2020 Charity Shop Purchases 74 - Elvis Costello & Burt Bacharach - Painted From Memory
The final offering from my pre-lockdown haul is Painted From Memory a 1998 collaboration between Elvis Costello and Burt Bacharach on Mercury Records.
Written on the back of their 1996 song God Give Me Strength commissioned for the film Grace of My Heart it was Elvis' first album in 2 years (between All This Useless Beauty and When I Was Cruel) and Burt's first in 21 years.
They are co-credited with the lyrics with Elvis doing the singing and Burt tickling the ivories.
Defined pretty accurately by Wiki as baroque pop it also has a bit of a jazz feel to it. I'm not selling it too you am I?
It seems that Elvis had always been a fan of Burt so presumably he jumped at the change to collborate with him.
It is pleasant enough but the songs just wash over you rather than grab you.It's Elvis so it is a keeper.
File under easy listening.
I’m off to listen to Blood and Chocolate
That's probably it for the 2020 charity purchases unless I hit the charity shops between Christmas and New Year (update 6.24 pm - that's clearly not now going to happen)
I loved the collaboration between Burt and Elvis - Didn't they pop up together in the Austen Powers movie?
ReplyDeleteAlso a fan of baroque pop, a term I only discovered when I took to blogging 5 years ago. It conjures up an era, one I'm really fond of.
That was a very good year of charity purchases, CC. Thanks for letting us tag along.
ReplyDelete"I'm off to listen to Blood and Chocolate..." This made me smile because I feel the same. I like Painted From Memory, but I don't find myself playing it very often. It has been years, in fact. Hearing God Give Me Strength has me thinking the album could use an airing. Powerful stuff.
Wash away I say. Painted By Memory is a fantastic album. It's an album that I turn to to soundtrack an evening when the television holds little interest and I am uninterested in other's lives on social media. The song Toledo is the best and most pure example of how Costello and Bacharach's collaboration works. Sublime...
ReplyDeleteI loved this record at the time. May well be the last essential Costello album.
ReplyDelete