I admit, I’m not as familiar with The River in Reverse as I’d like to be. I guess that’s because half of it is a covers album and the other half is a collaboration with an artist I don’t know well.
But the few times I’ve listened to the record, I’ve always liked what I’ve heard. It’s funny… I’m bothered when I like an album too much to write it off but not enough to really learn it. Albums like this live in a musical purgatory.
Elvis Costello’s next two releases after The Delivery Man were Il Sogno, a symphonic ballet score, and a live recording of a piano jazz session first heard on a radio show. You have to love the man’s versatility.
I’m not featuring either of those albums this weekend because a) I don’t own them, and b) neither features much of Costello as a performer. So I’m skipping ahead to another unorthodox recording, a 2008 collaboration with New Orleans piano man Allen Toussaint called The River in Reverse.
Meet Me In Montauk 