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New wave's premiere angry young man Elvis Costello and New Orleans iconoclastic pianist, songwriter and producer Allen Toussaint join forces on The River in Reverse.
The River in Reverse features seven songs from Toussaint's catalog, as well as five newly written by the two and one new song scribed by Costello. The album sessions unfolded over a whirlwind two weeks in studios in Hollywood and New Orleans, making it one of the first major recording projects to take place in the city since Katrina hit.
As for the end result, Toussaint sums it up the best on his timely classic, "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?"
"It's an old thing. It's a soul thing. But it's a real thing." There's no denying that. Costello and The Imposters, alongside Toussaint with his Crescent City Horns, will bring their creative partnership to the next level when they perform July 12 at the Bank of America Pavilion in Boston.
There's something magical, mystical and meaningful happening in the opening strains of Toussaint's piano playing on the opener, "On Your Way Down." Toussaint's sparkling piano playing and timeless, telling words of persecution and perseverance, imprisonment and empowerment are those of a man who has seen the best and worst in men. An aching, quaking Costello (delivering Toussaint's words) chastises those who have lost sight of human decency because it gets in the way of their lofty pursuits. In addition to Toussaint's fluid piano playing and his own fuzzy guitar crunch, Costello's condemning tone is wonderfully accented by the Crescent City Horns, adding color and punch to the proceedings without overpowering it.
In the wake of Katrina, many Toussaint-penned numbers resonate with a deep urgency, while staying deeply rooted in the spirit and majesty of New Orleans and its people. Although some of these songs were written 30-plus years before the devastating hurricane, it's hard to not be swept up in its timeless relevance to recent events. Toussaint shows that the American Dream has been a broken promise for many who have fallen through the cracks.
While Toussaint's "Tears, Tears and More Tears" was initially a gritty, gut-wrenching heartbreaker, in Costello's hands, it has been turned into something more. With the subsiding floodwaters replaced with a river of salty tears, Costello breaks down, "Tears, tears and more tears / I can't help but keep on crying." Miraculously, without changing a word, Costello has shifted the emphasis from crying over a girl to New Orleans, a city that has stolen his heart. Despite the lyrical sentiment that good times are far behind, Costello's anthemic, cathartic gusto combined with a full-throttle stomp of virtuoso honky-tonk piano playing, fiery horns and funky percussion make the listener believe that better days — and better tracks — lie ahead.
The album's first Costello-Toussaint-penned ditty, "The Sharpest Thorn," is both a festive Bourbon Street funeral march and end-of-the-world blowout, but it can't hold a candle to Toussaint's "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?" Written in 1970, "Who's Gonna Help Brother Get Further?" sounds like a direct reaction to Katrina and the government's fumbled rescue efforts. Toussaint (regrettably, on his only lead vocal effort on the disc) delivers the biting, timely lines, "What happen to the Liberty Bell I heard so much about / Did it really ding-dong? / It must have dunged wrong / It didn't ding long." Sung from experience but with the warmness of an old friend, Toussaint unintentionally makes Costello sound like a nerdy rocker out of his element.
Costello condemns the government for turning its back on its people on the title track, "The River in Reverse." Unleashing his inner Springsteen, Costello opens the floodgates of disgust and washes away everything in his path with his acidic tongue and sharp, accusatory tone. The singer swipes, "There must be something better than this / I don't see how it can get much worse / What do we have to do to send / The river in reverse." Although the song's dirge-like arrangement could have been more heated, Costello's intense delivery makes it a rousing wake-up call and call-to-arms for our country's weary masses.
A pair of Costello/Toussaint originals ("Broken Promise Land" and "Ascension Day") unfold like modern-day morality plays set to music. The former boasts the combustible combination of tremolo guitar chords and fiery horn licks igniting Costello's anti-Iraq War tirade, while "Ascension Day" wonderfully combines Costello's cyanide-laced lyrics with Toussaint's masterful, minor key variation of Professor Longhair's "Tipitina."
Costello celebrates the rise and fall of underground radio while taking swipes at today's stagnant radio programming on the festive blues rocker "International Echo." While the harsh sentiment is there, it's the youthful exuberance of discovering something as cathartic as honest-to-goodness rock music that makes this song a winner.
The album closes with another Costello-Toussaint original, "Six-Fingered Man." Envious of a rival with an extra appendage while exploring human weakness, Costello howls, "Six-fingered man / Playing a seven-string guitar / There are seven deadly sins / Any one of them can do you in / Take what you lost from what you win / It's never enough." With its inspired phrasing, pouncing piano line, fuzzed out guitar riffs and booming backbeat, it's hard not to be hungry for more.
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