Elvis Costello, Secret, Profane and Sugarcane

Elvis Costello was raised in Liverpool and has lived everywhere from Dublin to New York, but a good chunk of his heart belongs to Nashville. That much would be obvious even if Sacred, Profane & Sugarcane hadn't been recorded in that city's Sound Emporium Studio in three days and produced by Americana doyen T-Bone Burnett with a crack band of Nashville session all-stars including Jerry Douglas, best known for his dobro playing for Alison Krauss's Union Station. All you need to do is pay attention to the album's regret-soaked selections to figure it out.

None of this is especially surprising: Costello has been writing convincing country music since his career began. The year he began recording, 1977, saw both "Radio Sweetheart" and "Stranger in the House" issued as B-sides, and from 1981's Almost Blue, a country-covers album, to 2004's The Delivery Man, featuring co-vocalists Emmylou Harris and Lucinda Williams, he's recorded extensively in Nashville.

The songs on Secret, Profane & Sugarcane come from a wide assortment of places. A few are Costello collaborations with other writers, including Burnett ("The Crooked Line" and "Sulphur to Sugarcane") and Loretta Lynn ("I Felt The Chill Before The Winter Came"). A handful of others, notably the slave-era narrative "Red Cotton," originated with an incomplete project based on Hans Christian Andersen's visit to the U.S. with his beloved, the singer Jenny Lind. There are a couple of older Costello songs, "Complicated Shadows" and "Hidden Shame," written for (and the latter recorded by) Johnny Cash, and the album finishes with an old Bing Crosby tune, the doleful slow waltz "Changing Partners," which Elvis sings as though deep into his cups.

The band's relaxed arrangements help make everything run smoothly. Not too smoothly, as is generally the case with Costello even in studio-pro mode: these tracks have a lived-in roughness that suits the material and singer equally nicely. And the mood of the songs is as variable as their points of origin, from the reflective honky-tonk of "Down Among the Wine and Spirits" to the semi-title track, "Sulphur to Sugarcane." The latter is the album's truest delight, a randy lover-man-on-the-road boast that sounds like Costello and Burnett were trying to top each other while writing it: "Up in Syracuse, I was falsely accused," Costello croons, "but I'm not here to hurt you/I'm here to steal your virtue." It's an idle sentiment: Secret Profane isn't about stealing virtues. It's about reaffirming them.