A true original

Singer-songwriter-producer T-Bone Burnett explores America's dark side on new tour

June 14, 2006

By GREG CAHILL
FOR THE ARGUS-COURIER

Forgive T-Bone Burnett for taking 14 years to record his latest solo album, "The True False Identity" (Columbia). The Missouri native has been a bit busy reshaping America's musical landscape.

He's shared songwriting credits with Bono. Toured as a session guitarist with Bob Dylan. Wrote and produced the hit "One Headlight" for Jakob Dylan. And stopped long enough to supervise the influential soundtrack to the Coen brothers' 2001 film "O Brother Where Art Thou" and to coach Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon through their acclaimed singing roles in last year's Oscar-winning Johnny-Cash biopic "Walk the Line."

"I've had a chance to work with all these very masterful people from a variety of disciplines," says Burnett, whose production credits include Roy Orbison, Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Cassandra Wilson and Gillian Welch, to name a few. "It was like being in a master class during the past 10 years."

On the phone from his Los Angeles home, the 58-year-old Burnett (born Joseph Henry), wastes no time on small talk. Ask about the scathing nature of the politically charged material on the new album, all matched by equally searing guitar solos by Marc Ribot, and Burnett cuts right to heart of the matter. After all, such dark songs as "Fear Country," "Palestine, Texas" and "Earlier Baghdad (The Bounce)" possess a striking sense of apocalyptic dread.

"A lot of projects stood between me and another solo record," he says. "And, of course, there was the sense that a stone wall stood in front of all of us and that anything we were going to do was going to result in us bashing our heads against that wall. I also had a sense that whatever I was writing, whatever I was experiencing, just wasn't finished yet, like I still had a long way to go."

Whoa, let's go back for a moment to that stone wall.

"You can look at the history of art and see a period when people wanted to take a good hard look at things," he says, sharpening his focus. "And you can look back and see a period of time when people wanted everything idealized. We're coming out of a period, over the past 30 years, when people wanted a pretty picture painted of the world. If that wasn't what you wanted to do then there was no point in entering that arena at all, so I did other things that were rewarding and that taught me a lot.

"You know, there was a revolution that started in this country after the second World War and spread throughout the world -- the civil-rights movement, the sexual revolution and all of that stuff -- and the world is better off for it even though it's been maligned," he adds, digging deeper. "In the wake of that revolution, which ended sometime in the mid-1970s, came a counter-revolution that sought to turn back the clock. That counter-revolution has started to run out of steam. Just look at the news. Every day another member of that counter-revolution is resigning in scandal or being taken to jail. Every day there's another fall from a high place; it's run its course. In its wake is going to come an explosion of art and culture. The counter-revolutionaries have just been too uptight.

"It's like Congressman Barney Frank said, for them life begins at conception and ends at birth."

Which brings us to Burnett's first tour in nearly two decades, with a concert appearance in Petaluma next week.

How does he feel about that development?

"Happy, extremely happy," he says with a laugh. "I'm flabbergasted that at this time of my life I'm even able to do this, to get a band together and go on the road."

This return to form comes with an added perspective. Last month, on the same day "The True False Identity" was released, Columbia/Legacy issued "Twenty Twenty," a lavish two-CD career retrospective that gathers 40 remastered tracks from the singer-songwriter's extensive recording career. The songs feature such notable sidemen as Pete Townshend, Ringo Starr, Ry Cooder, David Hidalgo of Los Lobos, Mick Ronson and Van Dyke Parks.

"It took a while before I could even go back and listen to it," Burnett says of his back catalog. "I mean, some of this stuff I hadn't heard in almost 20 years. It was eye opening. I found the grain things I do now were the seeds of those early projects.

"And I found a lot of things that I could still stay in the room with," he adds with a laugh, "which was the first hurdle to overcome. A lot of it still meant something to me."

Still, there were a few songs that Burnett felt fell short of his current standards, so he took the opportunity not only to remix, but also to re-record some sections. That decision came, he says, after taking a page from the career of playwright Sam Shepherd, with whom Burnett collaborated on "The Tooth of Crime."

"I noticed that Sam would rewrite that play from time to time," he explains, "and I asked him about that. He said, 'Well, I just know so much more now about what I was talking about then.' He had no compunction about going back and rewriting it. I realized these songs are living things; they're not carved in stone.

"I can do whatever I want with them -- they're mine."

T-Bone Burnett and his band perform Friday at 8 p.m., at the Mystic Theater, 21 Petaluma Blvd. North. Jakob Dylan opens the show. Tickets are $32 advance, $37 at the door. Phone 765-2121.

(Contact Greg Cahill at argus@arguscourier.com)

T-BONE BURNETT

Who: Singer-songwriter-producer T-Bone Burnett and his band perform songs from his 20-year career. Jakob Dylan opens.

Where: Mystic Theater, 21 Petaluma Blvd. North.

When: June 16 at 8 p.m.

Tickets: $32 advance, $37 at the door.

Info: Phone 765-2121 or visit www.mystictheatre.com.