Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
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sweetest punch
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Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.
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Dr. Luther
- Posts: 475
- Joined: Tue Dec 07, 2004 3:25 pm
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Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
Looking forward to this one.johnfoyle wrote:Who's going?
I love this venue.
Intimate -- indoors -- and the other times that he has played there have been fine performances.
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20 ... /908129844
Elvis still sings outside the musical box
By JOHN BECK
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Thursday, August 13, 2009
It’s no secret Elvis Costello has a crush on the Deep South and its homegrown twang.
On the surface it might seem odd, for a bloke who was raised in London with Irish blood running through his veins and now lives in Vancouver with his wife, jazz singer Diana Krall, and their kids.
But don’t forget: The wayward son of a dance-band singer briefly fronted a country-rock band called Flip City way back in the early ’70s before turning heads as an angry young bespectacled punk and releasing his new wave debut, “My Aim Is True,” in 1977.
In 1981, “Almost Blue,” an album reflecting his fixation on country singer George Jones, came with a disclaimer: “Warning! This album contains country and western music and may offend narrow-minded listeners.” It was an itch that had to be scratched after years of hiding his George Jones cassette tapes from nosy critics who might spot them on the bus during interviews.
More recently, his “River of Reversal” collaboration with pianist Allen Toussaint was one of the first recordings made in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Produced by T-Bone Burnett, Costello’s latest album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane” marks his first acoustic album with a band since “King of America” in 1986 — which he distinctly remembers “came out to total indifference.”
No narrow labels
And although he likes to remind writers that he lost a fortune on the tour for “King of America,” now at 58 Costello is out on the road pushing acoustic twang all over again.
This time, when he arrives Aug. 21 at the Wells Fargo Center with the Sugarcanes — Jim Lauderdale on vocals, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, Dennis Crouch on bass and Jeff Taylor on accordion — he’s not that interested in narrow genre labels.
“I don’t see this album, strictly speaking, as a country music record,” he says, midway through a half-hour phone interview.
“Obviously the sounds and the instruments are more commonly heard in that form of music. People say it’s a bluegrass record. Well, only in the sense that the musicians playing on it are best known for playing bluegrass and traditional country music.
“We’re not playing any Bill Monroe songs or Jimmy Martin songs on this record,” he said of the bluegrass legends. “It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy playing them, but I didn’t do that.”
Americana — in the most general definition of the term — may be the best description. Recorded in three days in Nashville, with a cast of bluegrass and country regulars sitting around in a circle, the collection of narrative ballads meanders like a Mississippi riverboat through the antebellum South of slavery, hard-drinking, all-night brawls, lost love and redemption. Lauderdale layers the high end of floating harmonies. The rambling song “Sulphur to Sugarcane” strives for a road atlas of rhymes (e.g., “the women in Poughkeepsie take their clothes off when they’re tipsy”), paying homage to classics like country star Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.”
Harris contributes
for “The Crooked Line.” Costello dedicates the final song, “Changing Partners,” to Krall, “my one and only dancing partner.”
P.T. Barnum plays a recurring role. As does the complicated life of author Hans Christian Andersen, recreated in several ghost songs left over from a commissioned Danish opera never fully realized by Costello.
“As exceptional as he was and as singular as he was as an imagination and writer, (Andersen) also was a man of his times, a man who didn’t feel himself fit for love and had this tragic tendency to fall in love with the wrong person, and be rejected and be devastated by it. So really he’s not so unique in that.
“There was this one little image of him being handed a mirror as a form of romantic rejection — because he’s ugly. It just seemed to be beautiful. And although it did come from his story, when I made the decision to record that song in Nashville I thought, well, this could just be any heartbreak song. It could be a lot of people’s experience, like so many songs that have been sung with this kind of instrumentation.”
One of the most resonant lines on the album — “I felt the chill before the winter came” — arrives in a tale of lost love he co-wrote with Loretta Lynn (who mined a similar theme in the 1974 single, “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill”).
“She’s just a ball of fire,” Costello remembers. “She comes into the room with so much energy and humor and full of ideas that are flying in a million directions. It’s like opening a jar full of butterflies and everything’s flying in colorful directions. And it’s, like — do we go follow that idea or that line?”
But the one song on “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane” that has surprised him the most, in the limited live run he’s had so far, is “Red Cotton.”
“It’s about the complex web of guilt over slavery and why people lied about it,” he says. “It also speaks about Liverpool’s role, which is my mother’s hometown and one of the places I regard as a home. It’s something that’s really conflicted the people of the city, the people who have charge of the history of the city. Do they speak of it? Do they deny it? Do they carry it like a big mark of guilt?”
Standing ovation
The first time he played the song live with the Sugarcanes, at a show in New Jersey, the audience shot out of their seats and gave him a standing ovation.
“It completely floored me that they did that.”
The same thing happened at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten past the point that it’s the South’s fault. That’s the whole point of the song. There were the traders in West Africa who sold either their country-people or those who they had enslaved from other parts of Africa. There were the cotton merchants who were quite happy to see the ships sail off to do this dastardly trade. There were the people who benefitted from it on the plantations in the New States. They all shared that. So the song isn’t this grandiose, self-satisfied, finger-pointing song.”
Well-versed in the idioms of the South, he says the fascination goes back to the ’70s when Costello and the Attractions and other British bands like The Clash were making waves in New York and L.A. — “Even then, my third port of call was New Orleans.”
Next career twist?
More than 30 years after he first dabbled in Nashville, he recently spoke at the Country Music Hall of Fame about “my peculiar relationship with Nashville.”
“It really is as a writer imagining myself — I could go on location, as a filmmaker would, to any place in the world. Obviously a song like ‘Red Cotton’ travels in a different route than a song like ‘Sulphur to Sugarcane.’ One is traveling by ship, the other by road.”
And, once again, he’ll watch as his wide audience either takes the leap of faith or turns a deaf ear and awaits the next career twist.
“I think there’s a mixture of people. Some will give you the benefit of the doubt and they sort of trust you to make that decision about where we’re headed next. And there are other people who want you to stay the same and actually get quite annoyed with you when you make changes,” he says.
“The best thing to trust is my own curiosity and enthusiasm for whatever’s in front of me. And when I feel I’ve done everything I can with it, the usual occurrence is that I find myself doing something contrasting. Not because I’m being perverse, but because that’s the natural flow. It seems that works. For me to try to second-guess the audience or try and protect some sense of brand identity would be a huge mistake.”
You can reach staff writer John Beck at 521-5300 or john.beck@pressdemocrat.com.
Elvis still sings outside the musical box
By JOHN BECK
THE PRESS DEMOCRAT
Thursday, August 13, 2009
It’s no secret Elvis Costello has a crush on the Deep South and its homegrown twang.
On the surface it might seem odd, for a bloke who was raised in London with Irish blood running through his veins and now lives in Vancouver with his wife, jazz singer Diana Krall, and their kids.
But don’t forget: The wayward son of a dance-band singer briefly fronted a country-rock band called Flip City way back in the early ’70s before turning heads as an angry young bespectacled punk and releasing his new wave debut, “My Aim Is True,” in 1977.
In 1981, “Almost Blue,” an album reflecting his fixation on country singer George Jones, came with a disclaimer: “Warning! This album contains country and western music and may offend narrow-minded listeners.” It was an itch that had to be scratched after years of hiding his George Jones cassette tapes from nosy critics who might spot them on the bus during interviews.
More recently, his “River of Reversal” collaboration with pianist Allen Toussaint was one of the first recordings made in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.
Produced by T-Bone Burnett, Costello’s latest album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane” marks his first acoustic album with a band since “King of America” in 1986 — which he distinctly remembers “came out to total indifference.”
No narrow labels
And although he likes to remind writers that he lost a fortune on the tour for “King of America,” now at 58 Costello is out on the road pushing acoustic twang all over again.
This time, when he arrives Aug. 21 at the Wells Fargo Center with the Sugarcanes — Jim Lauderdale on vocals, Jerry Douglas on dobro, Stuart Duncan on fiddle, Mike Compton on mandolin, Dennis Crouch on bass and Jeff Taylor on accordion — he’s not that interested in narrow genre labels.
“I don’t see this album, strictly speaking, as a country music record,” he says, midway through a half-hour phone interview.
“Obviously the sounds and the instruments are more commonly heard in that form of music. People say it’s a bluegrass record. Well, only in the sense that the musicians playing on it are best known for playing bluegrass and traditional country music.
“We’re not playing any Bill Monroe songs or Jimmy Martin songs on this record,” he said of the bluegrass legends. “It doesn’t mean I wouldn’t enjoy playing them, but I didn’t do that.”
Americana — in the most general definition of the term — may be the best description. Recorded in three days in Nashville, with a cast of bluegrass and country regulars sitting around in a circle, the collection of narrative ballads meanders like a Mississippi riverboat through the antebellum South of slavery, hard-drinking, all-night brawls, lost love and redemption. Lauderdale layers the high end of floating harmonies. The rambling song “Sulphur to Sugarcane” strives for a road atlas of rhymes (e.g., “the women in Poughkeepsie take their clothes off when they’re tipsy”), paying homage to classics like country star Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere.”
Harris contributes
for “The Crooked Line.” Costello dedicates the final song, “Changing Partners,” to Krall, “my one and only dancing partner.”
P.T. Barnum plays a recurring role. As does the complicated life of author Hans Christian Andersen, recreated in several ghost songs left over from a commissioned Danish opera never fully realized by Costello.
“As exceptional as he was and as singular as he was as an imagination and writer, (Andersen) also was a man of his times, a man who didn’t feel himself fit for love and had this tragic tendency to fall in love with the wrong person, and be rejected and be devastated by it. So really he’s not so unique in that.
“There was this one little image of him being handed a mirror as a form of romantic rejection — because he’s ugly. It just seemed to be beautiful. And although it did come from his story, when I made the decision to record that song in Nashville I thought, well, this could just be any heartbreak song. It could be a lot of people’s experience, like so many songs that have been sung with this kind of instrumentation.”
One of the most resonant lines on the album — “I felt the chill before the winter came” — arrives in a tale of lost love he co-wrote with Loretta Lynn (who mined a similar theme in the 1974 single, “When the Tingle Becomes a Chill”).
“She’s just a ball of fire,” Costello remembers. “She comes into the room with so much energy and humor and full of ideas that are flying in a million directions. It’s like opening a jar full of butterflies and everything’s flying in colorful directions. And it’s, like — do we go follow that idea or that line?”
But the one song on “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane” that has surprised him the most, in the limited live run he’s had so far, is “Red Cotton.”
“It’s about the complex web of guilt over slavery and why people lied about it,” he says. “It also speaks about Liverpool’s role, which is my mother’s hometown and one of the places I regard as a home. It’s something that’s really conflicted the people of the city, the people who have charge of the history of the city. Do they speak of it? Do they deny it? Do they carry it like a big mark of guilt?”
Standing ovation
The first time he played the song live with the Sugarcanes, at a show in New Jersey, the audience shot out of their seats and gave him a standing ovation.
“It completely floored me that they did that.”
The same thing happened at the Ryman Auditorium in Nashville.
“I don’t think we’ve gotten past the point that it’s the South’s fault. That’s the whole point of the song. There were the traders in West Africa who sold either their country-people or those who they had enslaved from other parts of Africa. There were the cotton merchants who were quite happy to see the ships sail off to do this dastardly trade. There were the people who benefitted from it on the plantations in the New States. They all shared that. So the song isn’t this grandiose, self-satisfied, finger-pointing song.”
Well-versed in the idioms of the South, he says the fascination goes back to the ’70s when Costello and the Attractions and other British bands like The Clash were making waves in New York and L.A. — “Even then, my third port of call was New Orleans.”
Next career twist?
More than 30 years after he first dabbled in Nashville, he recently spoke at the Country Music Hall of Fame about “my peculiar relationship with Nashville.”
“It really is as a writer imagining myself — I could go on location, as a filmmaker would, to any place in the world. Obviously a song like ‘Red Cotton’ travels in a different route than a song like ‘Sulphur to Sugarcane.’ One is traveling by ship, the other by road.”
And, once again, he’ll watch as his wide audience either takes the leap of faith or turns a deaf ear and awaits the next career twist.
“I think there’s a mixture of people. Some will give you the benefit of the doubt and they sort of trust you to make that decision about where we’re headed next. And there are other people who want you to stay the same and actually get quite annoyed with you when you make changes,” he says.
“The best thing to trust is my own curiosity and enthusiasm for whatever’s in front of me. And when I feel I’ve done everything I can with it, the usual occurrence is that I find myself doing something contrasting. Not because I’m being perverse, but because that’s the natural flow. It seems that works. For me to try to second-guess the audience or try and protect some sense of brand identity would be a huge mistake.”
You can reach staff writer John Beck at 521-5300 or john.beck@pressdemocrat.com.
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
Peter H. posts to Facebook-
http://beck.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10656/10656/
August 22nd, 2009 03:53am
Review: Pickin’ and grinnin’ with Elvis
by Beck
Even though one fan wanted her money back when she realized she just couldn’t stomach bluegrass, most of the crowd knew what they were getting into as Elvis Costello picked and plucked and hollered his way though a hoedown of a set Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
Backed by an extremely intuitive Nashville sextet of seasoned bluegrass and country players, the encyclopedic Brit singer stretched out nearly every song from his new Americana roots country album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.”
Flipping through the atlas, “Sulphur to Sugarcane” name-dropped every town from Poughkeepsie to Santa Rosa. “Red Cotton” charted the global scourge of slavery, going all the way back to his mother’s hometown of Liverpool. One of several historical narrative ballads, “She Handed Me a Mirror” recounted author Hans Christian Andersen’s doomed infatuation with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind.
A song he co-wrote with Loretta Lynn yielded one of the best lines of the night: “I felt the chill before the winter came.”
And when’s the last time you heard a fiddle solo in a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”? (Other covers included “Happy” by The Rolling Stones, “Mystery Train” made famous by Elvis, “The Bottle Let Me Down” by Merle Haggard and “Friend of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead).
But eventually, even the hardcore fans started yelling out for an Elvis Costello chorus they could sing along to - one woman couldn’t stop begging for “Peace, Love and Understanding.”
“We’ll play that on our comeback tour,” he quipped, quickly getting back to “the historical part of the show” - a convoluted story of Jenny Lind (and a quick dis of Celine Dion) and P.T. Barnum.
The response: polite laughter mixed with groans.
By the end of the night, he obliged, rolling out several of the classics - “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” “Allison” and you guessed it “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” (sealing his comeback tour) - totally reinvented with mandolin, fiddle, accordion and lap slide guitar. Turned inside out and twangy, “Every Day I Write the Book” sounded better than the original, especially layered with Jim Lauderdale’s harmonizing vocals.
But for my money, it was the haunting spell of “The Delivery Man,” falling midway through the set, that made time stand still. Starting and stopping, over and over, with an echo that reverberated through the room, he kept coming back to the irony of “In a certain light he looked like Elvis/In a certain way he felt like Jesus.”
At this point in his unpredictable career, the bespectacled Buddy Holly look-alike (who segued into “Not Fade Away” at one point) still finds that loveable hoarse rasp at the back of his throat when he stretches out a note. And these days, he doesn’t have much use for amplification. When he wants to show off his pipes, he just walks away from the microphone and belts it out.
As his father, also a singer, once told him: “Never look up to a note, always look down.”
When he mentioned it to the crowd, they fell silent.
“I have no idea what that means either.”
http://beck.blogs.pressdemocrat.com/10656/10656/
August 22nd, 2009 03:53am
Review: Pickin’ and grinnin’ with Elvis
by Beck
Even though one fan wanted her money back when she realized she just couldn’t stomach bluegrass, most of the crowd knew what they were getting into as Elvis Costello picked and plucked and hollered his way though a hoedown of a set Friday night at the Wells Fargo Center.
Backed by an extremely intuitive Nashville sextet of seasoned bluegrass and country players, the encyclopedic Brit singer stretched out nearly every song from his new Americana roots country album “Secret, Profane and Sugarcane.”
Flipping through the atlas, “Sulphur to Sugarcane” name-dropped every town from Poughkeepsie to Santa Rosa. “Red Cotton” charted the global scourge of slavery, going all the way back to his mother’s hometown of Liverpool. One of several historical narrative ballads, “She Handed Me a Mirror” recounted author Hans Christian Andersen’s doomed infatuation with Swedish opera singer Jenny Lind.
A song he co-wrote with Loretta Lynn yielded one of the best lines of the night: “I felt the chill before the winter came.”
And when’s the last time you heard a fiddle solo in a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”? (Other covers included “Happy” by The Rolling Stones, “Mystery Train” made famous by Elvis, “The Bottle Let Me Down” by Merle Haggard and “Friend of the Devil” by the Grateful Dead).
But eventually, even the hardcore fans started yelling out for an Elvis Costello chorus they could sing along to - one woman couldn’t stop begging for “Peace, Love and Understanding.”
“We’ll play that on our comeback tour,” he quipped, quickly getting back to “the historical part of the show” - a convoluted story of Jenny Lind (and a quick dis of Celine Dion) and P.T. Barnum.
The response: polite laughter mixed with groans.
By the end of the night, he obliged, rolling out several of the classics - “(The Angels Wanna Wear My) Red Shoes,” “Allison” and you guessed it “(What’s So Funny ‘Bout) Peace, Love and Understanding” (sealing his comeback tour) - totally reinvented with mandolin, fiddle, accordion and lap slide guitar. Turned inside out and twangy, “Every Day I Write the Book” sounded better than the original, especially layered with Jim Lauderdale’s harmonizing vocals.
But for my money, it was the haunting spell of “The Delivery Man,” falling midway through the set, that made time stand still. Starting and stopping, over and over, with an echo that reverberated through the room, he kept coming back to the irony of “In a certain light he looked like Elvis/In a certain way he felt like Jesus.”
At this point in his unpredictable career, the bespectacled Buddy Holly look-alike (who segued into “Not Fade Away” at one point) still finds that loveable hoarse rasp at the back of his throat when he stretches out a note. And these days, he doesn’t have much use for amplification. When he wants to show off his pipes, he just walks away from the microphone and belts it out.
As his father, also a singer, once told him: “Never look up to a note, always look down.”
When he mentioned it to the crowd, they fell silent.
“I have no idea what that means either.”
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arcadecline
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 10:37 am
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
This was my 5th time seeing Elvis (my first time was in 2002) and I would have to say it was my favorite Elvis Costello performance to date. The show was unexpectedly intimate. Mr. Costello was in great spirits and the most talkative I have ever seen him. The way he rearranged his classics to fit the style of the Sugarcanes was stunning and refreshing (“Everyday I Write The Book” was my favorite). The crowd sang along on many songs, which transformed the performance from a show to a personal experience.
Also, I struck up a conversation with Mr. Costello’s soundman, and he made it a point to tell me that all of the equipment he was using was analog. He was so proud of this fact that he pulled me over to the soundboard and said, “Look! Look! Nothing digital!” And I have to admit, the sound was flawless. When hovering over the soundboard, I noticed that nights set list, so of course I took a peak. After reading it I started to laugh out loud (check out the picture of the set list below). I was so amused by the set list that I asked to have it. Little did I know that I was going to be lucky enough to have Elvis sign it to add to the irony of keeping it in the first place; which leads to my post show experience.
After the show I decided to try to meet my idol. I figured it was a long shot, but I had nothing to lose. After about an hour of calmly waiting next to his bus with a group of dedicated fans, (ranging in ages from 20 to 50 something) a security guard came out of the building and announced that Mr. Costello would be out shortly to sign autographs. Five minutes later Elvis bounced out of the back door with an energetic swagger. He received hugs and kisses from female fans—and a shaky handshake from yours truly. He took pictures and signed whatever anybody gave him. It was a perfect ending to a perfect night!
Also, I struck up a conversation with Mr. Costello’s soundman, and he made it a point to tell me that all of the equipment he was using was analog. He was so proud of this fact that he pulled me over to the soundboard and said, “Look! Look! Nothing digital!” And I have to admit, the sound was flawless. When hovering over the soundboard, I noticed that nights set list, so of course I took a peak. After reading it I started to laugh out loud (check out the picture of the set list below). I was so amused by the set list that I asked to have it. Little did I know that I was going to be lucky enough to have Elvis sign it to add to the irony of keeping it in the first place; which leads to my post show experience.
After the show I decided to try to meet my idol. I figured it was a long shot, but I had nothing to lose. After about an hour of calmly waiting next to his bus with a group of dedicated fans, (ranging in ages from 20 to 50 something) a security guard came out of the building and announced that Mr. Costello would be out shortly to sign autographs. Five minutes later Elvis bounced out of the back door with an energetic swagger. He received hugs and kisses from female fans—and a shaky handshake from yours truly. He took pictures and signed whatever anybody gave him. It was a perfect ending to a perfect night!
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
Perfect!
Did Elvis like your hat?
Did Elvis like your hat?
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
arcadecline, I raise my cougar paw to you. Nice shot and great piece of paper you have there. Very funny. I managed to go to this show. Free ticket, front row - I love when that happens. This was a much better show than Saratoga Winery. He definitely was having a better time.. They sounded great.
I managed to get some shots with my iPhone although I'm not too happy with them. Sort of wish I had the 3G S for this event. It has a better camera.
Here is one of the shots: http://yfrog.com/5hecsantarosaj
I managed to get some shots with my iPhone although I'm not too happy with them. Sort of wish I had the 3G S for this event. It has a better camera.
Here is one of the shots: http://yfrog.com/5hecsantarosaj
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The Gentleman
- Posts: 253
- Joined: Wed Jul 30, 2003 4:40 pm
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
I don't think EC is the mastermind behind the joke setlist. This from a Jane's Addiction concert:
- Attachments
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arcadecline
- Posts: 38
- Joined: Tue May 09, 2006 10:37 am
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
Actually, I’m not sure if Elvis commented on my hat. I was so excited that I can’t remember much of anything he said. Also, I got the set list from the soundman at the show. I wonder if the faux set list is his doing.
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sweetest punch
- Posts: 6010
- Joined: Sat Apr 03, 2004 5:49 am
- Location: Belgium
Re: Elvis and The Sugarcanes, Santa Rosa, CA, 21 Aug 2009
The show is on Dime.
The band keeps getting better and better!! Really great show.
The band keeps getting better and better!! Really great show.
Since you put me down, it seems i've been very gloomy. You may laugh but pretty girls look right through me.