Elvis Costello began writing songs at the age of thirteen. 2017 marked the 40th anniversary of the release his first record album, “My Aim Is True”.

He is perhaps best known for the songs, “Alison”, “Pump It Up”, “Everyday I Write The Book” and his rendition of the Nick Lowe song, “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding”.

His record catalogue of more than thirty albums includes the contrasting pop and rock & roll albums, “This Year’s Model”, ”Armed Forces”, “Imperial Bedroom”, “Blood and Chocolate” and “King Of America” along with an album of country covers, “Almost Blue” and two collections of orchestrally accompanied piano ballads, “Painted From Memory” - with Burt Bacharach and “North”.

He has performed worldwide with his bands, The Attractions, His Confederates - which featured two members of Elvis Presley’s “T.C.B” band - and his current group, The Imposters – Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher - as well as solo concerts, most recently his acclaimed solo show, “Detour”.

Costello has entered into songwriting collaborations with Paul McCartney, Burt Bacharach, the Brodsky Quartet and with Allen Toussaint for the album “The River In Reverse”, the first major label recording project to visit New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina and completed there while the city was still under curfew.

Costello’s songs have been recorded by a great number of artists, including, George Jones, Linda Ronstadt, Georgie Fame, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, June Tabor, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Robert Wyatt, Anne Sofie von Otter, Solomon Burke and Darlene Love.

During his career, Costello has received numerous prestigious honors, including two Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, a Dutch Edison Award with The Brodsky Quartet for “The Juliet Letters”, the Nordoff-Robbins Silver Clef Award, a BAFTA for the music written with Richard Harvey for Alan Bleasdale’s television drama series “G.B.H.” and a Grammy for “I Still Have That Other Girl” from his 1998 collaboration with Burt Bacharach, “Painted From Memory”.

Elvis Costello and The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. In the same year, Costello was awarded ASCAP’s prestigious Founder’s Award.

In 2004 Costello was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song – “The Scarlet Tide,” co-written with T Bone Burnett and sung by Alison Krauss in the motion picture “Cold Mountain”

In 2016 Elvis Costello was inducted into the Songwriter’s Hall of Fame in the company of Chip Taylor and Tom Petty.

From 2011-2014: Having recorded the albums, “When I Was Cruel”, “The Delivery Man” and “Momofuku” together since 2002, Elvis Costello and The Imposters – Steve Nieve, Pete Thomas and Davey Faragher - toured for four years with “The Spectacular Spinning Songbook”, employing a 20-foot game-show wheel with which audience members selected the next song to be performed.

In 2015, the Penguin/Blue Rider imprint published Costello’s nuanced and evocative memoir, “Unfaithful Music and Disappearing Ink” while he was appearing in “Detour” a largely solo performance – although frequently augmented by Rebecca and Megan Lovell of Larkin Poe - in which anecdotes were connected to songs on the cue of archival photographs, cartoons and other visual oddities projected onto a giant vintage-style television set. This presentation recently concluded after 106 shows in 20 countries.

Look Now, released in October 2018 by Concord Records, was Costello's’ first collection of new material in five years and his first with The Imposters in a decade. Costello worked with co-producer Sebastian Krys at studios in Hollywood, New York City and Vancouver, British Columbia, to create an "uptown pop record.” In addition to the songs Costello wrote, the album included a collaboration with Carole King and three with Burt Bacharach, who plays piano on two, “Don’t Look Now” and “Photographs Can Lie”.

In 2019, Costello released the Purse EP, consisting of four songs containing songwriting collaborations with Burt Bacharach and Paul McCartney, as well as musical settings of lyrics by Johnny Cash and Bob Dylan. In the same year, Costello was: presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for songwriting, in Nashville by the Americana Music Association; awarded an O.B.E. (Officer of the Order of the British Empire) for his services to music on the Queens Birthday Honours List; and announced as a recipient of a Hollywood Walk of Fame star for the class of 2020

Elvis Costello is a writer and part-time musician who made a number of records in the 20th Century, some of which are still remembered today.

He was born in London and raised there and in Liverpool.

Costello is the composer or lyricist of over six hundred published titles, including fifteen songs co-written with Paul McCartney and renowned collaborations with Allen Toussaint, the Brodsky Quartet and T Bone Burnett.

Costello’s songwriting alliance with Burt Bacharach, began in 1995 with the song, “God Give Me Strength”, which led to the 1998 album, “Painted From Memory”, before their work was collected in 2023, on the four-album set, “The Songs Of Bacharach & Costello”.

Elvis Costello songs have been recorded by Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Chet Baker, Dusty Springfield, Solomon Burke, George Jones, Linda Ronstadt and Bjork, while among the artists with whom he has written songs are Loretta Lynn, Carole King, Rosanne Cash and Kris Kristofferson and his wife, Diana Krall.

Working purely as a lyricist, Costello has provided words for the music of Billy Strayhorn, Oscar Peterson and for twelve Charles Mingus compositions and as a composer, set twelve unpublished lyrics by Bob Dylan.

2024 will see the opening of “A Face In The Crowd”, Sarah Ruhl’s stage adaptation of the Budd Schulberg story for which Elvis Costello composed the songs.

“A Face In The Crowd” will open at the Young Vic in London, directed by Kwame Kwei-Armah and produced by Adam Kenwright.

Elvis Costello is the author of “Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink”, a more than six-hundred page memoir which has been translated into six languages. He has received a range of awards over his 45 year old career of which the induction into the Songwriters Hall Of Fame is probably the most significant.

Although he holds two honorary doctorates in music - one from the University of Liverpool and another from the New England Conservatory- Elvis Costello is known for playing the guitar with almost no regard for common sense.

Costello currently performs with The Imposters; his long time companions, drummer, Pete Thomas and pianist, Steve Nieve, bassist of twenty-three years standing, Davey Faragher and their special guest, Texas guitarist, Charlie Sexton.

Charlie Sexton, raised in Austin, Texas, made his debut with Pictures For Pleasure in 1985 at age 16. He followed that up with a self-titled second album when he was 20. Because word of his reputation as a prodigy guitar player spread far and wide, he found himself an in-demand session player while still in his late teens, and he had the opportunity to record with Ron Wood, Keith Richards and Bob Dylan.

 

From 1992 to 1994, he was a member of Austin's Arc Angels, along with Doyle Bramhall II, Tommy Shannon and Chris "Whipper'' Layton. That group recorded one self-titled album, released in 1992 on Geffen Records. By the time the Arc Angels decided to disband, Sexton was 24 years old and already pegged as a blues musician. But in fact, Sexton plays gutsy, fluid blues guitar, but also spirited rock 'n' roll guitar.

 

In 1994 and 1995, he formed and recorded with his new group, the Charlie Sexton Sextet, and his debut for MCA Records, Under The Wishing Tree, was released in 1995. Sexton's album was well-received by the critics. Under The Wishing Tree presents Sexton in an array of musical genres, touching on Celtic flavored rock, folk-rock and blues. There is a lot of interplay between guitars, violins, cellos, Dobros and mandolins on the recording, and Sexton's vocals ride high on top of the melodies. On his 1995 tour to support the album, he was accompanied by Susan Boelz, violin, Michael Ramos, organ, and George Reiff, bass and Rafael Gayol, drums.

 

As a songwriter, Sexton writes about what he knows, so Texas themes permeate his songs. He considers Bob Dylan his strongest songwriting influence, while he counts Austin legends Jimmie Vaughan and the late Stevie Ray Vaughan among his prime influences for guitar playing. His lyrics mix autobiographical experiences with images that are open to interpretation. More great things are in the offing for this guitarist, singer and songwriter as he recently signed a recording contract with Back Porch Records.