Elvis Costello's " UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK " Available in Paperback on Oct 11

Elvis Costello is one of the most distinctive and innovative popular songwriters and performers of the last four decades. His unconventional, and unforgettable memoir, UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK (Blue Rider Press; Publication Date: October 11, 2016; $17.00) is now available in paperback, just as his 2016 world music tour is garnering considerable excitement and rapidly selling out. His book explores the private and emotional foundation of his music, and the influence of three generations of his family’s history upon both the artist and the man.

Costello also provides a unique, incidental survey of modern pop history, as he shares anecdotes about his many illustrious collaborators and reflects on the vagaries of fame. “A lot of people have got spoilt and ruined by sudden success and pushing too hard,” he writes. “I thought I was an exception but I wasn’t as smart or in control as I pretended to be.”

The Grammy Award-winning recording artist and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee found his way into the English music scene in late ‘70s. Musically dynamic, lyrically intricate, and sometimes opaque, Costello’s outlook was skeptical, romantic, and darkly humorous, often within the same number. Although Costello only scraped the American charts with My Aim Is True, This Year’s Model, and Armed Forces, those albums are regularly cited among the most influential records in rock and roll history.

Born Declan Patrick MacManus in 1954 and raised in London and Liverpool, Costello was the son of a successful dance-band vocalist and the grandson of a trumpet player on the White Star line. For Costello, family history is inextricably intertwined with musical history, and UNFAITHFUL MUSIC & DISAPPEARING INK traces his story from playing a cardboard guitar in his parents’ living room to taking the stage at the world’s greatest concert halls, and even at the White House. Costello has shared those stages with Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, the Brodsky Quartet, Anne Sofie von Otter, and Spinal Tap, among countless others.

Costello continues to add one of the most remarkable song catalogues and impressive performance resumes of any contemporary popular musical artist. He has toured with Bob Dylan, written nearly four hundred songs and two ballets. He has composed for orchestra, leaving one opera and several stage musical scores unfinished. He hosted the television show, Spectacle, for two seasons, featuring guests from Sir Elton John, President Bill Clinton, and Lou Reed to Smokey Robinson, Levon Helm, Jesse Winchester, and Bruce Springsteen. Costello has also been an occasional contributor to Vanity Fair and deputized as the guest host of both The Late Show with David Letterman and Marian McPartland’s Piano Jazz, conducting a two-part interview with the pianist about her thirty-year tenure on the NPR show.

Costello’s most recent concert appearances have been the highly acclaimed, largely solo presentation, “Detour,” in which he connects songs from his catalogue with many of the themes found in his memoir. In June 2016, he was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame, celebrated as a legend alongside other musical giants such as Tom Petty and Lionel Richie. He tours with the sister duo Larkin Poe and collaborates with the Preservation Hall Jazz Band, among others, and continues his “Detour” tour with The Imposters through Fall 2016. These are among the highlights of the past decade that has also seen the opening of a remarkable new and richly rewarding chapter in Costello’s personal life, with his marriage to world-renowned jazz artist Diana Krall and the birth of their twin sons in 2006.