Elvis Costello

Elvis Costello's National Ransom is set for release on November 2nd via Hear Music/Concord Music Group and was produced by T Bone Burnett. All members of The Imposters and The Sugarcanes feature in a wide variety of groovy new combos with 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 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.

The track, "Jimmie Standing In The Rain", recalls the misfortunes of a cowboy singer playing the northern English musical halls in 1937. The music owes a little something to that time. The ensemble for this song includes, the acoustic guitar of Marc Ribot, the violinist, Stuart Duncan, Dennis Crouch on double bass and The Sugarcanes' accordionist, Jeff Taylor playing piano. Darrell Leonard adds the trumpet commentary.

"A Slow Drag With Josephine" described by Costello as "rock and roll, as it sounded in 1921" has been a highlight of recent Costello live shows. Mandolinist Mike Compton sings the close vocal harmony while members of the 'Canes enter only to offer brief instrumental comments to Costello's finger-picked guitar accompaniment.

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. This continues on "That's Not The Part Of Him You're Leaving", which is pitched somewhere on the road between Nashville and Memphis and finds the entire Sugarcanes are joined by Pete Thomas and Steve Nieve on Hammond Organ and "The Spell That You Cast", where Costello's own Gibson tenor guitar trades off in the solo with Mike Compton's mandolin on a beat combo tune.

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 a Thomas/Crouch/Ribot combo from the piano. 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 are heard together with Pete Thomas, Marc Ribot and the baritone guitar of Buddy Miller, who also sings on the title cut.

The ballad accompaniments range from a single acoustic guitar and double bass on "Bullets For The New-Born King" - a song in the voice of a regretful assassin - to a hushed 21-piece ensemble for, "You Hung The Moon" - a song about a séance held in 1919 as a family struggle with the loss of a soldier executed for desertion in the First World War.

Asked if all the songs and their characters were set in specific times and places, Costello said, "Yes but I'd be happy if you imagine them any time you want".

National Ransom was recorded in a total of eleven days at Sound Emporium, Nashville and Village Recorders, Los Angeles and engineered and mixed by Michael Piersante at Electromagetic, Los Angeles. Tony Millionaire once again provides the ink illustration for the cover.

National Ransom Track List:

1. National Ransom
2. Jimmie Standing in the Rain
3. Stations of the Cross
4. A Slow Drag With Josephine
5. Five Small Words
6. Church Underground
7. You Hung the Moon
8. Bullets for the New-Born King
9. I Lost You
10. Dr Watson, I Presume
11. One Bell Ringing
12. The Spell That You Cast
13. That's Not The Part of Him You're Leaving
14. My Lovely Jezebel
15. All These Strangers

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