Join the Grammy-winning English singer-songwriter Elvis Costello as he takes us through a few of his favorite tracks, and what they mean to him—for the The Current's Theft of the Dial. Watch Costello’s breakdown of each track selection below, and don’t miss Jill Riley’s recent conversation with the artist about working with Paul McCartney, his first time on stage at First Avenue, and his new record “The Boy Named If”.
Elvis Costello on Billy Preston’s “That’s The Way God Planned It”:
“… it's really an unusual record because it so obviously comes from the roots of gospel music that Billy would know up and down, but it's actually played by a bunch of English guys. It's Ginger Baker on drums. It's Keith Richard on bass, it's George Harrison and Eric Clapton on guitar, but most of all, it's Billy Preston on organ, it's Billy Preston singing."
On Big Three’s “Some Other Guy”:
“... the Beatles version isn't as good as The Big Three, and that's a funny thing to see, you don't often say that. The Big Three, for one thing, played it a little slower. About the tempo of an American R&B record, and all of these things are based on American R&B records. They're either a bit based on Chuck Berry, and I think it's a common thing with England to base it on a record that nobody else has heard because that way, when you play the song, people think you wrote it.”
On The Impressions’ “You’ve Been Cheatin’”:
“… Joe Butler was in The Impressions originally, but when Curtis Mayfield became the lead vocalist this beautiful kind of slightly, slight tremolo in his voice when he sings, it's something I've tried my hardest to imitate, and I can never do it convincingly.”
On Jimi Hendrix’s “The Wind Cries Mary”:
“It's always been a favorite record of mine because it's so atypical of Jimi Hendrix. Everybody that knows a little bit about Jimi Hendrix knows the wild appearance and the showmanship side of him, which I think if you read anything about him you know that he got that from--he played behind people like the Isley Brothers where you had to put it across. You have to get house, as they say.”
On Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham’s “Out Of Left Field”:
“… Dan Penn was a little less in the mainstream of pop music, and is, because you speak of Dan in the present tense, and Spooner. And they wrote this extraordinary group of songs, a lot of them in the late 60s. And they just make no acknowledgement of all the road signs that people try to erect to separate music. You can't really tell where the country and the soul and the rock and roll and the gospel stops and begins.”
