Elvis Costello and T Bone have reunited as The Coward Brothers for a new album and audio series project with Audible.
The duo are no strangers to working together, with Burnett co-producing Costello’s 1986 album ‘King Of America’ – which is about to get a deluxe reissue. Prior to that, they joined forces for the 1985 single ‘The People’s Limousine’, which they released as the Coward Brothers.
Now, forty years later, they’ve announced the return of the Coward Brothers with a new scripted comedy podcast and album. The True Story of The Coward Brothers, a three-part Audible Original audio series, will recount the history of pop stars and brothers Henry and Howard Coward – played by Costello and T Bone – as they bitterly recall their experiences in the music industry, including being duped out of their royalties by a cutthroat manager and being persuaded to fake their own deaths.
The series will premiere on Audible on November 21, and will be accompanied by a new 20-track album by the two musicians. You can pre-order the album here and check out the first single ‘Always’ below.
In a press release, Costello said: “With regard to the ludicrous assertion that this person, Howard Coward, and I are one and the same, I have to say: this is the work of a bounder, a rounder and a charlatan, and I shall be examining my legal options forthwith.”
Meanwhile, T Bone added: “I have a vague recollection of buying a 45 of the song Pure Bubblegum by an act called The Coward Brothers many long years ago. I heard it on a Fort Worth radio station called KXOL, billed as ‘the new music.’ The disc jockey played it once and got such a bad response from listeners that they burned it the next morning in front of the station. What ever happened to those guys – are they still alive?”
In other news, Costello recently joined a host of other musicians, including Billie Eilish, Robert Smith, Stevie Wonder and Nicki Minaj, in signing an open letter warning against the “predatory” use of AI in music. The April letter came from the Artist Rights Alliance was titled ‘Stop Devaluing Music’ and can be read in full here.