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Elvis Costello - Secret, Profane and Sugarcane Audio CD

A fair review of the Elvis Costello "Secret, Profane and Sugarcane" Audio CD. Please note that the below review is the views of the authors, and authors only. You can get a complete list of all Elvis Costello reviews here, or go back to the Elvis Costello tabs.

Elvis Costello Band: Elvis Costello
Title: Secret, Profane and Sugarcane
Rating:
Release Date: 2009-06-02
Media: Audio CD

Tracks: 1: Down Among the Wines and Spirits 2: Complicated Shadows 3: I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came 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: Sulphur to Sugarcane 11: Red Cotton 12: The Crooked Line 13: Changing Partners

Good country album
Costello wants to do a country album. Mr. I have no problem with this. Afterall, he is Elvis Costello. He can do whatever he wants.

Mostly originals. . . some co-written with T-Bone Burnett. Add in one Loretta Lynn and one Bing Crosby cover. Some traditional country, some hillbilly folk, some bluegrass, and a drunken outlaw ballad or two. Together, it all sounds like it was a fun record to make.
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Elvis Costello's Roots Country Collaboration With T-Bone Burnett
I am pleased to report that this CD belongs on that list. Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is my first Elvis Costello CD, but I was drawn to it because he had teamed up with ace producer T-Bone Burnett who has been the man behind the scenes of some really great music.

Although not his main genre of music, Costello does a masterful job on a collection of 13 roots country songs. His voice works really well with instrumentation including Dobro, banjo, fiddle, mandolin, and accordion. Here's a look at some of the highlight songs (although in fairness you could validly pick any or all of them):

"Complicated Shadows" - This is one of multiple songs that sound like they could have been taken from the movie O' Brother, Where Art Thou?. It is a mid-tempo song about a man who is tried, convicted, and executed for murder. The vocal delivery is very catchy with good harmonies too. It also includes the great line "Sometimes justice you will find/Is just dumb not colour-blind".

"My All Time Doll" - Here we have another mid-tempo song, but this one is about a wayward man who is smitten by true love. Costello's vocals are very rhythmic against the strum of the guitars. The accordion and mandolin accents also come in and out nicely.

"She Handed Me A Mirror" - This is one of the slower songs on Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. The combination of fiddle, Dobro, and mandolin combine to set the backdrop for a sad, subdued tale of a man who finds himself rejected by his love because of his own vanity. It comes across best in these lines from the third verse "She handed me a mirror/So I could recognize/The Distance from my heart to hers/The distance from my heart to hers".

"She Was No Good" - Costello sings of ill tempered women on various riverboats. It is another slower song, but it has more drive and energy than "She Handed Me A Mirror" I loved the drunken shouts after the line "And several drunken musicians ran amok".

"The Crooked Road" - Emmylou Harris joins Costello for another song about relationships. It is one of the more up-tempo songs on the CD. It deals with how life is not always simple or black and white as indicated by the line at the end of the chorus "How I hope I'll find you waiting/At the very end of this crooked line". I found this to be along the lines of the songs that Burnett recorded with Robert Plant and Alison Krauss. I wouldn't mind an entire CD of Costello and Harris as the blended well. This was also one of the songs that have a more standard structure of verse/chorus/verse/chorus/solo/chorus. While the song is serious, it is not a downer. The solo features rather cheery accordion and fiddle along with a couple of "hoots".

Overall, I really liked Secret, Profane & Sugarcane. It lived up to all of my expectations of a T-Bone Burnett production, and I was pleasantly surprised in Elvis Costello's musicianship. If you like roots country music, I think this CD is for you.

Download this: Complicated Shadows.


elvis hatfield costello
A little bit laid back but fun just the same. Elvis excels in any genre he chooses.


Costello refuses to stand still
This CD takes him well into bluegrass territory with an all-star band that is up to this challenge setting intriguing and melodic settings for some interesting investigations into human nature.
I love the fact that Costello, unlike so many of his contemporaries refuses to revisit the same sound, instead he's constantly experimenting and challenging himself to investigate new soundscapes for his exceptional lyrics. Each song is its own self-contained tale of human nature, from the opening examination of life "Down Among the Wines and Spirits" to the "Hidden Shame" of the career criminal who "They never got me for the thing I really did," the tales have a very austere but perfect settings with traditional musical instruments and stellar production by T-Bone Burnett. The one aspect of the CD I wasn't enamored with was the songs from Costello's unfinished commission for the Denmark Opera "The Secret Songs" which seem a bit shoe horned in and don't seem to have the natural flow of the other material. But the overall appeal of this can't be denied and as long as you're not a Costello fan frozen in the past, you'll definitely find plenty of songs to appreciate and enjoy here.
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Roots music Elvis style?
Hooked on the first listen but gets better each time. Great album. His music is always in a state of change. Wonderful musicianship. The type of music is difficult to describe but Americana at its best.


You can see a complete list of all Elvis Costello discography, or go back to the Elvis Costello tabs. There is also a good guide on how to read guitar tabs here.

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