Kate Mansey talks with a musical legend, Liverpool Echo
ELVIS Costello is a Reds fan. But it might not have turned out like that.
In the 1970s his Birkenhead father would take him to alternate games at Anfield and Everton so that he could make his own mind up.
And although he may have stuck when it came to football - music has been a very different story.
In a career spanning more than 25 years, Costello has made a virtue of diversity. He has performed with industry legends from Burt Bacharach to Paul McCartney and if imitation is the highest form of flattery then Costello is not short of compliments, with covers of his work performed by the likes of Dusty Springfield, Chet Baker, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.
His album The Delivery Man, released towards the end of last year, is a return to what Costello does best.
Declared by U2's Bono to be one of the best records of last year, it has a definite rock sound not present in his previous smoochy North album and has already earned him four nominations for the Grammy awards held in LA on Sunday.
But critical acclaim or otherwise, especially in Britain, is a thorny issue for 50-year-old Costello.
Now living in the US and married to jazz pianist Diana Krall, the music business in this country is clearly a source of frustration - and he knows exactly which direction to aim it at.
Simon Cowell, look out. "North was praised everywhere except England and that's because England doesn't have any culture," he argues dismissively. "That's one of the reasons. If your ears are tuned to Pop Idol all the time then you can't hear anything. You are not going to be able to hear subtlety if you are used to these people shrieking at you like bad karaoke singers.
"And there is a bit of mistrust. It's very uptight. It's a weird combination of utterly brazen and garish sexuality crossed with a prurient, morbid interest in that and a prudishness about it.
"These are the defining aspects of the country I have grown up in and have left gladly. I can now see it and love the things that I love about England when I come here because I don't spend all my time here so I am not bound and gagged by it.
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