T-Bone reaches prime creating his own music

Mark Brown, Rocky Mountain News

Friday, May 19, 2006

The myth is that you need to be a starving artist to do your best work. Not so.

T Bone Burnett put out a series of strong albums before he went to Hollywood and became internationally renowned for his work on films such as O Brother Where Art Thou and Walk the Line.

Riches and fame, however, gave him room to make just the album he wants. The True False Identity, in stores this week, is easily Burnett's most challenging and accomplished work. And he knows it.

"I have a sense that I've actually learned how to do this now. I mean that in no way to be immodest. There are plenty of people who learn how to do it when they're 18 or 19. It just took me a little longer. It doesn't matter. The journey has been so incredible," he says.

Fans had all but given up on new music and performances from Burnett, a singer/songwriter who hadn't released a new disc of his own songs since 1992's The Criminal Under My Own Hat. He felt burned out on his own music and turned to other projects - working with Sam Shepard and producing movie soundtracks. It was a years-long immersion in music that was refreshing and reinvigorating.

"I worked on The Ladykillers, which was a whole century of gospel music. I worked on Cold Mountain, which was looking at that whole century of music especially focused around the Civil War. I did O Brother Where Art Thou, which was a century of traditional American music. I worked on Ya Ya Sisterhood and All the Kings Men, which was all this Louisiana music. I've spent a lot of time in the Delta and the Appalachians," Burnett says while driving to his Bel Air home after taping a National Public Radio appearance.

The True False Identity is filled with topical songs that point fingers at the politicians and people he believes are hurting this country. Given the backlash other artists have endured, is he worried?

"They're big talkers and big bullies . . . they don't scare me at all. Plus it's an ever-shrinking minority. The vast majority of the country, 80 to 90 percent of us, agree. We're all concerned about our families. We're all concerned about our lives and the schools our kids go to. It's only the people who have way too much time or had bad childhoods or something that get wrapped up in these extreme political/religious positions," he says.

Songs like Palestine Texas and Zombieland take dead aim at politicians and zealots.

"All of these cats are incredibly dirty. Of course. Politicians are supposed to be dirty. It's when they start pretending that they're so lilywhite that they become obnoxious," Burnett says.

"I will say the country has been through a post-traumatic stress period this century, starting with just moving into the new century. Remember that Y2K panic? That was a bad enough panic. And then those idiots bombed us and that set off a whole wave of panic. I think the country has been more easy to manipulate through fear."

Blinded by the Darkness takes on attempts to ban gay marriage, or as Burnett puts it "Do we want to insert the concept of sin / Into the Constitution? / Is that really necessary?"

Fear Country, a song about the politics of fear, is properly dark and apocalyptic, with a menacing soundscape underlying a nearly spoken-word narrative. I'm Going on a Long Journey Never To Return, on the other hand, features a bright, bouncy beat accompanying bleak lyrics: "Oh, this death / moment by moment / darker and darker / down and down / I feel your cold breath."

"We're playing with all that stuff, all of those feelings," Burnett says "There is very little that's absolutely bad and very little that's absolutely good in our daily lives. It's always complicated and nuanced."

There's also a new compilation, 2 0/20: The Essential T Bone Burnett, which pulls together 40 of his best tracks and finally gets parts of his classic 1983 album Proof Through the Night released on CD. He did, however, go back and remix some of those tracks.

"When I first started working with Sam Shepard again he had rewritten Tooth of Crime, which was one of his absolute classic plays. I said 'That's really interesting that you'd just rewrite something like that.' He said 'I know so much more about it now than I did when I wrote it.' That thought gave me the freedom to go ahead and look at my stuff as all being a work in progress."

Songs like The Murder Weapon had the drums completely stripped from it. "Then the guitars get incredibly more powerful. I feel like I'm going to go through all of that stuff and look at it, put it in shape, and re-release it all eventually. Someday I'd be happy to release it all on multi-track and let people make their own mixes."

And fans worried that they didn't get the original mixes (and 2 0/20 is also missing key Burnett tracks such as Poetry and Stunned) should be patient. Through his new Web site, www.tboneburnett.com, and traditional releases, "everything's going to be available. That's one of the beautiful things about the new world of distribution we're in. There's a version of (The True False Identity) that's 90 minutes. I really loved that version of the record and it'll come out eventually too."

Top 5 T Bone projects

(And why you should care)

• O Brother Where Art Thou Burnett's quiet behind-the-scenes movie work burst into the public consciousness with this multiplatinum traditional American music soundtrack from 2001 and its upset win for Album of the Year at the Grammys.

• Proof Through the Night You'll have to dig through 1983 vinyl to get it all, but with a few friends helping out (Pete Townshend, Richard Thompson) Burnett recorded a personal record with stunning songwriting (Shut It Tight, The Murder Weapon, When the Night Falls).

• T Bone Burnett His 1987 folk/country flavored disc was recorded virtually live-to-tape over two days with members of Los Lobos backing him. That's thrill enough, but it also contains his best most heartbroken writing: River of Love, Shake Yourself Loose, Song to a Dead Man and more.

• Trapdoor This six-song vinyl EP from 1982 is mostly contained in the new best-of collection, but a few key tracks such as Poetry and Hold On Tight are missing. His wordplay about an alcoholic friend in Hold on Tight is gripping: "He stuck a gun shaped like a bottle in his mouth / I've caught only glimpses of him since."

• Truth Decay His first "proper" solo album from 1980 sets the tone for his morally inquisitive writing with songs such as Madison Avenue and House of Mirrors.

Mark Brown is the popular music critic. Brownm@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-892-2674