Steve Nieve (born Steven Nason,[1] 19 February 1958, London, England) is an English keyboardist, best known for his work with Elvis Costello and the Attractions and Elvis Costello and the Imposters.
Contents |
The Royal College of Music student joined Costello's backing band The Attractions in 1977.[1] Nason received his musical moniker "Nieve" (pronounced as "naïve") while on the Attractions' first tour for Stiff Records: it was bestowed by fellow tourmate Ian Dury who had been astonished by Nason's innocent query, "What's a groupie?"[2]
Nieve played piano, organ, and other keyboard instruments on most of Costello's projects over the next ten years, including the albums This Year's Model (1978), Imperial Bedroom (1982), and Blood and Chocolate (1986).[1] He wrote some of the material on The Attractions' Costello-less album, Mad About The Wrong Boy under the name Norman Brain, in collaboration with his then girlfriend, Fay Hart. (He also wrote other songs as Steve Nieve.)
In the mid 1980s, Costello began to work less frequently with The Attractions and stopped working with them entirely between 1987 and 1993. During this period, Nieve focused on session work for other artists (The Neville Brothers, Hothouse Flowers, Graham Parker, Squeeze,[3] Tim Finn, Kirsty MacColl, Madness), and David Bowie.[4] Nieve released records under the group name Perils of Plastic - a collaboration with vocalist Steve Allen, releasing the singles "Ring A Ding Ding" and "Debile Matin" (recorded live at Avenue La Grande Armée, Paris, and remixed and produced by Paul O'Duffy) and led the house band (billed as 'Steve Nieve and The Playboys') on the UK TV series Tonight with Jonathan Ross.[5]
Costello reunited The Attractions for 1994's album Brutal Youth. Although the reunion was relatively short-lived (they split again in 1996), the Costello/Nieve collaborations never stopped. They have toured as a duo, and Nieve has contributed keyboards to all of Costello's albums since the mid-1990s, including 1998's Burt Bacharach collaboration Painted From Memory, 2001's Anne Sofie von Otter collaboration For The Stars, and 2003's North.
In 2001, Costello formed a new backing band consisting of Nieve, Attractions drummer Pete Thomas, and bassist Davey Faragher. The band was subsequently dubbed The Imposters. Elvis Costello & The Imposters have toured extensively and released the albums When I Was Cruel (2002), Cruel Smile (2003) The Delivery Man (2004), The River In Reverse (2006) with Allen Toussaint, and Momofuku (2008).
In 2003 he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as a member of Elvis Costello & The Attractions.[6]
In addition to his work with Costello, Nieve has released several solo albums. Keyboard Jungle (1983) was his first, a combination of classical and ersatz film scores delivered from his beloved Steinway piano.[7] His second album, Playboy (1987), consisted of solo acoustic piano renditions of rock songs by David Bowie, 10cc, The Specials, X and others, as well as original compositions. Though both albums were released only in the UK by the independent label Demon Records, they were critically well-received and noted for their "display [of] the artist's wit, compositional talent and abundant instrumental agility."[7]
Nieve followed these with the albums It's Raining Somewhere (1996), Mumu (2001), and Windows (2004). His classical opera, Welcome To The Voice, a collaboration with Muriel Téodori, was released on Deutsche Grammophon in May 2007.[8] The score was interpreted by Barbara Bonney, Sting, Robert Wyatt, Elvis Costello, Amanda Roocroft, Nathalie Manfrino, and Sara Fulgoni for the voices. For the music the Brodsky Quartet interpreted a written score, whilst Marc Ribot, Ned Rothenberg, and Nieve improvised. Nieve also composed the score to Téodori's film Sans Plomb.[8]
In recent years Nieve has lived in France with Téodori.