Elvis Costello chose some of Nashville’s top pickers to help create his new album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.” The album contains everything from songs co-written with Loretta Lynn and T Bone Burnett to songs inspired by 19th century singing star Jenny Lind.
Elvis Costello chose some of Nashville’s top pickers to help create his new album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.” The album contains everything from songs co-written with Loretta Lynn and T Bone Burnett to songs inspired by 19th century singing star Jenny Lind.
Elvis Costello is not too concerned if some of his fans don't quite cotton to his new album "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane." Produced by T Bone Burnett, the disc was recorded in Nashville with country vocalist Jim Lauderdale, fiddler Stuart Duncan, mandolinist Mike Compton, dobro great Jerry Douglas and other instrumental greats and features Costello's only-sometimes country-seeming songs in an acoustic country setting.
"Almost Blue," Costello's 1981 album of country covers, and most of his explorations in different genres have been met with mixed reactions.
"When you put something new out some people welcome it and others - it puts a big question mark over their heads," says Costello in a telephone call.
The disc follows up 2008's "Momofuku," which placed Costello squarely back in the rock 'n' roll realm, and, he has said, reinvigorated his desire to record.
"Secret, Profane and Sugarcane," though, is an odd bag of songs - some are among the darkest he's ever written. He says some of those songs have been around for a while.
"The songs here just waited a little time to find a home."
Much of the album was inspired by a book Costello read about 1800s singing star Jenny Lind and her American tour promoted by P.T. Barnum. Costello was also commissioned by the Royal Danish Opera Company to write an opera about Hans Christian Andersen, who, incidentally, was in love with Lind.
That was the subject of the song "She Handed Me a Mirror." Costello says the legend is that when Andersen asked why Lind could not return his ardor, Lind simply handed the homely Andersen a mirror.
"In the end, I took a step backwards and said 'This could just be about anybody who felt as if they had been rejected by a beautiful woman,'" says Costello.
"Red Cotton" depicts Barnum cutting up Lind's performance dress, long after Lind's famed 1850 tour of America, in order to sell the scraps as souvenirs. The song ends with Barnum's enlightenment to become an abolitionist.
Two other songs were written especially for Johnny Cash. Cash never recorded the song "Complicated Shadows," but "Hidden Shame" became the highlight of Cash's album "Boom Chicka Boom."
"'Hidden Shame' was based on a newspaper story I read about a man who killed his childhood friend and confessed to it 30 years later," says Costello.
Costello recorded himself "Complicated Shadows" on his 1996 album "All This Useless Beauty," but says he was never happy with it.
The song "I Felt the Chill" is one of several recent songs written with country legend Loretta Lynn.
"I wrote that line by line with her," he says.
More than any of the other songs co-written by the two, "Chill" sounds like a collaboration, containing a bit of Costello's lyrical bitterness with Lynn's bare bones country poetry.
Country music also informed Costello's take on the disc's final song "Changing Partners," a cover of a 1930s Bing Crosby hit.
"When I sang 'Changing Partners,' I was trying to imagine 'What would this sound like as a Webb Pierce record?'" he says.
Costello says growing up in England he missed much of what made country music special.
It was the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band's "Will the Circle Be Unbroken" album that really introduced him to traditional country music. That 1972 album assembled many of the greats of bluegrass and early country music, including Jimmy Martin, Doc Watson, Roy Acuff,
"I wasn't a big fan of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band at the time," he says, "but God bless them! It was like a starter kit for all this great music. It opened the doors to the Louvin Brothers, Mother Maybelle Carter ... lots of music I never would've encountered without it."
He says, other than assembling a particular set of great musicians, there was no real plan for the sound of "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane."
"T-Bone just set up the microphones and this is what came out," says Costello.
One decision, though, was to have Jim Lauderdale shadow Costello's own vocals with a close, subtle harmony.
"It was a great joy to sing with Jim Lauderdale," says Costello. "His voice lends a different quality to the songs. He's a very expressive singer, but he never draws anything away from the lead vocal - and, in some cases, he'd never heard the song before he sang it."
Both Costello and Lauder-dale will be peforming at Bonnaroo. Chances are good that each may make a guest appearance at the other's show.
Wayne Bledsoe may be reached at 865-342-6444 or bledsoe@knews.com. He is also the host of "All Over the Road" midnight Saturdays to 4 a.m. Sundays on WDVX-FM.
© 2009, Knoxville News Sentinel Co.
Want to use this article? Click here for options!
- |
Comments » 0
Be the first to post a comment!
Share your thoughts
Comments are the sole responsibility of the person posting them. You agree not to post comments that are off topic, defamatory, obscene, abusive, threatening or an invasion of privacy. Violators may be banned. Click here for our full user agreement.