AAA Vinyl

E.C.’s tenth studio record, released in 1986, is among his finest musically and sonically, which explains why it wasn’t well received on the pop charts. It only went to #39.

It was his first mostly minus The Attractions who play but on one track, and that allowed Costello and co-producer T-Bone Burnett to gather a back-up studio group comprised of an eclectic mix of American originals, including members of that other Elvis’s ‘70’s era back up band, including guitarist James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff and drummer Ron Tutt.

Also on board: drumming greats Jim Keltner, Earl Palmer, Mickey Curry, producer Mitchell Froom on keyboards and on guitar, keyboards and bass the other “T-Bone” (Wolk). The great Ray Brown plays bass on a cover of J.B. Lenoir’s “Eisenhower Blues” and other musicians, well-known and not, also contribute.

By this time Costello had grown disenchanted with rock stardom and pop music generally. He was looking for another way to express himself and he found it here, more interested in art than commerce.

The opener, “Brilliant Mistake” slyly quotes “Simple Gifts” a memorable American religious tune also used in Aaron Copeland’s “Appalachian Spring” as well as by CBS News’s “CBS Reports” starting way back in 1959.

The songs mostly revolve musically around rock-a-billy (“Loveable”, “Glitter Gulch”), classic Nashville “countrypolitan” (“Our Little Angel” and “Indoor Fireworks”) and lyrically around regrets including a cover of The Animals’ “Please Don’t Let Me Be Understood” that plods compared to the original. It’s the only less than fully realized track on the lengthy album that, were it more popular, Mobile Fidelity might have issued as a double 45.

Anyone who thinks E.C. had lost his bite here must have missed the line “If it moves you fuck it, if it doesn’t move then you stab it”

Recording was “live to tape” with few production tricks at Ocean Way and Sunset Sound with some later overdubs and extra tracking so of course this is a superb sounding recording, though some may have wished for a bit less in the reverb department, but it’s appropriate to the mood.

The recording of the acoustic guitars is accomplished particularly well. If the strumming on “Little Palaces” doesn’t excite your ears, something wrong at your end of the chain.

Interestingly, while the assistant engineers are credited, no one gets engineering or mixing credits, which is unusual. However, since a co-production credit goes to Larry Kalman Hirsch, I'm giving him the engineering credit unless someone says otherwise. By the way, Costello goes here by the names Elvis Costello, Declan MacManus and The Little Hands of Concrete (LHC).

I compared this Mobile Fidelity reissue mastered from the original tapes to an original American pressing (Columbia FC 40173) mastered at Precision, San Francisco, an original UK F-Beat (ZL 70946) also sourced from a Precision S.F. lacquer cut, a later UK Imp/Demon reissue (FIEND 78) and finally to an original F-Beat Japanese pressing (RPL-8330). Luckily I really like this record!

The original American sounds surprisingly flat and somewhat grainy leading me to suspect the master was transferred to Sony 1630 and mastered digitally. The original UK F-Beat is less edgy and grainy probably because of better plating and pressing, the Imp/Demon lifeless and also screams “DIGITS”, while the Japanese pressing is very detailed, very quiet and somewhat drab as well as being bass-shy compared to the Mo-Fi.

The Mobile Fidelity is better all around than any of the others. The guitars have greater transparency and transient clarity. Soundstage space is generous and deeper than on the other versions but most importantly, the grain found on most of the others is gone here. Bass is well-reproduced, particularly the kick drum, the snare is snappy and the acoustic guitars have great clarity without sounding unnaturally sharp.

Here's where I'd love to hear from someone involved in the production of the original Precision S.F. cut.

No doubt spread to two LPs the slight bit of congestion and less then fully realized bottom end heard on all of these records would be banished in favor of added space, clarity, and low end "whomp" but considering the record’s less than stellar commercial appeal, who can blame Mo-Fi? On the other hand, while the CD versions have no such issues, none of them compare to this for reasons only the digital gods can explain.

A reissue worth having, but while the original UK is stupidly stickered “play loud“, do yourself a favor and don’t. This one’s best off a moderate SPLs.

("Mystery Dance", the E.C. documentary currently playing on Showtime is definitely worth watching, though it's short on analysis, somewhat shallow and less than insightful).