Elvis Costello Gets Profane

05/15/09 3:44pm

Elvis Costello's ever-evolving music career will take another turn with the June 2 Hear Music release of Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.

The acoustic album was produced by T-Bone Burnett (who also produced 1986's King Of America and 1989's Spike) in a three-day recording session at Nashville's Sound Emporium with Jerry Douglas on dobro, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, Jeff Taylor on accordion and Dennis Crouch on double bass. Jim Lauderdale added harmonies to every song and Burnett also plays on the album.

Costello and Burnett co-wrote "Sulphur To Sugarcane" and "The Crooked Line," which features harmony vocals by Emmylou Harris. The two men performed and recorded together as The Coward Brothers in the mid-'80s and have continued to write together occasionally.

Costello and country music great Loretta Lynn co-wrote "I Felt The Chill" in an hour. "Complicated Shadows," which Costello wrote for Johnny Cash but recorded himself in 1996, was given a fresh treatment for the new album.

Secret, Profane & Sugarcane also features four pieces ("She Was No Good," "How Deep Is The Red?," "She Handed Me A Mirror" and "Red Cotton") from The Secret Songs, a work about 19th century Danish writer Hans Christian Andersen that Costello was commissioned to create by The Royal Danish Opera in 2005.

"I Dreamed Of My Old Lover" was originally destined for 2004's The Delivery Man, but was pulled from that album and used on this new record instead. "My All-Time Doll" and "Changing Partners," which Costello learned from an old Bing Crosby recording, are also included on Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.

"It's mainly, I guess you would say, bluegrass instrumentation, but they're playing my songs," Costello said in a conference call with reporters to plug his appearance at the Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival. "They're not playing traditional bluegrass songs, and they don't sound like bluegrass songs.

"They're ballad form. Some of them are ragtime.... It's always good to try and find new ways to play songs and to find new sounds to express songs you've already written."

The vinyl version of Secret, Profane & Sugarcane will feature two extra tracks: a cover of The Velvet Underground's "Femme Fatale" and "What Lewis Did Last."

The Spectacle: Elvis Costello With... television show airs Fridays at 10 p.m. ET on CTV and Saturdays at 8 p.m. and Sundays at 6 p.m. on Bravo!.

Costello, Sheryl Crow, Beastie Boys, Maroon 5's Adam Levine, Mary J. Blige, Cyndi Lauper, Norah Jones, Rachael Yamagata, Rhett Miller, Sara Bareilles, Steve Earle, Clay Aiken, Michael McDonald, Talib Kweli and (no big surprise) Moby performed "Kidney Now," a "We Are The World"-like charity song, on Thursday night's 30 Rock season finale. Though the song was a spoof, it can be purchased on iTunes and all of the sales proceeds will go to the National Kidney Foundation.

Here's "Kidney Now":

Costello will perform here:

June 9 Red Bank, NJ @ Count Basie Theatre
June 10 New York, NY @ Beacon Theatre
June 11 Vienna, VA @ Wolftrap Farm
June 13 Manchester, TN @ Great Stage Park (Bonnaroo Music & Arts Festival)
June 14 Cary, NC @ Booth Amphitheatre
June 16 Nashville, TN @ Ryman Auditorium
June 19 Telluride, CO @ Telluride Festival
July 4 Harriet Island @ Taste Of Minnesota
July 8 Winnipeg @ Birds Hill Provincial Park (Winnipeg Folk Festival)
Aug. 15 Salt Lake City, UT @ TBA
Aug. 17 San Jose, CA @ TBA
Aug. 19 Livermore, CA @ Wente Vineyards
Aug. 21 Santa Rosa, CA @ Ruth Finley Person Theater
Aug. 22 Ashland, OR @ Britt Pavilion
Aug. 23 Woodinville, WA @ Chateau Ste Michelle Winery
Aug. 28 Toronto, ON @ Massey Hall
Sept. 2 Grand Prairie, TX @ Nokia Theatre
Sept. 3 Tulsa, OK @ TBA

Here's the track list for Secret, Profane & Sugarcane:

"Down Among The Wine And Spirits"
"Complicated Shadows"
"I Felt The Chill"
"My All Time Doll"
"Hidden Shame"
"She Handed Me A Mirror"
"I Dreamed Of My Old Lover"
"How Deep Is The Red"
"She Was No Good"
"Sulfur To Sugarcane"
"Red Cotton"
"The Crooked Line"
"Changing Partners"