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List Price: $18.98 | | Label: HEAR MUSIC
Salesrank: 1129
Released: June 2, 2009 |
| Our Price: $10.93 |
| Used Price: $8.99 |
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| Media: Audio CD |
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Secret, Profane and Sugarcane Track Listing:
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
Editorial Review:
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.
The album includes ten previously unrecorded songs. "Sulphur 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 the 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 Abolishionist pamphlet, while manufacturing cheap souvenirs of the adventure.
These four episodes were newly adapted for the instrumentation of this record.
Indeed these are 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 of 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.
Secret, Profane and Sugarcane Reviews:
Profound & Sugar-Free 
2009-12-29 - When EC commits to an LP, it can be a hard-baked bummer or a sugary hit factory. Often within the same song. It can also be brilliant, as SP&S often is. It edges out the 3-and-a-half star Momofuku in the Late-Period EC Sweepstakes on the strength of its honest, threadbare gravitas. These beautiful bummers seem earned somehow....
A stellar country/folk album. 
2009-11-26 - T. Bone Burnett has yet another successful album in his pocket; it seems everything he touches these days is gold, from John Mellencamp's most recent albums, to the Alison Krauss/Robert Plant phenomenon RAISING SAND. Now we have SECRET, PROFANE, AND SUGARCANE, featuring the unparalleled voice and songwriting talent of Elvis Costello.
Does this album stand up to Burnett's other recent productions? Yes. But here's the catch: whereas the other Burnett-produced albums were stellar primarily because of Burnett's production (admit it; I love Alison Krauss, Robert Plant, Mellencamp, and the other artists Burnett has worked with, but his production has been front-and-center), SUGARCANE excels mainly because of Costello. There's only one cover song here; everything else is a tried-and-true country number, influenced by Costello's rock/pop nuance. The end result is fabulous tracks like the titular number, the rollicking opener "Down Among the Wine and Spirits," the haunting Loretta Lynn co-write "I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came," and every other track here. SECRET, PROFANE, AND SUGARCANE is another great notch in T. Bone Burnett's belt; but it's also an outstanding achievement for Costello himself, and perhaps even country music in general. Outsiders often breathe the best life into country (I'm thinking of Bruce Springsteen's WE SHALL OVERCOME: THE SEEGER SESSIONS primarily, but there are others); Costello has lit a fire that will, unfortunately, go out (Nashville bigwigs won't pay any attention at all, damn them); but we at least get to sit back and relish in this great, timeless music from two of the music industry's most talented individuals.
Good country album
2009-10-19 - Mr. Costello wants to do a country album. 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.
Elvis Costello's Roots Country Collaboration With T-Bone Burnett
2009-10-19 - 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. I am pleased to report that this CD belongs on that list.
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
2009-10-16 - Elvis excels in any genre he chooses.A little bit laid back but fun just the same.
