The other half of T Bone

T Bone Burnett is one of those mostly behind-the-scenes musical wizards who do the hard work and pull the strings and create magic.

He was the guy who taught Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon to sing credibly in the Johnny Cash biopic, "Walk The Line," a key to making it an Academy Award winner.

He was the one who made old-timey Americana music popular again six years ago, having done the music for the smash hit movie, "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" The soundtrack has sold nearly 10 million copies.

He was the man behind the music for the brilliant, frequently rerun, star-studded 1988 PBS special (and hit video), "Roy Orbison and Friends: Black and White Night."

And he's the producer-of-choice for a wide range of recording artists, including Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, Counting Crows and Cassandra Wilson.

More about T Bone

Joseph Henry

"T Bone" Burnett

Born Jan. 14, 1948, St. Louis.

Raised in Fort Worth, Texas.

Early highlights

First recordings, 1965, local singles in Fort Worth.

Moved to Los Angeles in 1972; worked as studio musician; released first solo album. In 1975, toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review, as guitarist. At conclusion, formed the Alpha Band with other Review musicians. Toured and recorded with Alpha Band for several years.

Solo albums

"The True False Identity," 2006

"The Criminal Under My Own Hat," 1992

"The Talking Animals," 1988

"Behind the Trap Door," 1984

"Proof Through the Night," 1983

"Truth Decay," 1980

Producing credits

"Thunderbird," Cassandra Wilson, 2006

"August and Everything After," Counting Crows, 1993 (and most other Counting Crows albums)

"Break Like the Wind," Spinal Tap, 1992

"How Will the Wolf Survive," Los Lobos, 1990 (and other Los Lobos albums)

"Knocked Out Loaded," Bob Dylan, 1986

"King of America," Elvis Costello, 1986 (and other Costello albums).

Movie soundtracks

"Across the Universe," Beatles film, 2006 (in post production)

"All the King's Men," 2006

"Walk the Line," 2005

"The Lady Killers," 2004

"Cold Mountain," 2003

"Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood," 2002

"O Brother, Where Art Thou?," 2000

"The Big Lebowski," 1988.

Patrick MacDonald

Burnett is one those rare artists who lives up to the term "genius." He remembers learning songs at 4, and playing guitar and writing songs at 7. While still a teen, he released his own independent recordings and produced blues and folk artists in Fort Worth. As a young studio musician in Los Angeles, he played guitar, keyboards, drums, bass and other instruments on dozens of recordings before making his own LPs.

Bob Dylan was one of the first major stars to ask Burnett to tour with him and produce his recordings. Many more followed suit. Burnett's move into movie music was a natural progression, which he has been concentrating on in recent years, with great success.

Back to the Bone

But right now, Burnett, 58, is concentrating on his own music for a change. He recently released his first album in 14 years, "The True False Identity," a collection of bluesy, swampy, quirky, darkly funny songs about his particular interests, including politics, spirituality, celebrity culture and love lost and found. Burnett says the album is an attempt to "erase the nonexistent line between comedy and tragedy."

He has also released a two-CD retrospective, "Twenty Twenty: The Essential T Bone Burnett," a collection of 40 songs that display the creativity, spirituality, variety, droll humor and uniqueness of his 40 years of music-making. Among the many musicians who appear on the retrospective are Ringo Starr, Pete Townshend, Richard Thompson, Ruben Blades, Jim Keltner, Mick Ronson, Ry Cooder, Van Dyke Parks and Elvis Costello.

Those two albums, both released May 16, set the stage for his first tour in 20 years, which comes to The Moore tonight.

Evoking Cash

In a wide-ranging phone interview from his home in Bel Air, Burnett said he hung out with Phoenix and Witherspoon, gained their confidence, then tutored them in singing in their natural voices, rather than trying to imitate Johnny and June Carter Cash.

"Actors are spooky," Burnett observed, "the way they can make you believe. When we were working on the film, I would think I was looking at Johnny Cash. I would have to remind myself what Johnny Cash really looked like.

"Reese's part [which won her an Academy Award] was completely and utterly dependent on Joaquin's being able to pull off Johnny Cash. I only bring this up to give credit to Joaquin because of what an incredible job he did learning that whole group of songs and doing them with such conviction and reality. He got the voice right and he got the posture — he got all of it. He evoked Cash in a very believable way."

"O Brother"

Burnett said "O Brother" was a labor of love, because the folk and country songs in it were, or reminded him of, the first songs he heard as a child, growing up in Missouri and Texas.

"It was the story of my life," he recalled. "I could go through that script, song by song, and remember learning this one when I was 4 years old and this one when I was 7.

"It was the story of a lot of our lives, it seems. There was a lot of good will toward men in that project. It was a very benevolent movie and record. There was always a sense, all the way through making that film, that something really great was happening. It was wild."

He said the surprising success of the movie and soundtrack showed that people have wide-ranging tastes and accept quality music of all kinds. And that includes country-music and rock fans of all ages.

"There are a lot of people who care about music in America," he said. "And that's easy to lose sight of in the cynicism of the record business and show business."

Honoring Roy

The Orbison event was one of his favorites, he said, because it honored a boyhood hero. Among others who paid musical tribute to Orbison that night were Bruce Springsteen, Elvis Costello, Tom Waits and Bonnie Raitt.

"Nobody was famous that night," Burnett pointed out, "including Roy. If you get enough famous people around, nobody's famous. That's a good thing.

"It had to be done with great respect for Roy because, you know, he's like Mozart or Hank Williams or Beethoven. He's one of those kind of characters. They're all the same people, y'know. He needs to be treated with great love. And that was a chance for us to do that."

After working on so many projects for others, Burnett, a singer-guitarist, is devoting a year to his own music, including taking it out on tour. He said he relished the freedom of creating music for himself and that it was important to him that he present it live.

"All the new stuff was played to create a certain wave in a room," he explained. "So we're gonna play all that stuff, because that's part of the experiment — to do it in a big drum.

"It's all drums. You're playing drums, you're playing resonating chambers, and you're in a resonating chamber, and it's all just creating delays within delays and all that sort of thing. So it's a big laboratory, in a way. Among the old material, I'll find the things that fit that kind of laboratory approach, if you see what I mean."

He said he and his four-member band, and special guest Jakob Dylan (Burnett produced Dylan's band, the Wallflowers', "Bringing Down the Horse" album), will also improvise.

"That's the permission that we all gave ourselves with this endeavor," he said, "to do something that we hadn't heard before and be free with it. I want everyone to play with complete freedom, and I want to work with complete freedom as well."

Patrick MacDonald: 206-464-2312, pmacdonald@seattletimes.com