Elvis Costello

Declan Patrick McManus, OBE (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer-songwriter with Irish heritage.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elvis_Costello

Declan Patrick MacManus was born on 25 August 1954 at St Mary's Hospital in Paddington, London, and is of Irish descent on his father's side. He is the son of Lilian Alda (née Ablett, 1927–2021, Liverpool) and Ross MacManus (born in Birkenhead, Merseyside (formerly Cheshire), 1927–2011), a jazz trumpeter who sang with the Joe Loss Orchestra and who later performed as a solo cabaret act. MacManus senior had a hit in Australia (as Day Costello) with his cover version of The Beatles "The Long and Winding Road" in 1970.

MacManus lived in Twickenham, attending both St. Edmund's Catholic Primary School in nearby Whitton, and then Archbishop Myers Secondary Modern R.C. School – which is now St Mark's Catholic School – in neighbouring Hounslow.

In 1971, the 16-year-old MacManus moved with his mother to Birkenhead – not far from her home city of Liverpool – where he formed his first band, a folk duo called "Rusty", with Allan Mayes. After completing his education at St. Francis Xavier's College in Liverpool, MacManus worked at a number of office jobs to support himself, most famously at Elizabeth Arden, where he was employed as a data entry clerk. This is immortalised in the lyrics of "I'm Not Angry" as the "vanity factory". He also worked for a short period as a computer operator at the Midland Bank computer centre in Bootle.

He moved back to London in 1974, where he formed a pub rock band called Flip City, who were active from 1974 until early 1976. Costello's first broadcast recording was with his father in a television commercial for R. White's Lemonade ("I'm a Secret Lemonade Drinker") which aired in 1974. His father sang the song, and Costello sang backing vocals; the advertisement won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival. He continued to write songs and began looking for a solo recording contract. He was signed in 1976 to independent label Stiff Records on the basis of a demo tape. His manager at Stiff, Jake Riviera, suggested that the singer, then calling himself D.P. Costello, start using the first name Elvis.

Costello has been married three times, the first time in 1974 to Mary Burgoyne, with whom he had a son, Matthew. Toward the end of his first marriage, Costello became embroiled in an on-again/off-again romance with Bebe Buell, then-girlfriend of Todd Rundgren. Buell has said she was the inspiration behind some of Costello's most bitter love songs from the Armed Forces era, though Costello countered by claiming most of those songs had been written before he met Buell.

In 1985, Costello became involved with Cait O'Riordan, then the bassist of London Irish group the Pogues, while he was producing the Pogues' album Rum Sodomy and the Lash.] They married in 1986 and split up by the end of 2002.

Costello became engaged to pianist-vocalist Diana Krall in May 2003,[43] and married her at the home of Elton John on 6 December that year. Krall gave birth to twin sons on 6 December 2006 in New York City.