National Ransom
Costello Elvis
National Ransom
Costello Elvis
Produced By T Bone Burnett with the members of The Imposters and The Sugarcanes and guests Vince Gill, Marc Ribot, Buddy Miller and Leon Russell. The record is led off by the loud electric guitar of Marc Ribot in the left channel and the lap-steel of Jerry Douglas in the right channel. Steve Nieve enters on the Vox Continental organ, while the rhythm section consists of Dennis Crouch on double bass and Pete Thomas on drums. National Ransom (Hear Music/Concord Music Group) is the name of the album and also a rock and roll song, “For the bankrupt times, whenever they may be,” as Costello recently described it. National Ransom, recorded in a total of eleven days at Sound Emporium, Nashville and Village Recorders, Los Angeles was produced by T Bone Burnett and engineered and mixed by Michael Piersante at Electromagetic, Los Angeles. All of these songs are newly composed by Costello with the exception of “I Lost You,” co-written with Jim Lauderdale and “All These Strangers,” for which Costello and T Bone Burnett collaborated on the lyrics. Costello and Burnett also provide the lyrics for “My Lovely Jezebel,” a Leon Russell rock and roll tune and he leads Thomas/Crouch/Ribot combo from the piano. Despite the presence of lap-steel, mandolin, dobro and fiddle throughout the record, the music probably owes more to the rhythms and harmonies of R&B, or even Gospel music, than to Bluegrass. Vince Gill adds a beautiful vocal harmony part to the chorus of a string-band tune, “Dr. Watson, I Presume,” on which the Sugarcanes full instrumental line-up is heard together with Pete Thomas, Marc Ribot and the baritone guitar of Buddy Miller, who also sings on the title cut.
- National Ransom
- Jimmie Standing In The Rain
- Stations Of The Cross
- A Slow Drag With Jospehine
- Five Small Words
- Church Underground
- You Hung The Moon
- Bullets For The New Born King
- I Lost You
- Dr Watson I Presume
- One Bell Ringing
- The Spell That You Cast
- That’s Not The Part Of Him You’re Leaving
- My Lovely Jezebel
- All These Strangers
- A Voice In The Dark
Review
Alice Bitsis, Readings Malvern
Elvis Costello is back with members of the Imposters and Sugarcanes to present us with a bit of bluegrass meets rock’n’roll. His album harks back to the US financial crisis of the 1930s, a bit of history repeating itself, Costello says.
Blast from the past Leon Russell, the session musician for just about everyone from the mid-1960s through to the 1990s, plays the punchy keyboards here; T Bone Burnett is producer. Probably for serious Costello fans only.
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