Elvis Costello recently released a series of interviews - available through Apple's iStore.
By BEN JACOBSONcostello 224(photo credit: Courtesy)
Classic rock's premiere art-punk singer-songwriter, Elvis Costello has been flirting with strange realms - including literary, jazzy troubadour song craft, string quartet experimentation and even ballet composition - since relatively early on in his career.
His collaborations with New Orleans jazzman Allen Toussaint were released as 2006's The River in Reverse, Costello's most recent album of new songs.
Meanwhile, a steady flow of best-of collections and double-disc "Deluxe Edition" repackagings of his classic Seventies and Eighties albums continue to hit the stores, and he is currently gearing up for an Atlantic City New Years concert extravaganza with one of his many backing bands, The Imposters.
One of the most celebrated of the recent Costello retrospective releases, this past May's The First Ten Years, culls from the artist's energetic proto-new wave work from his first four full-length albums. To accompany the release, Costello has prepared ten relevant and insightful audio interview segments, available as a free Podcast series through the iTunes store. Here, the artist looks back on troubles he had with the law, his influences, the experience of shedding the name his parents had given him (Declan MacManus), and what it was like to record these early cuts.
