Shortly before U.S. citizens elect a president this fall, Elvis Costello fans will be able to return to the days when he was “King of America,” with a new six-CD super-deluxe set titled “King of America & Other Realms” that will focus not just on the classic album that gives it its name but a wealth of the material he has done in a related vein in the years since.
The 97-track collection spans the period from the demo and recording sessions for 1986’s “King of America” to a live version of “Brilliant Mistake” that was recorded earlier this year. It includes stops along the way to resurrect or unveil live and studio material associated with albums including “Spike,” “The Delivery Man,” his Allen Toussaint collaboration “The River in Reverse,” “Momofuku,” “Secret, Profane & Sugarcane,” “National Ransom” and “Look Now,” as well as the Dylan-related group project “Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes.” The common thread in material drawn from the last four decades of work is that it was all recorded in America or done in a style that evokes Americana, much (but not all) of it done in conjunction with producer T Bone Burnett.
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For anyone who might have wanted a sequel to Costello’s memoir of some years back, there is a king’s feast’s worth of printed material included in the set as well, with an essay written by the artist about the material, which runs to tens of thousands of words, taking up 35 pages of a 57-page booklet.
If fans are interested but won’t want to spring for the super-deluxe set, there will also be a slimmed down edition that includes the new 2024 remastered version of “King of America” on one CD and another disc filled with highlights from the larger collection. Universal Music’s UMe division will also be issuing 140-gram vinyl versions of the original LP in its remastered form, in basic black and also limited-edition gold.
Scroll down for the complete track listing for the six-CD deluxe edition. All the different versions and variations of the releases can be pre-ordered here.
In the 6-CD set, the first disc is devoted to the aforementioned remaster of “King,” followed by a Disc 2 that includes demos and outtakes from those sessions and what led up to them, including not just alternate versions or early starts of the songs that ended up on the album but also many that didn’t, like “Blue Chair” (which was eventually released in a very different form on “Blood and Chocolate”) and “Deportee” (which the press announcement notes was “brutalized and distorted” on “Goodbye Cruel World”). Some of Costello’s newly rediscovered demos are said to have radically different lyrics from the released versions.
Disc 3 is devoted to a complete live album recorded at the Royal Albert Hall on Jan. 27, 1987, with a band that included famous players James Burton, Jerry Scheff, Jim Keltner, Benmont Tench and T-Bone Walk. The multi-track recordings include not just songs from the then-fresh “King of America” but also covers of outside classics associated with artists from Buddy Holly to Waylon Jennings to Ray Charles, including “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line,“ “It Tears Me Up,”“Sally Sue Brown,”“That’s How You Got Killed Before” and“True Love Ways.”
The remaining three discs cover Costello’s subsequent dives into the realm of Americana (a term he uses sparely, with some hesitation and explanation, in the enclosed essay). Among the previously unreleased tracks are three live cuts that were recorded just this year: “Indoor Fireworks (Memphis Magnetic Version),” “That’s Not The Part of Him You’re Leaving” withLarkin Poeand “Brilliant Mistake.” The latter is performed in what Costello describes as a new arrangement “over a habanera rhythm in a minor key to mark the dark passing of the years and our elusive hold on hope, taking a detour into the 1933 Harry Warren/Al Dubin song ‘Boulevard Of Broken Dreams,’ rather than just alluding to it in the lyric of the last verse.”
The assortment of tracks in the final three discs also includes such unreleased material as “Lost On The River #12” and “Quick Like a Flash” from the “Lost on the River” sessions (the album in which Costello and others set new music to unreleased Dylan lyrics) and “National Anthem” outtakes “Condemned Man” and “For More Tears.” Live tracks include a version of the Oscar-nominated “Cold Mountain” theme “The Scarlet Tide” done with Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch and David Rawlings at the Grand Ole Opry. It also includes songs that have been previously released but never on a Costello album, like “April 5th,” his collaboration with Rosanne Cash and Kris Kristoffson, and the moving climax of the collection, a spectacular version of “That Day is Done” (a Paul McCartney co-write) that appeared only on an album by the Fairfield Four.
Many of the songs included among the 97 tracks here — from “Brilliant Mistake” to “That Day Is Done” — were included on Variety‘s recent ranking of Costello’s 70 best songs, published last month on the occasion of his 70th birthday.
The track listing for the deluxe edition of “King of America & Other Realms”:
DISC 1 – KING OF AMERICA (2024 REMASTER)
The track list for the condensed two-CD edition:
CD 1 – KING OF AMERICA (2024 REMASTER)
CD 2 – SELECTIONS FROM THE OTHER REALMS (BEST OF THE BOX SET)
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