For his second venture recording in the American South this decade, Elvis Costello enlisted producer T-Bone Burnett, coming off his successful collaboration with Robert Plant and Alison Krause on Raising Sand, for an album with bluegrass musicians.

But Secret, Profane & Sugarcane is hardly just a bluegrass album. Costello imbues his songs with rock, country blues and jazz sensibilities as well as folk themes built around four songs from an unfinished Hans Christian Anderson opera.

The playing is immaculate in a traditional bluegrass style, no drums, and the songs are vintage Costello, always interesting musically and lyrically stories easy to follow and ringing with truth, depth of emotion and at times a sly whimsy.

The album was recorded in a scant three days in Nashville and each track features the core band of Costello on acoustic guitar, T-Bone on most tracks with a Kay 161 electric, Dennis Crouch, double bass, Stuart Duncan, fiddle/banjo, Jerry Douglas, dobro, Mike Compton, mandolin and the harmony vocal of Jim Lauderdale, who often traces Costello closely throughout entire songs. Emmylou Harris joins them on one song, The Crooked Line. Jeff Taylor plays accordion on three tracks. Continue reading Elvis returns to the South →