McTag wrote:I remember Elvis Costello's dad singing with the Billy Cotton Band.
No, the Joe Loss Orchestra
Ross MacManus - Elvis' Dad
BBC Radio Merseyside's Spencer Leigh has interviewed Elvis Costello's father, the dance band singer Ross McManus.
Can you take us right back, I know you were were born in Birkenhead, so can you tell us when that was?
That was on October 20, 1927. I was born in 338 or 328 Conway Street. They thought so much of me in Birkenhead they've knocked it down now, so my birthplace hasn't got a blue plaque on it.
Were you singing from an early age?
Yes I was. When I was 9 I used to sing with Mr Lowry from St. Thomas'. He was a tall, cadaverous man, always sucking a throat sweet, but he always had me next to him and we did complicated Requiem Masses. Only yesterday I did Kenneth MacDonald's funeral, Mike from 'Only Fools and Horses', and his widow wanted some Latin in the Mass. I did it from memory, so Mr Lowry's work was not wasted. Plainsong requires a very flexible voice and this has helped me a lot.
I first know of you getting involved in music with Liverpool jazz bands. Is that correct?
That's true and that's what I wanted to be. We had an orchestra at St Anselm's College and I played violin, but it was no instrument for jazz, not withstanding Stephane Grappelli, Stuff Smith and the guys who played violin with Duke Ellington. I wanted to be a jazz trumpeter. I was in the RAF for two years in Egypt and I met Russ Shepherd who lived in South -East London and we got interested in be-bop. I borrowed my dad's trumpet but Dizzy Gillespie was too clever for me. I could do a fairly good Miles Davis who was less complicated but a great chooser of beautiful notes. We had a group in Birkenhead called Ross McManus and the New Era Music in 1950 and we were doing be-bop things, but it depended on my singing really. There was Bert Green on piano, Tony Edwards on bass, Frank Platt on drums and George Carroll on tenor. George was like Mr Toad. He would huff and puff. He was like a steam engine as a hissing noise would come out of it as if he was driven by steam. We did very well with the group. We played the Grafton and the Kingsland and the Tower Ballroom, New Brighton.
What strikes me as odd is that you made so few records under the name of Ross McManus, almost as though you didn't want hit singles. You recorded under all sorts of different names, for example, for the Embassy label. Was that deliberate or did it just happen that way?
Joe said that the Ross McManus name belonged to him. He would say, 'If you want to be a star, go off to the record company and be a star. If you want to work every night and get weekly wages for as long as you want, stay with me, but don't complain.
Don't hanker to be a solo star when I can give you regular employment.' My income was very good and people would ask me to do sessions and Joe would say, 'Let me handle the money. Don't take any money from them. You go in, sing it and come out. Don't talk to them, I'll do that.' Joe didn't want me to use the name of Ross MacManus because 'You have no contract with these things and if, by some remote chance, one of them should become a hit, you will have no control over it.' I did 'Can't Take My Eyes Off You' for Dick Rowe at Decca under my own name, but Ivor Raymonde arranged it in the wrong key so instead of being able to sing like a black rhythm and blues singer, I sounded like Rolf Harris. It was way too deep but Dick Rowe said, 'Nobody's interested in you as a vocalist. I've given you the best song in the world and you haven't done anything with it.' A year later Andy Williams had a tremendous hit with it, but Decca hadn't promoted my version at all.
You released a cover version of 'The Long and Winding Road' in 1970 under the name of Day Costello. How did that come about? When Elvis Costello started having hit records, he didn't give many interviews, so people didn't know his background. When did the public find out that you were his father?
The Joe Loss Band was the Establishment, and the music hacks always discounted everything we did. We were band singers as if this inhibited us from being able to do anything good. In fact we were better singers than the people that were in the groups, but they were younger. I said to Declan, 'Don't tell anybody that your dad sings with the Joe Loss Band because they'll discount what you're doing."' His manager, Jake Riviera, didn't want anything known about him, which was good marketing as he appeared as a mysterious, angry young man. One day the NME found a picture of Day Costello where I had long hair, beautifully cut, and they thought at first that it might be Declan. I said it was me and the cat was out of the bag then.
You must be very proud of your son's songwriting. There are so many songs and so many styles.
Well, he's written the works of Shakespeare, hasn't he? It's a big thick volume, heavy with words and significance and meaning. He's written classical things and he's always seeking to push himself on. When he first started, he couldn't read or write music, but now he can, he can write his own musical scores for orchestras. It's a very strange feeling because I have a feeling that fairies stole my little boy, Declan MacManus and brought me this genius in his place. He's not really my son. When I'm at the Albert Hall, I'm looking down and thinking, 'I don't believe this. That's him, isn't it?' I tend to do the gig with him, 'Oh, I wouldn't do that at that point. What he should do now is...' And so on. I can't help myself.
It also strikes me that his voice has changed so much over the years. It is used to be angry and defiant, but now he can sing very sophisticatedly with Burt Bacharach.
He's a good singer. He has a terrific range. His voice is edgy sometimes but that's just him, that's his tone. I've just got the collected Billy Eckstine and you can criticize him for the wobbly vibrato and the swooping tones, but that's him. It's idiosyncratic, it's the way they sing.
Do you have a particular favourite record of his?
Yes, I love 'The Birds Will Still be Singing' from 'The Juliet Letters'. I'd like that to be my epitaph.
Source:
www.bbc.co.uk
