As a singer, songwriter and observer of human foibles, Elvis Costello is little short of dazzling on his latest outing. It certifies him as both the modern-day Cole Porter for the effortless way he marries sophisticated lyrics with elegant music, and contemporary counterpart to Brecht-Weill for his unrelenting skill at creating and inhabiting unforgettable characters and their dark situations.

Collaborating once again with T Bone Burnett and his crew of musical magicians, Costello fearlessly takes on rampant greed (the title track), society’s discards (“Jimmie Standing in the Rain”), abandoned love (“I Lost You”), romantic paranoia (“Dr. Watson, I Presume”) and myriad other topics in what feels like a sequel song cycle to 2009’s “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.” This one delves even deeper into the art-song style, sometimes at the expense of the rootsy Americana fun that characterized its predecessor.

Costello and his accomplices cover the gamut — including the Brit pub-rock thump of “National Ransom,” the stunning jazzy pop of “Slow Drag With Josephine” and the dark cabaret lament of “You Hung the Moon.” At times, he happily ignores the hobgoblin of consistent time signature and revels in oblique lyrics; a few songs may require multiple listens to fully penetrate.

But anyone who loves the English language should marvel at his poking into its nooks and crannies with phrases such as “ravening maw,” “colliery town,” “fumbled skein,” and “vile vaudevillians.” In Costello’s infinitely gifted hands, pop music circa 2010 is anything but “only rock ’n’ roll.”

— Randy Lewis

Elvis Costello
“National Ransom”
Hear Music
Three stars (Out of four)

 
Elvis Costello’s forthcoming album, “National Ransom,” mines a century’s worth of pop music history in both the characters, scenarios and themes in his songs, and in the atmospheric sound that producer  T Bone Burnett has given the record. 

So it makes perfect sense that Costello, a voracious fan of music of all styles, would want to add a vintage touch of some kind in conjunction with the album’s release come Nov. 2.

Vinyl LP version? Everyone’s doing that nowadays, so Costello is going one step beyond: He’s releasing four songs on a pair of 78 rpm discs.

A whimsical announcement about the 78s has been posted on Costello’s website, sounding much like the fancifully stylized introductions he gives his musical guests on the Sundance Channel “Spectacle” show:

“Lupe-O-Tone -- Purveyors of fine flat phonograph records & cylinders since 1913. Our motto is ‘Ego sum satus infremo.’ Lupe-O-Tone present 78 rpm discs in full Lycanthropic Sound. …‘A Slow Dance With Josephine’ b/w ‘You Hung the Moon’ and ‘Jimmie Standing in the Rain’ b/w ‘A Voice in the Dark,’ by the Lupotonians with vocal refrain by Elvis Costello.”

The 78s will be pressed in limited editions of 25 copies, each signed by Costello. No price is mentioned, but the announcement promises more details to come.

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Elvis Costello during a 2009 performance at Amoeba Music in Hollywood. Credit: Irfan Khan / Los Angeles Times

Neil Young will reunite with Stephen Stills and Richie Furay for a pair of performances as Buffalo Springfield for Young’s annual Bridge School benefit concerts in Northern California, with lineups that also include Pearl Jam, Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, Lucinda Williams and several other acts.

The reunion of the influential country-rock band born in 1966 in Los Angeles will feature Young, Stills and Furay as an acoustic trio, given the Bridge School’s history of unplugged performances by all participants. The group's other two original members, bassist Bruce Palmer and drummer Dewey Martin, died in 2004 and 2009, respectively.

Could it really be that in this age of pop music, often built on calculation and manipulation, that there’s still a place for bona-fide innocence?

There is, at least in the parallel musical universe that producer T Bone Burnett is creating, one that has recently expanded to include the utterly endearing sibling duo of Laura and Lydia Rogers, a.k.a. the Secret Sisters.

“Our last name isn’t Secret,” elder sister and lead singer Laura said Wednesday night during their charming performance at the Music Box @ Fonda in Hollywood, a show being taped for a PBS special slated to air early next year.

“We’re new to this stage thing,” she told a couple of hundred invited guests, many seated at tables with white tablecloths in the supper-club atmosphere. “Really new; shockingly new. If you knew how new, you wouldn’t be here.”

Yet they were. The Muscle Shoals, Ala., singers having attracted some friends in high places in the last year, Burnett chief among them, for a sound that harks back to an era of family musical acts such as the Everly Brothers, the Louvin Brothers and the Carter Family. Burnett introduced them, occasionally joined the impeccably tasteful band he helped assemble for the show and brought a couple of high-profile pals along for the ride: Jakob Dylan and Elvis Costello.

 
Elton John has always been passionate about his musical taste, always ready to throw his support behind new acts that capture his imagination, whether it’s the Scissor Sisters or Lady Gaga.

But in recent years he’s also been on a special mission to turn the spotlight on veteran artists who never got the attention he and other pop stars received, a key reason he dreamed up the Sundance Channel music interview and performance series “Spectacle,” and persuaded his friend Elvis Costello to take on the job as host.

That mission is front and center with “The Union,” his forthcoming duet album with fellow piano-pounding rocker Leon Russell, to whom John doffed his cap during the first episode of “Spectacle.”

Stevie Wonder, Elvis Costello, Emmylou Harris, Jack White, Jerry Seinfeld, the Jonas Brothers and others will pay tribute to Paul McCartney at the White House on June 2 when the ex-Beatle is feted as the latest recipient of the Library of Congress George Gershwin Prize for Popular Song.

The performance will be hosted by President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama, and also will include performances by Faith Hill, Herbie Hancock, Corinne Bailey Rae, Dave Grohl and McCartney himself during a presentation that will be recorded for airing July 28 on PBS stations.

McCartney is the third recipient of the Gershwin prize since its inception in 2007 to recognize “the profound and positive effect of popular music on the world’s culture.” The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame member follows Paul Simon and Wonder as the first two honorees.

Just one question: Jerry Seinfeld -- what's up with that?

-- Randy Lewis

Photo of Paul McCartney at the Hollywood Bowl in March. Credit: Gary Friedman / Los Angeles Times

John Ciambotti, the bassist for the Bay Area ’70s rock band Clover, wasn’t a household name. More than 20 years ago he gave up the helter-skelter life of a touring musician, became a chiropractor working in the Los Angeles area and began devoting special attention to the kinds of injuries frequently experienced by musicians.

Ciambotti died last week, at age 67, apparently having suffered an abdominal aneurysm following surgery, and he’s remembered at length, and with great affection and wit, by Elvis Costello, whom he and other members of Clover backed on Costello’s breakthrough 1977 debut album, “My Aim Is True.”

“He was a wonderful bass player, songwriter, some-time manager, record producer and all-around great guy,” Costello writes on his website. “The fact that he had also latterly thrived in his second vocation as a chiropractor and in holistic medicine meant that he could jokingly claim to be ‘the Real Dr. John.’”

Costello recalls vividly connecting with Clover, whose modest-selling U.S. releases he had chased down and soaked up in the U.K., when they were visiting England trying to push their own career forward.

“Newly signed to Stiff Records, more as a songwriter than a recording artist, I soon found myself working with players whose records I had previously hunted down in those cut-out bins,” Costello recalled. “Musicians often speak with shorthand references before songs are fully remembered. I think it might have been John who first said, without out any apparent malice, ‘Let's do that one that sounds like The Byrds,’ referring to ‘(The Angels Want To Wear My) Red Shoes,’ while a novice songwriter was busy trying to cover his tracks.”

Elvis Costello’s show Tuesday night at the Greek Theatre had more than a fair share of only-in-L.A. moments.

First, there was a mini-Spinal Tap reunion in the front rows before Costello and his inspiring country-folk-bluegrass band the Sugarcanes took the stage.

Longtime pals and “This Is Spinal Tap” co-stars Michael McKean and Christopher Guest pulled up a couple of seats close to the action, where they were quickly greeted by actress Fran Drescher, a.k.a.  Spinal Tap’s ultra-glib New York publicist Bobbi Flekman, who was seated a few rows away near playwright-screenwriter Callie Khouri. Jakob Dylan also was in the house.

Later, after inviting opening act Lucinda Williams onstage to duet with him on a couple of songs, Costello then brought out musician-producer T-Bone Burnett for “The Scarlet Tide.” The pair announced that immediately after the show they’d be heading into a local recording studio to see about working some more magic, like what they created on Costello’s latest album, “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane.”

Further exploiting Costello’s visit to the West Coast, 100.3 The Sound (KSWD-FM) personality Larry Morgan advised the crowd that the erudite and musically omnivorous singer and songwriter and, of late, host of the Sundance Channel’s outstanding “Spectacle: Elvis Costello With...” music interview and performance series,  would be the station’s guest deejay at 6 p.m. Sunday. For 60 minutes, Morgan said, Costello will be spinning “whatever he dares to play.”

-- Randy Lewis

Photo: Ricardo DeAratanha / Los Angeles Times
 

He delivers a freshly inspired performance with his new band for his latest work, 'Secret, Profane & Sugarcane,' and also generates some musical sparks with opening act Lucinda Williams.

It's a funny thing in the world of rock music, but for some artists to get creatively amped up, it's necessary to pull the plug.

It worked for Bob Dylan, who returned to the wellspring of acoustic folk music in a couple of early-'90s albums before reasserting full command of his songwriting mastery in 1997's "Time Out of Mind," a musical renaissance from which he's never looked back.

It worked for Bruce Springsteen when he put the E Street Band on hiatus and assembled the Sessions Band to mine the richness of American folk and gospel influences in "We Shall Overcome: The Seeger Sessions" album in 2006.

And it has been working wonders for Elvis Costello with his latest work, "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane," from which he drew generously Tuesday at the Greek Theatre in his gloriously energized return to Los Angeles.

If only every artist looking for a jolt of inspiration could snap his or her fingers and go out on the road with an extraordinary ensemble like the band that's backing Costello on this tour, which also incorporated cornerstone songs from throughout his prolific 32-year recording career.

The British singer-songwriter plans to do a noon set in San Francisco and then head south for an 8 p.m. performance at the chain’s Hollywood store. Both are free, and the L.A. show will be streamed live on Amoeba's website. Both performances also will be posted on the website for later viewing.

He’ll be accompanied at the in-stores by singer-songwriter Jim Lauderdale, who sings harmony on several of the album’s songs. That will give Costello at least three settings for his music at Southland stops in the months ahead. He’s also scheduled to play July 10 with his longtime band the Impostors at the Agua Caliente Resort & Casino's new concert theater in Palm Springs, ahead of his Aug. 18 date at the Greek Theatre with his new band, the Sugarcanes, formed for the folk- and bluegrass-drenched material from his new T-Bone Burnett-produced album.

--Randy Lewis

Photo: Ken Hively/Los Angeles Times

Elvis Costello's never been one to shrink from a challenge, and on his new album, "Secret, Profane & Sugarcane," he's taken on a big one, a song cycle of sorts incorporating themes that wind like the muddy Mississippi through the cultural legacy of the American South and the tragic secrets and varied stripes of love -- obsessive, unrequited and misfired.

Some songs can be as straightforward as classic country. Costello wrote with country queen Loretta Lynn "I Felt the Chill Before the Winter Came," a dark scenario of a faithless man losing his grip on the woman he sinned for. Others are as art-song sophisticated as "She Was No Good," inspired by 19th century European singing star Jenny Lind's tour of the U.S.

Mystery abounds in oblique stories such as "Hidden Shame," which might have remained more effectively mysterious without the concluding details of a long-kept secret. "Red Cotton" is more powerful, a theatrically dramatic example of the price of human greed.

The highlights are "Sulphur to Sugarcane," the kind of bawdy blues Ma Rainey or Bessie Smith would have loved, and "The Crooked Line," a beautiful plea that Costello describes as "the only song I've ever written about fidelity that is without irony."

With considerable contributions from producer T Bone Burnett and star string players out of Nashville (where the collection was recorded), including fiddler Stuart Duncan, dobro ace Jerry Douglas, mandolinist Mike Compton and upright bassist Dennis Crouch, Costello instills much of this outing with a fitting old-timey feel.

Randy Lewis

Elvis Costello
"Secret, Profane & Sugarcane"
Hear Music
Three stars