Complicated Shadows (45 page)

Other than that, it was a case of simply capturing a performance in a room; there was no overdubbing or editing between different takes. ‘That’s what I love about working with
Elvis,’ said Killen. ‘He takes a lot of chances, and it’s always a pleasure to work with someone like that. You know the record is going to be of a certain quality and that
vocally the performances are going to be spectacular. They are intense records, both to make and to listen to.’
¹¹

As he readied himself for the album’s release and a short world tour, Elvis – never happy unless busy – pressed on with other side-projects. Immediately after the album
sessions had been concluded in October, he recorded demos of ten cover songs in one day. The songs were a private album for George Jones, following a conversation between Elvis and Jones in
Interview
magazine in which Elvis expressed the hope that Jones might one day record an album of classic songs outside the country genre. Included were Paul Simon’s
‘Congratulations’, Springsteen’s ‘Brilliant Disguise’, Hoagy Carmichael’s ‘My Resistance Is Low’, Gram Parson’s ‘Still Feeling
Blue’ and Dylan’s ‘You’re Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go’, with Elvis backed by Pete Thomas and Paul Riley.

A few days later he renewed his accquaintance with the Count Basie Orchestra, at the Chelsea Arts Ball at the Royal Albert Hall on 9 October. After the embarrassment of his performance with Tony
Bennett at the Red Parrot club in 1983, Elvis finally convinced the orchestra he could carry a tune, with versions of ‘My Funny Valentine’ and ‘Lil’
Darlin’’.

The following week he was due to be in even more exalted company, scheduled to perform ‘Positively Fourth Street’ at Bob Dylan’s fiftieth birthday tribute at Madison Square
Garden on 16 October. However, the late addition of the Pope-bashing Irish singer Sinead O’Connor to the bill apparently prompted a last-minute change of
heart.
‘Catholics, Catholic clergy and Catholic values have become the whipping post for every bigot in America,’ said Elvis in a statement. He did not attend the concert, although he later
claimed that it was because he was never actually given confirmation of when and where to turn up.

* * *

The Juliet Letters
was launched in the appropriately high-brow surroundings of a garden party in The Orangery in Holland Park on 6 January 1993, and released into the
shops a week later. It was a truly unique record, fantastically clear and uncluttered-sounding, sometimes very funny, often intensely moving, at times unerringly beautiful, and occasionally falling
foul of the basic audacity and ambition of its premise. Above all, after the often harsh vocalisations of
Mighty Like A Rose
, it was a pleasure to hear Elvis singing with such clear,
open-throated abandon. It was also nice to hear the Quartet’s lyrical contributions; despite what some may have seen as the inhospitable nature of the musical set-up,
The Juliet
Letters
was the warmest record Elvis had made since
King Of America.

The ballads worked best: ‘For Other Eyes’, ‘Taking My Life In Your Hands’, ‘Why?’ and ‘The Birds Will Still Be Singing’ were beautifully
constructed and as emotive as anything Elvis had sung; ‘Jacksons, Monk and Rowe’, ‘Romeo’s Séance’ and ‘Who Do You Think You Are?’ were simply great
pop songs. At the very heart of the record lay a profoundly moving trilogy: the anti-war lament of ‘I Thought I’d Write To Juliet’, moving into ‘The Last Post’ with
the sound of an air-raid siren eerily recreated on strings, which then segued into ‘The First To Leave’, a blasted torch song which wouldn’t have sounded out of place on Frank
Sinatra’s
Only The Lonely.

Inevitably, there were some misfires. Some of Elvis’s more theatrical vocal mannerisms grated on record where they might have worked in concert: ‘Swine’, ‘I Almost Had A
Weakness’, the opening passage of ‘I Thought I’d Write
To Juliet’ and ‘This Offer Is Unrepeatable’ tested the listener’s patience,
while ‘Damnation’s Cellar’ had unfortunate similarities to one of Eric Idle’s
Monty Python
compositions. But in general it was a triumphant and seductive
record.

Most reviewers concurred. The notices for
The Juliet Letters
were highly complimentary in the main, and not just in the broadsheets and high-brow magazines.
Spin
rated it as
‘one of Costello’s best’,
Newsweek
called him ‘a songwriter beyond genre’ and
Melody Maker’s
perennial fan Allan Jones claimed ‘its
ambition deserves your perseverance and rewards your time and effort. You know this is an album you’re going to be able to live with down the years’.

However, there was a small but predictable amount of sniping here and there at what some saw as pretension and affectation, while others queried Elvis’s motivations. ‘To be
constantly questioned about the validity of what I’m doing is just tedious,’ he later said. ‘You can not like it, that’s your choice, but to suggest that the things
I’m doing are to make myself look more important [is nonsense]. Or the more idiotic criticism you get from classical music critics is that you’re doing it to make
money.’
¹²

With a successful classical record typically selling in the region of 15,000 copies, he had a point. However, Elvis had always been sensitive to poor reviews and, already bruised by the catcalls
for
Mighty Like A Rose
, he was more defensive than normal. This was partly because he was especially proud of the unique nature of
The Juliet Letters,
and partly because he felt
he was representing four other people who weren’t normally thrown to the mercy of fickle pop and rock scribes.

A savage review entitled ‘Dead Elvis’ in
Vox
magazine raised his ire to the extent that he sent an open letter to the reviewer, Patrick Humphries. Much of it was a slightly
childish, aggressive and personal attack on Humphries’ writing and apparent lack of intellect, but there was a moment of clarity beneath the rage. ‘
The Juliet Letters
is not
some devious trick, pastiche or bored experiment, it is
a beautiful thing,’ Elvis wrote. ‘To hear it you need ears and you need soul, but consumed as you are by
improbable indignation you do not even have the courtesy to acknowledge that many of the songs were written with or by members of the Brodsky Quartet.’

The members of the Quartet appreciated his allegiance, even if it seemed a little reactionary. ‘Elvis – bless him – was absolutely adamant that we put across that this was a
five-way collaboration,’ says Paul Cassidy. ‘We were determined to show that we were working together, this was not him sending us some songs to make into a string quartet.’

The world tour kicked off at Glasgow Royal Concert Hall on 22 February 1993 and took in the major points of the globe in a mere twenty-five days: Scotland, Denmark, Germany, England, France,
Holland, Italy, Spain, Japan and the USA, ending at the New York Town Hall on 18 March. Each night, Elvis would step out onto the stage with
The Juliet Letters
songbook, which he placed on
a music stand throughout the concert. Some saw this – alongside the dinner jacket, bow-tie and theatrical hand and facial gestures – as a rather ridiculous, grandiose affectation, but
Elvis claimed the book was there as a tangible representation of their collective efforts, to reinforce the idea that this was a genuine collaboration. But it was also there to hide behind. Elvis
had never spent so long on stage without a guitar.

Aside from
The Juliet Letters,
performed in full and in sequence each night, there were extra treats in store for the audiences – a new song by Elvis and Michael Thomas called
‘King Of The Unknown Sea’, an arrangement of ‘Almost Blue’, and some handpicked covers: The Beach Boys’ ‘God Only Knows’, the children’s song
‘Scarlet Ribbons’, Tom Waits’s ‘More Than Rain’, Jerome Kern’s ‘They Didn’t Believe Me’ and Kurt Weill’s ‘Lost In The Stars’.
The traditional Irish song, ‘She Moved Through The Fair’, was added to the set especially for the show in Boston on 17 March, arranged by Irishman Paul Cassidy in honour of St
Patrick’s Day.

The next night, following the final date of the tour in
New York, there was an added surprise for Elvis and the Quartet at the post-show party. Outside, a young woman came
up to the steward and introduced herself as Constance, the female soldier who had written to Elvis during the Gulf War and whose letter he had used for the lyrics of ‘I Thought I’d
Write To Juliet’. She had returned safely from the Gulf and the day before the concert had completed her military service. ‘That was really spooky,’ says Cassidy. ‘The more
cynical amongst us would say she was Isobel MacGowan from Dumfries, but actually I believe it was her.’

The Juliet Letters
material proved to be incredibly forceful on stage. The concerts were almost universally well-received, and audience responses were often ecstatic. It may have had
less impact on record, but that didn’t necessarily explain why wasn’t it shifting more copies. ‘I know by the reaction of people that that album could have been really
huge,’ says Cassidy. ‘And [Warners] buried it. They buried it because they didn’t understand it.’

Although the record company had been content to let Elvis record the album, they didn’t really consider it to be ‘proper’ Costello product. It was viewed largely as an
indulgence, an amusing side-step before Elvis got on with the job of making music with a beat again. ‘I actually had someone very senior at Warner Brothers at that time say, “This
Juliet Letters
would be all right if it just sounded more like ‘Eleanor Rigby’,”’ Elvis said. ‘I said, “Yeah, but Paul McCartney already made that
record. Why would we want to make that again? We’re trying to make a record that’s
not
like ‘Eleanor Rigby’.”’
¹³

The Juliet Letters
reached No. 8 in the UK charts and sold well throughout Europe, but it didn’t chart in the States, the first Elvis album containing original material to fail to
do so. Elvis – still seemingly convinced that everything he touched had inate commercial potential – thought he knew where to lay the blame.

Even so, it had been a short and very successful world tour. There was certainly scope for many more concerts, but there was something in the format and the songs that seemed to preclude
over-kill.
The Juliet Letters
was a very personal
statement from five people, and they chose to protect it, to be unwrapped occasionally as a rare and beguiling
treat. ‘Elvis’s shows are always full on,’ says Paul Cassidy. ‘He doesn’t hold back ever. But when you’re standing in New York Town Hall without a mike –
that’s
heavy duty.’

The black and white world, 1980.
Credit: Pennie Smith

Jake Riviera and Elvis, Dublin, June 1983.
Credit: Redferns/Keith Morris