The artist who saved Elvis Costello’s career: “Changed my attitude”
Collaborations don’t always work out for the best; just look at the travesty recorded by the United Powers of Mick Jagger and David Bowie back in 1985.
For an artist like Elvis Costello, though, being exposed to the inspiration of his fellow artists has been a constant source of inspiration, allowing him to break free from expectations.
Pigeonholing Elvis Costello has always been something of an impossibility. It was, after all, during the age of punk rock revolution that the thick-rimmed spectacles of Britain’s premier angry young man were first introduced to mainstream audiences, but his sound didn’t share a whole lot in common with the Sex Pistols, any more than his wardrobe did.
Moving swiftly from folk to soul, to country music and rock and roll, Costello’s career prevented itself from stagnating by never remaining still, particularly during his energetic early years.
That kind of fast-moving lifestyle can only last so long, though. Inevitably, given his exhaustive touring schedule and an unrelenting discography with The Attractions that produced seven albums in five years, both Costello and his backing band were rapidly reaching breaking point during the early 1980s. By the time that Goodbye Cruel World hit the airwaves in 1984, the writing was on the wall for The Attractions, and Costello himself was at risk of finding himself lost.
Luckily, the songwriter soon found solace and support in the form of T Bone Burnett, the Americana master who had spent many of Costello’s earlier years providing guitar backing to Bob Dylan. “I had just made the last record with the Attractions,” Costello told Pitchfork, recalling the moment that he first united with Burnett.
“The group hadn’t really split up yet, but it was obvious that it wasn’t very long for this world,” he continued. Largely as a form of escapism, Costello went on the road with his newly established comrade. “I went off on a tour with T Bone, which sort of changed my attitude,” he explained.
Not only did that tour give Elvis Costello some sense of respite from the mounting fractures within The Attractions, but it also introduced him to the often underrated mastery of Burnett as a songwriter.
“The core songs of [the 1983 album] Proof Through the Night are really tremendous,” Costello declared.
“It just made me realise that there were different things that could be in the songs,” the songwriter went on. “That album opened the door to everything I’ve done in the company of T Bone.” What’s more, that initial collaboration led Costello to cross paths with a wealth of other people, too. In particular, he name-dropped Victoria Williams, Bobby Neuwirth, Peter Case and Harry Dean Stanton as figures he wouldn’t have met were it not for Burnett.
Although Elvis Costello did, eventually, reunite with The Attractions, his collaborations with T Bone Burnett quickly became a core part of his discography. Burnett, for instance, co-produced Costello’s 1986 LP King of America, and the pair routinely teamed up under the banner of The Coward Brothers for various tours and collaborative records, perhaps most notably 2024’s self-titled record, demonstrating just how extensive and enduring a relationship the pair forged back in the 1980s.
