Elvis had the Flu

• But a 1994 interview went forward anyway

• Brutal Youth, boxed sets and bootlegs

• You’ve heard the story, now see the video

In a blog post here last year, I told the story of what a trouper Elvis Costello was when he showed up for an interview with a temperature over 100 and insisted he was good to go. At the time I wrote about that, I hadn’t located and digitized the package that subsequently ran on CNN’s Showbiz Today.

Now it’s available, all 2 minutes 35 seconds of VHS-quality video.

You’ll notice he was about to turn 40 (gasp!). I hope you won’t notice that I pronounced his real name wrong: duh-CLAN instead of DECK-lin. We had several layers of editors back then! Not like today’s stripped-down newsrooms! Someone should have caught that before it made air! I don’t take responsibility at all! (Presidents can say that. So can I.)

Ah, the good old days. No facemasks, less than 6 feet of separation. And I shook his hand, too. Because he is one of my all-time favorite musicians. How lucky I was to interview him.