Burnett’s ability to get the most out of newcomers — heck, even plumb beginners — as well as experienced pros also sets him apart. One of the highlights of the Cold Mountain soundtrack album (though, alas, not the film, from which it was cut) is a stunning rendition of the traditional tune “Lady Margret” by Cassie Franklin. A young singer from Alabama, she had never so much as stepped up to a microphone before.
Franklin was recruited by Tim Eriksen, a shape-note singer (and ethnomusicology teacher at the University of Minnesota) who for the film dubbed the singing parts for Brendan Gleeson’s character Stobrod and conducted a group of Sacred Harp singers in an Alabama church. Eriksen’s eclectic world-music band Cordelia’s Dad has worked with celebrated punk producer Steve Albini — just the kind of unlikely connection Burnett can appreciate.
Other players who should benefit from their Cold Mountain exposure are banjo wiz Dirk Powell (who, with Tim O’Brien and John Herrmann, released Songs From The Mountain, drawn from Frazier’s novel, in 1998), the Tennessee band Reeltime Travelers, and freewheeling violinist Stuart Duncan. “Something about having no frets changes a person,” says Burnett, laughing. “These violinists are tripped out.”
Following in the footsteps of O Brother, the producers of Cold Mountain staged a big concert in Los Angeles before the release of the film featuring most of the musicians from it. It holds the promise of being issued on film and CD if Minghella’s baby does well enough to spark interest. A two-disc collection of original versions of the traditional songs in the film is also in the works.
And then there’s the primary soundtrack disc, which was released by DMZ/Columbia on December 16. Even with Alison Krauss returning from O Brother, the odds of matching that record’s success are long. The “been there, done that” mentality among American pop culture consumers could prove to be a bane for Cold Mountain. It bears remembering that the commercial success of O Brother owed a lot to the mood Americans were in at the time.
Shaken by the attacks of September 11, Burnett figures, “people wanted to connect to who we are.” Yes, as one writer pointed out, Americans were also making a #1 album at the time out of Jennifer Lopez’s J To Tha L-O!: The Remixes. But there can be little doubt that hearing music from the country music mountaintop soothed the souls of people who had gotten a glimpse of the bowels of hell.
“Elvis [Costello] said that ‘O Death’ [sung a cappella by Stanley] was the truest response to the bombing that had come from the arts,” said Burnett. “That’s true even though it was actually done before 9-11. It was an unconscious thing.”
But that was then. Now, here was Burnett in New York, completing work on the music for The Ladykiller, the Coen Brothers’ remake of the classic 1950s British comedy (it’s being rigged with hip-hop, which tells you that Toto isn’t staying in Kansas this time, either). And a few hops from now, there was T Bone back in Los Angeles, where, as dyed-in-the-wool a southerner as he may be, he is happy to live.
It has taken no small amount of acclimation and adjustment for him to come to terms with the city. “The constant unbelievable backstabbing here has taught me never to say a bad word about anyone,” he said. “It’s not possible to hate people because if you start, you’ll never stop.”
But like his friend, crime novelist James Ellroy (L.A. Confidential), he has learned to take the darkness with the light. “He has had an incredibly rough life,” Burnett says of the author, referring in part to the unsolved murder of Ellroy’s mother and his determined efforts after all these years to identify the killer. “But he still finds joy in what he does, and in his life.”
Having lived in L.A. since the early ’70s, Burnett recently moved into a new house with his wife (who grew up in the city) and five-year-old daughter (he also has a daughter in her early 20s from a previous marriage). “I’ve gone through huge shifts in my life, especially since we had the baby,” he said a few years back. “I wrote my first non-murderous song in years.” Now, he is preparing, following one of the more hectic years of his ever-busy existence, to settle down a bit.
“The house is all set up as a studio,” Burnett reveals. “I’m going to stay there for a year while Sam goes on the road.”
Yes, there will be, at long last, a new T Bone Burnett album, which may or may not be titled The True False Identity. A collection of songs from the Shepard projects and a rockabilly album have also been mentioned as possible releases.
“T Bone’s got hundreds of songs, enough to make ten albums in a row,” says his longtime crony and Rolling Thunder cohort Bob Neuwirth, who has worked variously as a producer, songwriter and performer on many of Burnett’s projects. “I’ve been trying to get him to come out from under a bushel, get him in the living room and record him, just him and a guitar.”
At least there’s an obvious home for Burnett’s records, if and when they get made. DMZ was launched in somewhat low-key fashion in 2002 with a self-titled Ralph Stanley disc, a soundtrack of classic-rock covers from the TV series Crossing Jordan (Richard Thompson does “Season Of the Witch”, Cassandra Wilson does “The Wind Cries Mary,” etc.), and Rodney Crowell’s superb Fate’s Right Hand. Burnett plans on energizing the label with albums by the eclectic gospel collective Ollabelle from New York City, and the Los Angeles trio Autolux, which Burnett describes as “an ultramodern dissonant pop band.”
And who knows: Eventually, the mountains may call him back. “I thought he might weary of that kind of music, coming from a blues background and a rock ‘n’ roll lifestyle,” says Neuwirth. “Turns out, he became more interested.”
“Working on those movies taught me a tremendous amount,” Burnett acknowledges. “I learned that a good song doesn’t need anything, not even drums or chords or a beat. A great song is a great song.”
ND contributing editor Lloyd Sachs, pop culture columnist for the Chicago Sun-Times and co-host of the weekly jazz program “Writers Bloc” on WNUR-FM, confesses to dark nights of the soul with the criminal under his own pen.
