An Elvis Costello cover of Waylon Jennings’ “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line” has been released for the first time today.
Recorded live at London’s Royal Albert Hall during a six-night sold-out run in 1987, the track appears on an upcoming six-disc, 97-track box set of Costello’s music, King Of America & Other Realms. Produced by Costello and Steve Berkowitz, the compilation arrives as in vinyl, CD, and digital formats in November.
King of America & Other Realms expands greatly upon Costello’s record Kings of America, produced by his long-time collaborator T-Bone Burnett. This new collection includes previously unreleased live recordings, demos, and a new 2024 remaster of the original 1986 album. The third disc, titled ‘Kings Of America Live At The Royal Albert Hall,’ includes the entire never-before-heard concert where Costello covered “Only Daddy That’ll Walk The Line.”
At the show, Costello’s backing band included guitarist James Burton, bassist Jerry Scheff of Elvis Presley’s legendary TCB Band, drummer Jim Keltner, Benmont Tench of Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on keys, and T-Bone Wolk playing accordion and mandolin. Other covers they performed that night included Buddy Holly’s “True Love Ways,” Ray Charles’ “What Would I Do Without You,” and Sonny Boy Williamson’s “Your Funeral And My Trial.”
In addition to revisiting archival material, Kings of America & Other Realms also includes three new recordings from 2024: “Indoor Fireworks” (Memphis Magnetic Version), “That’s Not The Part of Him You’re Leaving” with Larkin Poe, and a recent arrangement of “Brilliant Mistake.” Per Costello, the latter is performed 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.”
Order Elvis Costello’s King of America & Other Realms now.