Fact #154883

Elvis Costello : In 1966 I was 12 and already a big Georgie Fame fan. I'd got Yeh Yeh and Getaway and In The Meantime and I loved the Fame At Last EP. I saved up for a few weeks to buy Sound Venture … It was such a hip record. Apart from anything else it had such a great title! And Georgie plays killer organ. I'd been used to the sound of the big band but this was different. There was no strict dance tempo and it wasn't smooth like Joe Loss – this was a swinging band and the line-up was a who's who of the jazz scene. It had a huge impact on me because the songs were all over the place from James Brown to Willie Nelson. He was one of the first British R&B artists to discover James Brown, which was a big deal then because the only pop we heard was Brian Matthew four hours a week on the radio – the rest of the time it was tea-dance music, the Palm Court orchestra and Geraldo. There was no way we could have any personal knowledge of those original artists – and if we did the records were too expensive and I was too young to go to clubs to see them. Every record changes you a little, but Sound Venture knocked a wall down for me.
(Source : interview in Mojo magazine, 1999)