National Ransom

VINYL FORMAT. "Around the time the killing stopped on Wall St. / You couldn't hold me, baby, with anything but contempt." 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. National Ransom, recorded in a total of eleven days at Sound Emporium, Nashville and Village Recorders, Los Angeles was produced by T Bone Burnett and engineered and mixed by Michael Piersante at Electromagetic, Los Angeles. 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 Thomas/Crouch/Ribot combo from the piano. 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. 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 is heard together with Pete Thomas, Marc Ribot and the baritone guitar of Buddy Miller, who also sings on the title cut. Tony Millionaire once again provides the ink illustration for the cover.