Elvis Costello contemplating olives
 
I don’t know exactly where this footage came from, but it’s delightful, whatever it is. To say it’s a 20/20 segment would be misleading but it appears to be the raw footage for a 20/20 segment that may never have ended up happening. Geraldo Rivera sure is seen here hanging out with Elvis Costello and the Attractions in mid-1978, and he sure is behaving like someone trying to put together some piquant footage for such a segment. This Year’s Model, arguably Elvis’s best album, was released in March of 1978, so that’s the product they were supporting here.

This footage was taped during the Elvis Costello and the Attractions U.S. tour of 1978. The Elvis Costello Wiki asserts that footage for 20/20 was taped on April 22, the day they played two gigs at Royal Oak, Michigan, and May 4, the day of their Boston appearance. The opening acts were Mink DeVille and Nick Lowe with Rockpile.
 

 
The two clips can be usefully called “Tour Bus” and “Supermarket.” The first isn’t super interesting, we see Elvis Costello and a few other guys exit a Howard Johnson’s, where they had stayed the night, and pile into a tour bus—Geraldo tapes an intro in which he makes a lot of the fact that the gang is down-to-earth enough to use a bus. The bus, named “Successful Living,” is cramped indeed. You can hear the Rutles’ “I Must Be in Love” and “Ouch!” playing in the background, and the fellows humming along. Future historians will want to know that Elvis was a Rutles fan.
 

 
The second clip has far more incident. The gang enters an A&P, they pick up some milk and some beer, Elvis grabs two avocados and they head for the checkout line. A matronly woman with a European accent informs Elvis that her son plays “bass”—I’m almost positive she means with a bow—Geraldo asks a woman if she likes “punk rock” and the woman, appearing not to understand, indicates that she drinks it. The nonplussed cashier Gertrude—love her sailor-style A&P outfit—has the most honest reaction to Geraldo’s leading question about punk rock: “I think it’s wonderful. You’re a group, a singing group or something?” before cackling endearingly. Skinny ties abound. Dave Edmunds wears a black jacket, and Nick Lowe can be seen clutching an orange.
 

 
“Tour Bus”:

 
“Supermarket”

Willy and his wife Toots
 
In a more perfect world, Willy DeVille (August 25, 1950 – August 6, 2009) would have been a huge star. He had the voice, the look, the chops and the charisma.

I remember seeing Mink DeVille perform at Trax in New York City in 1977. Mick Jagger was sitting at a table near the stage when Willy and his band came out. DeVille was dressed to kill, in snakeskin boots and gravity-defying pompadour. They tore into “Spanish Stroll” and I looked over at Jagger. Mick looked awestruck and, to my eyes, a little bit scared. It was as if he were watching a harder core version of himself. I wondered in that moment if Jagger was thinking that Mr. DeVille might dethrone him as rock and roll’s Satanic Majesty. The band played a scorching set and Jagger’s eyes never left the stage.

I knew Willy and the guy was the real deal.  His whole being radiated a downtown Manhattan vibe that was mythic, romantic and dark. A badass with a sweet side and a sardonic smile, DeVille walked the walk - rock and roll poetry embodied.

DeVille had to leave his beloved New York in order to make a living in Europe. He couldn’t sell records in the States. People just couldn’t figure him out. Punker than punk, but not really a part of any scene, Deville was his own animal, modern and yet rooted in old-school r&b, as comfortable with the music coming off the Bowery as he was with the sounds of Fifties Harlem, doo-wop and Louisiana zydeco. He was a musical shapeshifter that confounded record companies in his pursuit of his own vision and style. The fact that he never “made it” in the States is a commentary on the parochial nature of the American music business and mainstream rock audiences complete lack of curiosity and taste

Mink Deville at Winterland in 1978.