New York, NY. (Top40 Charts/ Shore Fire Media) - Elvis Costello's new album 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane' will be released by Hear
Music on June 2nd.
The record was produced by T Bone Burnett and recorded by Mike Piersante during a three-day session at Nashville's Sound Emporium Studio.
Joining Costello were Jerry Douglas (dobro), Stuart Duncan (fiddle), Mike Compton (mandolin), Jeff Taylor (accordion) and Dennis Crouch (double bass), some of the most highly regarded recording artists and musicians in traditional American country music, Bluegrass and beyond.
Several of these songs, including 'Down Among The Wines and Spirits', were given their first public performances during Costello's acclaimed solo appearances as part of 'The Bob Dylan Show' in late 2007.
The album includes ten previously unrecorded songs. 'Sulfur to Sugarcane' and 'The Crooked Line' were co-written with T Bone Burnett while 'I Felt The Chill' marks Costello's second recorded songwriting collaboration with Loretta Lynn.
Costello revisits two songs from his catalogue in string band style. Both songs were originally written for Johnny Cash. 'Hidden Shame' was indeed included on Cash's album, 'Boom Chicka Boom'.
The album title makes reference to 'The Secret Songs', Costello's unfinished commission for the Royal Danish Opera about the life of Hans Christian Andersen.
Seeking a new connection from the author to the Anglophone world, Costello wrote about Andersen's relationship with the world famous singer Jenny Lind in 'She Handed Me A Mirror' and 'How Deep Is The Red'.
'She Was No Good' relates some of the chaotic details of Lind's famous 'All-American' concert tour of 1850, which was promoted by P.T. Barnum. In its aftermath, 'Red Cotton' imagines Barnum reading an Abolitionist pamphlet, while manufacturing cheap souvenirs of the adventure.
These four episodes were newly adapted for the instrumentation of this record.
Indeed these are the first Costello compositions to be predominantly rooted in acoustic music since his 1986 album, 'King Of America', which was produced by T Bone Burnett. He also produced the 1989 album, 'Spike'.
T Bone adds his distinctive Kay electric guitar to several numbers, the only amplified instrument on the recording.
Jim Lauderdale takes the close vocal harmony part throughout the record and Emmylou Harris contributed a third vocal part on the chorus of 'The Crooked Line' on the final day of recording.
The record concludes with the waltz 'Changing Partners,' a song made famous by Bing Crosby.
The cover artwork of 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane' is an ink drawing by the renowned cartoonist, illustrator and author Tony Millionaire.
Elvis Costello first recorded in Nashville with George Jones in 1979 and returned to the city for 'Almost Blue', his 1981 album of classic country covers.
He returned to the city in 2004 to record a duet rendition of 'The Scarlet Tide' with Emmylou Harris.
This song, co-written with T Bone Burnett, received an Academy Award nomination for Alison Krauss' rendition in the motion picture, 'Cold Mountain' in 2003.
The 7' vinyl single, 'Complicated Shadows' b/w 'Dirty Rotten Shame' will be released on Independent Record Day, April 18th.
Select US tour dates featuring musicians from the album - dubbed "The Sugarcanes" - will follow in June and August, 2009.
'SECRET, PROFANE, & SUGARCANE' TRACK LIST
1. Down Among the Wine and Spirits
2. Complicated Shadows
3. I Felt the Chill
4. My All Time Doll
5. Hidden Shame
6. She Handed Me a Mirror
7. I Dreamed of My Old Lover
8. How Deep is the Red
9. She Was No Good
10. Sulfur to Sugarcane
11. Red Cotton
12. The Crooked Line
13. Changing Partners
Due to the division of the music over four sides, the vinyl edition will contain two additional tracks, a arrangement of Lou Reed's 'Femme Fatale' and Costello's sequel to the old Appalachian murder ballad, 'Omie Wise', entitled, 'What Lewis Did Last'.
Beginning June 2, 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane' will be available at participating Starbucks company-operated locations in the U.S. and Canada and wherever music is sold.
Elvis Costello Bio
Elvis Costello has followed his musical curiosity in a career spanning more than 30 years. He is perhaps best known for his performances with The Attractions, The Imposters and for concert appearances with pianist Steve Nieve. However, he has also entered into acclaimed collaborations with Burt Bacharach, The Brodsky Quartet, Paul McCartney, Swedish mezzo-soprano Anne Sofie von Otter, guitarist Bill Frisell, composer Roy Nathanson, The Charles Mingus Orchestra, record producer and songwriter T Bone Burnett and Allen Toussaint.
Costello's songs have been recorded by a great number of artists. The list of performers reflects his interest in a wide range of musical styles: George Jones, Chet Baker, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Dusty Springfield, Robert Wyatt, Charles Brown, No Doubt, Solomon Burke, June Tabor, Howard Tate, the gospel vocal group The Fairfield Four and the viol consort Fretwork with the countertenor Michael Chance. In 2003, he began a songwriting partnership with his wife, the jazz pianist and singer Diana Krall, resulting in six songs included in her highly successful album 'The Girl In The Other Room'.
During his career Costello has received several prestigious honors, including two Ivor Novello Awards for songwriting, a Dutch Edison Award with The Brodsky Quartet for 'The Juliet Letters', the Nordoff-Robbins Silver Clef Award, a BAFTA for the music written with Richard Harvey for Alan Bleasdale's television drama series 'G.B.H.' and a Grammy for 'I Still Have That Other Girl' from his 1998 collaboration with Burt Bacharach, 'Painted From Memory'.
Elvis Costello and The Attractions were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2003. During the same year he was awarded ASCAP's prestigious Founder's Award. There have also been a number of Grammy nominations for his recent albums 'When I Was Cruel' and 'The Delivery Man'.
The late-2003 Deutsche Grammophon release 'North' - an album of piano ballads composed, orchestrated and conducted by Costello - retained the number one position on the Billboard Traditional Jazz Chart for five weeks.
In 2004 Costello was nominated for an Oscar for Best Song - 'The Scarlet Tide,' sung by Alison Krauss in the motion picture 'Cold Mountain.' The song was co-written with T Bone Burnett.
The summer of 2004 saw Costello presenting a series of concerts as part of the Lincoln Center Festival in New York City. Following concerts with the Metropole Orkest and The Imposters, The Brooklyn Philharmonic, conducted by Brad Lubman, gave the premiere concert performance of 'Il Sogno', Costello's first full-length orchestral work.
The music was originally commissioned in 2000 by the Italian Dance Company, Aterballetto, for their adaptation of Shakespeare's 'A Midsummer Night's Dream'. Following performances in Bologna with the Orchestra del Teatro Communale, the ballet was staged throughout Italy, Germany, France and Russia.
'Il Sogno' was subsequently recorded by The London Symphony Orchestra, conducted by Michael Tilson-Thomas. The recording was released in the late 2004 by Deutsche Grammophon and stayed at the top of Billboard's Contemporary Classical Charts for 14 weeks.
Elvis Costello was commissioned by The Royal Danish Opera to compose an opera based on the life of Hans Christian Andersen. 'The Secret Songs,' a 'work-in-progress' cycle extracted from the opera, was given its first performance in Copenhagen in October 2005 to an appreciative audience response and enthusiastic reviews. Costello sang both of the leading male roles, Andersen and that of the showman P.T. Barnum, while the leading female role of Jenny Lind was taken by Swedish soprano Gisela Stille.
In January 2006, Elvis Costello was a featured artist at the Sydney Festival in Australia, presenting a series of contrasting concerts. The first reunited Costello with the Brodsky Quartet for excerpts from 'The Juliet Letters', while in the second half, Steve Nieve, double-bassist Greg Cohen and soprano Antoinette Halloran joined Costello and the Brodsky Quartet for several newly arranged excerpts from 'The Secret Songs.' Costello and Nieve then gave a second concert, in which they drew on some of Costello's rarely performed compositions.
The festival appearances concluded with two concerts with the Sydney Symphony conducted by Alan Broadbent at the Opera House. The program consisted of a suite from 'Il Sogno', followed by a number of Costello's songs arranged for orchestra by Costello, Sy Johnson, Bill Frisell, Vince Mendoza and Steve Nieve. The program also included compositions by Charles Mingus and Billy Strayhorn with Costello's lyrics and songs written by Costello and Burt Bacharach for the album 'Painted from Memory'.
Many of these compositions are also featured on 'My Flame Burns Blue', the live recording of Costello's performance with the Metropole Orkest at the 2004 North Sea Jazz Festival that was released in March of 2006 by Deutsche Grammophon coupled with the suite of 'Il Sogno' highlights.
Later that spring, Costello, Nieve and conductor Alan Broadbent presented a program similar to their Australian tour throughout the U.S., including appearances with San Francisco, Chicago, Houston, Austin and Baltimore's symphony orchestras.
2007 saw Costello tour extensively with The Imposters and also with Allen Toussaint throughout the USA and Europe. In autumn 2007 he undertook a highly successful tour, performing solo on 'The Bob Dylan Show.'
In late 2007, Costello completed his work on a commission from The Miami City Ballet when he collaborated with world-famous choreographer Twyla Tharp. The work, entitled 'NIGHTSPOT,' was premiered in Miami to great critical acclaim in March 2008.
A new album with The Imposters entitled 'Momofuku' had already been recorded in secrecy in a period of just seven days and was released on April 22nd. Costello is also working on a major television interview and musical performance series, entitled 'Spectacle: Elvis Costello with�,' which will be transmitted late in 2008 on Sundance Channel in the United States, C.T.V. in Canada and Channel 4 in the United Kingdom.
