Elvis Costello

In a Columbus, Ohio Holiday Inn hotel bar, during one of his first U.S. performances, a brassy 24-year-old Elvis Costello engaged in a drunken argument with Stephen Stills and Bonnie Bramlett. It's said that the young Costello shouted racial slurs against both Ray Charles and James Brown. Charles, who later forgave the young performer, said, "Drunk talk isn't meant to be printed on paper!"

But Costello, who had already changed his name from Declan Patrick MacManus, had already changed on the inside. He worked extensively on Britian's Rock Against Racism campaign. And the incident inspired "Riot Act!" from one of his early breakthrough albums, Get Happy!!

Since then, Costello has evolved, reinvented himself time and again, and worked with some of the most respected names in rock, country, classical, jazz, pop, and R&B. His unlikely collaboration in 1998 with Burt Bacharach for the equally haunting and romantic Painted from Memory (worth the click) silenced even his harshest critics. Few performers have experimented and turned constant trial into resounding success as Costello.

In 2003, Elvis Costello married singer Diana Krall at Elton John's estate in England. Earlier that year he released North, an album of piano-based ballads concerning the breakdown of his former marriage, and his falling in love with Krall. Together, they have twin sons, Dexter Henry Lorcan and Frank Harlan James.

Proof that everything, especially people, can get better with age.