When Elvis Costello visited with me at WFUV in April 2002, it was the day before the official release of his then latest album When I Was Cruel. It was already the nineteenth album of his career that began in the mid 1970’s; and in the years since he’s released six more.
In addition to his own work, he’s also participated in numerous other collaborative efforts and was commissioned to compose an opera and a ballet. He’s hosted a critically acclaimed television music interview show “Spectacle” and continued to tour extensively. His 2015 memoir Unfaithful Music & Disappearing Ink offers almost seven hundred pages discussing many of these subjects, and is a thoughtful perspective on his career. In this interview we talked about his return to an earlier “sound,” while still moving ever forward in exploring different stylistic approaches. He was charming and witty and related how appearing in a brief cameo in “Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me” provided a new opportunity to attract fans.