primal Scream — but if I was
14 and I thought Jagger was like Bing Crosby, then I’m
sure I’d love it. My music has always been influenced
by everything, layers upon layers. “This Year’s Model”
was about Dylan and the Beatles, but there’s also been
swing, Stax, Coltrane, Count Basic, Cole Porter,
Curtis Mayfield, Johnny Cash, the early Stones album
“Aftermath”, even Iggy Pop. There’s not much
difference between “homage” and plain old “nicking”,
only whether it sounds good or not.’

In the car he’s nervously looking through the music
for the Glenn Miller song ‘At Last’ which he is due to
sing with his 65-year-old dad at a special Barbican
gig the following Sunday.
‘I remember how great the
musicians were in Joe Loss’s band, how clever the
arrangements were, so simple, with just the right
amount of notes. I got lots of flak for the later
albums. “Mighty Like A Rose” and “Spike” especially
the critics said they were too elaborate, too
musically contrived, yet when we did our early stuff
virtually the same people said it was too unfinished,
too much like a demo tape. As if you don’t know what
you’re doing.

‘That’s what I hate about London, the cynicism, the
capacity for cruelty, the fact that there are too many
magazines telling people what to think, so that when
something different comes along they don’t know how to
listen and they just dump on it.
When we toured with
“The Juliet Letters” it was amazing how people
accepted it as what it was, an interesting musical
experiment, which I’m proud of, but which is only that,
it’s no big fucking deal. I’m not trying to change the
world, I’m just working, so it doesn’t get to me
because I’m on a different planet from all that
stuff.’ He pauses. ‘Don’t like the look of these
lyrics, though,, you just pick any line and spot the
next cliché.'

I wouldn’t want you to walk across Hungerford
Bridge/Even at twilight/Looking through the bolts and
girders/In the water below/You'll never find your
answer there/They sounded the all-clear ‘in the
occidental bazaar/They used to call Oxford Street/Now
the bankrupt souls in the city are finally tasting
defeat. . /The lovely Diorma is really part of the
drama, I’d say.


The Diorama, Regent’s Park, Hungerford Bridge and the
South Bank, SEI.


Elvis insists we go to the Diorama, Regent’s Park’s
pre-cinema moving-image theatre now in the midst of a
building programme, half-demolished and crawling with
hard-hatted, curious workers. It’s where he met his
wife, Cait O’Riordan, the former bass player with The
Pogues. Cait and he now live on the outskirts of
Dublin in a detached house next to a stables and an
old quarry where he can write without interruption
from neighbours. He doesn’t socialise because he hates
smoking: later when we stand shivering on Hungerford
Bridge I get the impression that hell to Elvis would
be being stuck on a land-locked suspension bridge with
a music critic blowing smoke in his face. He admits
that while Dublin is kinder, it’s also more parochial
and quicker to disapprove of the success of its own
kind. ‘That’s one of the reasons I’ve never made a big
thing about the Irish thing, even though half of my
family is Irish.’ Cait and he seem to have fun though;
recently they took a month-long language course in
Florence, rubbing shoulders with locals and students
and visiting the art-palaces in the evening. ‘My
Italian’s no better now though!’

When I ask about his writing methods, he illustrates
with a quote from the Tony Hancock film, ‘The Rebel’.
Hancock, the bogus toast of Parisian art, is asked how
he mixes his paints:’ In a bucket with a big stick,’
Hancock shouts, and then can’t understand why the
critics are all laughing. ‘That’s just like me. It
varies, it’s a mix-up, I might spread lines or verses
I’ve written over a three-month period over a page and
see how they connect, or I might just go berserk and
write five songs in a night and feel shaken by the
experience. There’s no pattern.’

From Hungerford Bridge we can see the South Bank,
where he’s masterminding two projects in the near
future, a Purcell treatment for four viols and
counter-tenor, and the musical directorship of
Meltdown, the South Bank’s annual festival of
contemporary music. Costello is going to make Meltdown
as eclectic as he can, opening the festival with a
‘fun evening of attack and counter-attack from the
South Bank up here to Hungerford Bridge where I might
have two music groups playing against each other, taxi
horns, then a touch of honks from the boats on the
Thames, like a musical fireworks display and if the
culturati don’t like it, then they can fuck off.
There’s too much of an invisible barrier between
people and the South Bank, there’s so much good stuff
going on there. I went to a concert by Monterverdi
recently and it sounded like it was written yesterday
in the best possible sense. Don’t like the name
“Meltdown” though, it sounds like one of those fucking
burger-bars in LA.’

His presence on the bridge is noted by passers-by,
someone mutters ‘that’s the first time I’ve seen you
smile’ as Elvis poses for the camera, a remark which
prompts a friendly response but later a rather surly
swipe about ‘lovable cockneys’. ‘I can’t stand being
over land, I’m not so bad over water. I can swim, but
I can’t fly. In ‘London’s Brilliant Parade” I don’t
actually insult anyone’s intelligence by talking about
the homeless squats around here, but
that’s what happens when you look below, that’s what I
mean by “the bolts and girders below’. The whole song
was dreamt up as a kind of fantasy about good old
swinging London, what Alan Parker calls “Red Bus
Movies” which always seem so gaudy and bright and
wonderful but are never quite real and always have
Oliver Reed or Hywel Bennett in them.

‘But the way London’s changed makes it all the more
sinister, it’s like being in a dream you don’t want to
awake from; Oxford Street is just full of roadwork’s
and jangling loudspeaker voices selling crap; there’s
drugs and yuppies, and City crooks and canting scum
like Lilley and Portillo, and there were bomb warnings
going off at the time I wrote it. So even though it’s
a celebratory song about the place and about the good
times I had playing at small venues like the Nashville
and the Hope and Anchor, it’s also got an edge to it.
Actually, I’m genuinely surprised that there hasn’t
been a lone assassination attempt against some of the
Tory die-hards. I’m not welcoming it, and I’m glad
we’ve all stopped shooting each other for the time
being, but I’m staggered that some dispossessed angry
hasn’t gone berserk and attacked someone. The level of
politeness here sometimes beggars belief.’
When Elvis was five, his family, now wealthier through
Ross’s work with Joe Loss, moved from Olympia to a
maisonette in Richmond where he got his first inklings
about the ‘60s rock revolution from a teenage girl
neighbour who knew about The Stones and later The Who
playing in local clubs. Costello says he learnt
‘harmony from the Beatles. “Please Please Me” was
magical when I heard it. He moved out to Twickenham in
the early ‘60s where the family were neighbours to the
Yard-birds for a spell, went to school in Hounslow and
after a spell in Liverpool came back to London in the
mid-’70s, married his childhood sweetheart and found
himself working in the computer room of the Elizabeth
Arden cosmetics factory in North Acton.

‘The old IBM 360 computers were like something out of
“Billion Dollar Brain”, about a mile long but always
in need of servicing, so you’d he running up and down
this football pitch servicing the thing with all these
tapes spinning in concentric circles. They only let me
put the paper and panel cards in but they gave us all
white coats and we ponced around like
rocket-scientists, even though I spent a lot of time
skiving and reading papers and writing the odd song. I
made £20 a week in the end but it was bugger all then
as well, especially as I had a young family to
support. Without the overtime I didn’t really balance
the books but the thought of giving it up to go on the
road was a big gamble all the same.

He says that he’s looking forward to the national tour
that starts after the London dates and takes him back
to places he hasn’t visited for ten years, like
Ipswich where his attitude problems led to the band
being locked in the dressing room after the gig.
‘People have said we’re not very affectionate on stage
but we never were, we were never like Cream, you know,
coming out with towels round their shoulders, linking
arms and bowing to the adoring multitudes. I didn’t
like Bruce Thomas’s book about the Attractions tours
[‘The Big Wheel’]. He needed to get it off his chest
but I don’t think it was very good; but we get on much
better socially than we did in the old days. I mean we
don’t see each other much offstage and out of the
studio, but then we never did.’
Last edited by johnfoyle on Sat Feb 11, 2006 6:24 pm, edited 1 time in total.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Post by johnfoyle »

46 Avon more Road, W14

Elvis suggests that we start at the Earl’s Court Road,
not far from St Mary’s Hospital , Paddington ,where
he was born in August 1954 to musician Ross McMauus
—later a successful vocalist with the Joe Loss
Orchestra
— and Lillian Costello, whose jobs included
bathing the baby Declan in the sink of their basement
flat and working in the record department of
Selfridge’s ‘when it was a place of glittering.
childhood wonder and not the tacky tourist trap it
seems like now.'

He remembers the quietness of the street in contrast
to the ‘hostile boom of contemporary London', the
horses and carts that delivered coal and milk, the
delivery vans from Harrods that brought ‘loaves of
bread to these little old ladies holed up in
second-floor bedsits’; the mix of neighbours who were
even then a contrary and cosmopolitan hunch. The
ground floor flat now looks ‘8Os-prosperous with
blinds and a fresh lick of paint, though at present
nobody’s home.
This is the setting for the sleeve photography on
‘Brutal Youth’, the infant Elvis pictured in cowboy
outfit aiming truly at the camera, with a black infant
chum who eventually moved back to Trinidad, and on the
balustrade with sister Cath.
I'm in London for a few shows and , out of curiosity , went and spent an hour walking around the Avonmore Road area this afternoon.

Image

It`s a tatty , rundown area , with very few people around - well England were about to play a soccer game so maybe everyone was in looking at it. No.46 is being renovated yet again , with scaffolding all the way up the front of the building.

ImageImage
Image

A woman went in the front door as I strolled around . Some very upmarket apartment conversions are at the end of the street , lots of buzzers and security.
Image

Piles of garbage bags seemed to be everywhere - but then maybe it's been collected tomorrow or something.

Image


All the local shops are Asian run. A local pub - called the Three Kings - looked especially awful, all garish colours , formica tables and slot machines. The St George Cross English flag is drapped everywhere - that soccer thing again.

All in all , definitely an area to leave.

In case anyone wants directions on how to get there they could check out the site for The Avonmore Hotel , which is down the street , and features these directions -

http://www.avonmorehotel.fsnet.co.uk/maps.htm

West Kensington Underground Station
Turn right on exiting the station - you will be in North End Road. Walk straight ahead past through the traffic lights. On your right hand side you will see Barclays Bank. Turn right at the bank into Matheson Road and walk to the end of the road. You will come to Avonmore Road and will see the Hotel. This short walk will take 4 minutes.

......and this map -

Image

and this exterior photo , a similar frontage to Elvis' childhood home -

Image
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Post by johnfoyle »

I've finally got around to adding photos to this !

Plus this -
The most intriguing aspect of the flying visit is a
blue plaque directly opposite his own former address
but high up on the brick work commemorating the fact
that Edward Elgar lived there briefly in the l890s,
and doubly coincidental given that EC is currently
reading a book about the composer , ‘starting at the
end where all the interesting stuff is, but isn’t it
incredible? Still, he was nearly a century old when he
died, if they put up a plaque for every address he
lived in, every road must have one!'
Image
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Post by johnfoyle »

not far from St Mary’s Hospital , Paddington ,where
he was born in August 1954 to musician Ross McMauus
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/tm_objecti ... _page.html

18 February 2006
GIVE HIM ARTHUR CHANCE..
Old-fashioned name for Tory leader Cameron's new baby

By Victoria Ward

( extract)

TORY leader David Cameron has taken a step back in time - by naming his newborn son Arthur.

Mr Cameron and Samantha posed for pictures with little Arthur at their London home yesterday.

He was born at 11.55am on Valentine's Day at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Post by johnfoyle »

Bump!
Harry
Posts: 17
Joined: Sun Dec 26, 2010 3:10 pm
Location: London, England
Contact:

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by Harry »

I enjoyed reading this thread and agree with you all that Brutal Youth was splendid.
Great photos/research John.
User avatar
verbal gymnastics
Posts: 13635
Joined: Wed Jun 11, 2003 6:44 am
Location: Magic lantern land

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by verbal gymnastics »

And it was great rereading it.
Who’s this kid with his mumbo jumbo?
Riddler
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:41 am

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by Riddler »

Re-reading the Time Out article, I see a reference to EC's sister "Cath". I always thought EC was an only son (of Ross and Lillian; I know about the half brothers from Ross's subsequent marriage). Can anyone confirm this. It changes my picture of EC a little if he wasn't an only child. I remember seeing the TO article when it came out but can't recall registering the Cath comment then.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by johnfoyle »

Re-reading the Time Out article, I see a reference to EC's sister "Cath".
This -
This is the setting for the sleeve photography on
‘Brutal Youth’, the infant Elvis pictured in cowboy
outfit aiming truly at the camera, with a black infant
chum who eventually moved back to Trinidad, and on the
balustrade with sister Cath
.
is in the cutting from the print edition I've just checked it against. Since it clearly contradicts all other accounts I can only presume it is clumsy wording and the 'Cath' is a sister of the' black infant chum'. Well spotted all the same Riddler!
Riddler
Posts: 12
Joined: Sun Aug 02, 2009 8:41 am

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by Riddler »

That's what I thought John. I just looked at the photo again though and there is no way Cath is colored. Now I'm Really Mystified.
User avatar
And No Coffee Table
Posts: 3518
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2003 2:57 pm

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by And No Coffee Table »

Based on Brutal Youth's dedication "to Gordon, Joel & Christine... It seems like yesterday," I assume "Cath" is actually named Christine.

We already know Joel is in the sunbathing photo. Gordon must be kneeling on the front cover.
johnfoyle
Posts: 14851
Joined: Wed Jun 04, 2003 4:37 pm
Location: Dublin , Ireland

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by johnfoyle »

The Time Out feature used in this is now on wiki -

http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... er_9,_1994
User avatar
Man out of Time
Posts: 1823
Joined: Fri Jul 06, 2007 8:15 am
Location: just off the coast of Europe
Contact:

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by Man out of Time »

johnfoyle wrote:Sat Feb 11, 2006 - A local pub - called the Three Kings - looked especially awful, all garish colours , formica tables and slot machines
The Famous Three Kings (F3K) as it now styles itself, now gives no hint of its place in Rock and Roll History. http://www.f3k-london.co.uk/AboutUs.aspx
However this pub was previously called "The Nashville Rooms" and among the bands that played early gigs here were the Sex Pistols, The Jam, Siouxsie & The Banshees and Joy Division.

http://www.shadyoldlady.com/location.php?loc=567

Elvis played ten shows here in 1977, some solo and some with The Attractions. http://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/inde ... ille_Rooms

This choice of venue makes more sense if you know he used to live nearby. The Famous Three Kings / Nashville Rooms is on the corner of the North End Road, which also features in the first line of the song "Basement Kiss" .

MOOT
User avatar
And No Coffee Table
Posts: 3518
Joined: Thu Aug 21, 2003 2:57 pm

Re: Elvis revisits his London childhood ( 1994)

Post by And No Coffee Table »

EC is quoted in an obituary for Betty Lucas, the mother of his childhood friend Joel.
Like many Australians of their era, the Petersons moved to London. During their first stint, in the 1950s, Lucas was the junior lead at the Playhouse, Nottingham. During their second, in the early 1960s, they lived next door to the bandleader Ross MacManus, his wife Lillian, and their son Declan. Their son Joel and Declan, both only children, became close.

Declan, now the singer Elvis Costello, has fond memories of Lucas: "I remember Betty took Joel and me to our first Shakespearean play. She made it seem magical and not at all forbidding, and she didn't mind when we turned her front room into our 'Cavern' in an attempt to master Gerry and The Pacemakers' How Do You Do It, armed with cardboard guitars and biscuit tins for drums."
http://www.smh.com.au/comment/obituarie ... mld8v.html
Post Reply