Elvis Costello: “From Sulphur to Sugarcane”
Live on The Late Show with David Letterman
This is the first single from Costello’s new country-tinged album, Sacred, Profane & Sugarcane. I tend to agree with whoever said that the hronic genre-hopper “can reinvent the past in his own image”.1 Other than former producer and labelmate Nick Lowe, I’m not sure I can name any other musicians who have so neatly smoothed their new wave spikiness into a mellow twang as they’ve matured—without losing any of the biting wit that characterized their earlier work.
While producer T-Bone Burnett certainly gets some of the credit for Sugarcane’s sound—he’s the dude who put Robert Plant and Alison Krauss together, after all— Costello has walked the Southern side of the street before, on Almost Blue (1981) and King of America (1986), also produced by Burnett.
He did this song on Saturday night in Tennessee, sandwiched between “Every Day I Write the Book” and a cover of the Velvet Underground’s “Femme Fatale”.2
1 My other fave Costello-related quote is from David Lee Roth, who said that rock critics like Elvis Costello because rock critics look like Elvis Costello. Well played, Diamond Dave.
2 Despite happily swooning in the side stage area, I did jot down a set list. Earlier today, I checked out the one on Bonnaroo’s website and it’s TOTALLY WRONG, as is the one for Robyn Hitchcock.3 I’m pretty sure I’m the only one who will notice and/or care about these things. There are days I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that Rain Man was my real dad.
3 B-roo says he played “Brenda’s Iron Sledge” as the fourth song which he absolutely did not; it was actually “Kingdom of Love”. This is why I’m going to die alone.
