Ross MacManus, English musician, father of Elvis Costello, died he was 84.

Ross McManus ,born Ronald Patrick Ross MacManus, was an English musician and trumpet player of Irish descent. He performed with Joe Loss and his orchestra.
Born on Conway Street, Birkenhead,^[4][5] MacManus began singing at the age of nine as a chorister at St Thomas's Roman Catholic Church. He attended Saint Anselm's College.

(20 October 1927 – 24 November 2011)

Prior to joining Joe Loss, he had his own band, which sometimes played at the Mecca Locarno dance hall in Leeds. He later joined Joe Loss in March 1955.^[6] He wrote and sang "Patsy Girl", a 1964 single credited to Ross McManus and the Joe Loss Blue Beats. The song was featured on the "Fathers" episode of Bob Dylan's radio series, Theme Time Radio Hour, in 2006.^[7] In 1970 he recorded a version of The Beatles' song "The Long and Winding Road" under the pseudonym of Day Costello.^[8]
MacManus was responsible for the music and vocals from the R. White's Lemonade television advertisement theme song, "Secret Lemonade Drinker", on which Costello plays the drums, and sang backing vocals.

"1973 saw the launch of the brand’s most famous advertising campaign, 'The Secret Lemonade Drinker', which remained on screen until 1984. The ad featured a man in striped pyjamas creeping downstairs to raid the fridge for R Whites Lemonade. Ross McManus, the father of singer Elvis Costello, wrote and sang the original song, with his teenage son providing backing vocals. The ad won a silver award at the 1974 International Advertising Festival".^[9]

In 1975, he wrote and sang a number of songs for the soundtrack to the British film Secrets of a Superstud.^[10]
He played the trumpet on two of Elvis Costello's albums: on Out of Our Idiot (1987) the song "A Town Called Big Nothing", credited to the MacManus Gang and originally recorded for the film Straight to Hell, and on Mighty Like a Rose (1991) the song "Invasion Hit Parade".^[11] His 1972 album of cover versions of Elvis Presley songs, Elvis Presley's Golden Hits Sung By Big Ross & The Memphis Sound, was reissued on CD in 2008 as Elvis' Dad Sings Elvis.

Family

MacManus married Lillian Alda Ablett in 1952; the couple later divorced.^[12] Their son Declan, better known as Elvis Costello, was born in 1954. With his second wife, Sara, who died on 12 November 2011,^[13] he had four sons: Ronan, Ruairi, Liam and Kieran, who were formerly in the band Riverway.


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