More Thoughts on Elvis Costello: The Boy Named If

Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Elvis Costello continues to charm the pants off his audiences. It’s something he’s done successfully in a music career that’s spanned more than five decades. He’s one of his generation’s greatest songwriters and performers – and one of many reasons I never tire of seeing him perform live in concert. 

Costello has worked diligently at his craft to attain a special place in the music world. Whether with a simple wink of the eye, a friendly smile or just the right choice of words and upbeat tone of voice, the bespectacled and iconic English musician, who was once described by a critic as a “pop encyclopedia,” has become a master of the craft of storytelling.

Last week at the Filene Center at Wolf Trap in Vienna, Va., near Washington, D.C., in what was my 13th time to see Costello in concert since the early ‘80s, Costello delighted the baby-boomer crowd with disposable money that flocked to see him and his band, the Imposters (Steve Nieve on keyboards, Pete Thomas on drums, Davey Faragher on bass, Charlie Sexton on assorted guitars) and joined by guest vocalist Nicole Atkins – plus special guests Nick Lowe and Los Straightjackets – with his good-natured manner and geniality of performing. The singer-songwriter, who turns 68 on August 25, has taken great care of himself and of the stories he shares with his audiences, through his musical lyrics and interpretation.

Nick Lowe and Los Straightjackets

Musically, throughout his 105-minute performance, Costello moved freely between playing a canon of his most-recognized hits – “Accidents Will Happen,” “Watching the Detectives,” “(I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea,” “Pump It Up,” and “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding,” which he performed with Lowe – and also a quartet of new songs from his most recent album, “The Boy Named If.” The set list on this night totaled 17 songs. Throughout, Costello’s material was filled full of rich characters loaded with plenty of desire mixed with heartache. 

What one learns from going to so many Elvis Costello shows through the years – and whether seeing him perform with his original band the Attractions, current band the Imposters, with special guests such as the late great New Orleans pianist Allen Toussaint or backed by a symphony orchestra – is that Costello is truly a music fan. He also delights in championing the works of other musicians, whether it be from country star George Jones or rock guitarist and producer T Bone Burnett – or even the influential Philadelphia hip-hop band The Roots. Through the years, Costello has also collaborated with Burt Bacharach and duetted with Tony Bennett. 

Filene Center at Wolf Trap, Vienna, Va.

Looking back, Costello has immersed himself in pop, rock and roll, country, Americana, soul and jazz, among the many genres that he’s mastered. In a Costello show, he’s not afraid to share many of the lessons he’s learned growing up in a Liverpool music family and we’re rewarded with songs that are as literate as they are artful. I am reminded of when my wife and I took the train to Philadelphia last October just to see Costello perform at The Met, an old opera house in north Philly, and he charmed us with a hauntingly beautiful minor-key tango that blended his own song “Brilliant Mistake” with the 1930s Al Dubin-penned “Boulevard of Broken Dreams” that was a hit song for Bennett among many.

Throughout his Wolf Trap performance, Costello showed he can be acerbic and witty, as well as lamenting and sad. There’s always a fine balance between rock and balladry in a Costello performance and this one was no different from the other 12 shows I had seen over the past 40 years in that regard. Yet, he also reminded us that this was no exercise in nostalgia and pastiche, either despite the age demographic of the audience – about 55 to 70 years-old – that’s been around to enjoy Costello from the beginning of his rock-n-roll career in the late ‘70s.

Collectively, Costello’s body of work is that of an adept storyteller who’s learned more than a few things from the past. On this summer night in northern Virginia, Costello took his audience on a musical journey through his expansive songbook that was as intimate as it was entertaining – and it was inspiring, too.

Elvis Costello and the Imposters

Elvis Costello’s Wolf Trap set list:

Accidents Will Happen / Green Shirt / Either Side of the Same Town / Hetty O’Hara Confidential / Mystery Dance / Watching the Detectives-Invisible Lady-Isabelle in Tears / My Most Beautiful Mistake / Still Too Soon to Know / Just About Glad / The Man You Love to Hate / Penelope Halfpenny / What If I Can’t Give You Anything But Love? / Magnificent Hurt / (I Don’t Want to Go to) Chelsea / Pump It Up / Indoor Fireworks (with Nick Lowe) / What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace Love and Understanding (with Nick Lowe).

All photographs: © Michael Dickens, 2021.

No place better to be on a Sunday afternoon than at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival

Glen Hansard performing on the Rooster Stage Sunday afternoon
at the 2012 Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in
San Francisco's Golden Gate Park.

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival returned to San Francisco's Golden Gate Park last weekend with its usual stellar lineup of talent: Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Ralph Stanley, Steve Earle, Patti Smith, Buddy Miller, the Civil Wars, Glen Hansard and the Del McCoury Band, to name just a few of the 88 acts who played over three days. Hardly Strictly Bluegrass has become one of the premier music festivals in the country.

There was no place in The City better to be on this beautiful, autumn Sunday afternoon.

This year's Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival held special meaning to the hundreds of thousands who attended the 12th annual free festival spread out over six different stages across the western half of Golden Gate Park. There was a little something for everyone to celebrate: bluegrass, country, rockabilly, blues, folk, pop, rock and jazz. As San Francisco Chronicle senior pop music critic Joel Selvin wrote, there was "a broad range of acts that somehow manage to coalesce into a music identity that is uniquely HSB."

Glen Hansard

It was the first festival since the passing of founder Warren Hellman, 77, the Bay Area billionaire investment banker and benefactor ~ himself a spirited amateur banjo player ~ who funded HSB as a gift to the city of San Francisco and left an endowment to ensure of its existence for many years to come. The Speedway Meadow, site of the Banjo Stage where Costello, Stanley and Harris played to tremendous crowds, was renamed Hellman Hollow to honor Hellman's memory.

On Saturday, there was a special tribute to the festival's "founding fathers" ~ Hellman, Earl Scruggs and Doc Watson ~ all passed away since last year's HSB. The Preservation Hall Jazz Band played a New Orleans funeral on the Banjo Stage to open the tribute. By late Sunday afternoon, Harris closed the festival as she has every year since its beginning in 2001.

I would have loved being at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass for all three days of this year's festival. However, prior commitments to see the University of California women's volleyball match in Berkeley on Friday and the San Francisco Giants NLDS playoff game against Cincinnati across town at AT&T Park on Saturday limited me to just attending Sunday afternoon.

Nick Lowe

Still, my afternoon at Hardly Strictly Bluegrass was worthwhile and the nice weather and setting provided the right ambiance to enjoy a picnic lunch with my wife. We enjoyed a few hours of great music on the grounds of the Rooster Stage in Marx Meadow with several thousand like-minded enthusiasts, who like us were sprawled out on the grassy meadow with their blankets and picnic baskets.

First, we saw the Irish singer/songwriter Glen Hansard perform several tunes from his 2012 album "Rhythm and Repose." Best known for his work with Swell Season and the Frames, Hansard's hour-long set included "Love Don't Leave Me Waiting" from "Rhythm and Repose" and he finished with an inspiring version of The Band's "Don't Do it" in tribute to the late Levon Helm, who was that group's inspirational leader.

Then, after a short recess, next up was the British singer/songwriter Nick Lowe, whose graceful and lyrical crooning style is steeped in classic American pop and blues. Once labeled "the Jesus of Cool" for his pioneering pub-rock style of the 1970s and '80s, today Lowe's style has been described as "boutique pop" with "far gentler textures." Lowe's solo set ~ just him and his acoustic guitar ~ included songs from his current album "The Old Magic" as well as many of his earlier hits, notably "Cruel to be Kind."

Close-knit circle and dapperly attired / The Del McCoury Band
performing late Sunday afternoon on the Star Stage
at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival.

Afterward, as we reached the Star Stage on our way towards the western edge to exit the festival grounds, we paused for a few minutes to listen to and appreciate the dapperly dressed Del McCoury Band as they performed traditional bluegrass music. On stage in close-knit semicircle, there were bluegrass fiddles, banjos, guitars and mandolins ~ and so much more. There were voices, too. It was sweet, heavenly music to our ears.

Indeed, we had come to the right place on this beautiful, autumn Sunday afternoon.

Photographs by Michael Dickens, copyright 2012. All rights reserved.