Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello
Elvis Costello performing in June 2005
Background information
Birth name
Declan Patrick MacManus
Also known
as
D.P. Costello
Napoleon Dynamite
Born
25 August 1954 (1954-08-25)
London, England
Genre(s)
Rock
Pub rock
New Wave
Punk rock
20th Century
Occupation(s) Musician, Singer-songwriter
Instrument(s) Vocals, Guitar, Piano/Keyboards, Bass,
Drums, Ukulele, Glockenspiel, Mandolin,
Tambourine, Harmonica, Melodica,
Celesta, Harmonium, Organ, Cymbal, Vox
Continental electric organ, Synclavier,
Casiotone, Maracas, Bells
Years active
1970–Present
Label(s)
Stiff, Radar, F-Beat, Demon, Columbia,
Warner Bros., Deutsche Grammophon,
Lost Highway
Associated
acts
The Attractions, The Imposters, Diana
Krall, Burt Bacharach, Brodsky Quartet
Website
Elvis Costello.com
Notable instrument(s)
Fender Jazzmaster
Fender Telecaster
Gibson "Century of Progress" Signature Acoustic Guitar
Elvis Costello
(born Declan Patrick
MacManus, 25 August 1954) is an English
singer-songwriter. He came to prominence as
an early participant in London’s pub rock
scene in the mid-1970s, and later became as-
sociated with the punk rock and New Wave
musical genres, before establishing his own
unique voice in the 1980s. Steeped in word-
play, the vocabulary of Costello’s lyrics is
broader than that of most popular songs. His
work has drawn on many diverse musical
genres; critic Stephen Thomas Erlewine
wrote, "Costello, the pop encyclopedia, can
reinvent the past in his own image".[1]
Biography
Costello
was
born Declan
Patrick
MacManus[2] in St Mary’s Hospital, Pad-
dington in London, the son of Mary (née Cos-
tello) and Ross MacManus, a musician and
bandleader.[3] He is of Irish heritage.[4] Cos-
tello lived in Twickenham, attending what is
now St Mark’s Catholic Secondary School in
neighbouring Hounslow.[5] With a musically
inclined father (his father sang with The Joe
Loss Orchestra), Costello’s first broadcast re-
cording was alongside his dad in a television
commercial for R. White’s Lemonade ("I’m a
Secret Lemonade Drinker"