WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1007 - T Bone Burnett

Episode Date: April 4, 2019

Growing up in Texas, young Joseph Henry Burnett first experienced musical transportation while listening to records of Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald. He developed into not just a versatile musician and producer, but an obsessive archivist and student of music history. T Bone tells Marc about his days traveling with Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue, his collaborations with the Coen Brothers for their films, and his production work on the late-career albums of artists like Gregg Allman and BB King. T Bone also explains why he’s taking a break from production to release his first album in 11 years. This episode is sponsored by ZipRecruiter. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Lock the gates! all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucksters what's happening uh i am mark maron this is my podcast as you can tell i am not in the garage i think you can tell or maybe i'm getting more sensitive to sound as I get older. Obviously, you can tell because it sounds different. I would think this is one of the weirdest hotel rooms I've ever been in. How's it going? Everything all right with you? Oh, these mics are sensitive.

My body doesn't know what time it is. That is the fucked up thing about traveling internationally is that I kind of want to go to bed. It's kind of late here. I've got a lot of press to do coming up. I don't know if I'll be able to sleep. I don't know if I'll wake up at three in the morning with my body thinking it's breakfast time or dinner time or I don't fucking know, man. Did I mention that T-Bone Burnett's on the show today? He is T-Bone Burnett. This is one of those guys that, you know, he just shows up everywhere. He's like this grand American music archivist, producer, musician in his career,

his span decades. It just seemed like one of those, another one of those sort of like, I wouldn't call him a dark wizard, but he's certainly a wizard of something of American music and production and history of music. I was thrilled when I could talk to him, but like when I did some research about him, I thought, man, how am I going to cover this? But we had a really, really good conversation. It was very exciting. And he's got a new album coming out. It's his first album in 11 years. It's called The Invisible Light Acoustic Space. It comes out next Friday, April 12th. But yeah, he's here. And I mistakenly thought he was related to the Rockabilly Burnetts, the Rocky Burn burnet is that the guy's name from back in the day they're not they're not related at all so that was a that didn't go anywhere that trajectory of possible

conversation ended with oh you're not related to him yeah good times not thorough research thought i'd i thought i'd go out of the box a little bit make an assumption and they don't even spell their names the same that's the kind of show i do. What kind of show are you doing? So look, folks, before I get too lost in my self-loathing and what I ate earlier on the plane and just downstairs in this weird hotel, truly weird hotel, we're just a little more than a week away from Record Store Day. And if you don't know about Record Store Day, it's on Saturday, April 13th, and it's an annual event where fans and artists can celebrate the culture

of independently owned record stores. Well, this year we worked with the good people at Newberry Comics to put together a very limited edition vinyl album on the official Record Store Day label. It's called In the Garage Live Music from WTF with Mark Maron. That's the show you're listening to right now.

We got some great artists who agree to be on the record, so you'll get 10 acoustic performances with Jay Maskus, Melissa Etheridge, E from Eels, Karen Kilgariff, Ben Harper and Charlie Musselwhite, Nick Lowe, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, Amy Mann, and Dave Alvin. We're donating our proceeds to the charity Musicians on Call, who bring music to patients in healthcare facilities to add some joy to their day as music will. If you want more info about the album or about Record Store Day in general, go to recordstoreday.com. You can search on the site for your local record store

and make sure you find out when they open because a lot of exclusive Record Store Day albums sell out like immediately. A big thanks to Newberry Comics for collaborating with us and to Fingerprints Music in Long Beach who kicked ass with the artistic design on the album. The cover is really something else. It's worth it for the cover. Cover art means something. I mean, if you're going to do the vinyl thing, appreciate the cover art. Again, Record Store Day 2019 is on April 13th, so go find participating stores at recordstoreday.com

and get your copy of In the Garage before they sell out, folks. So this hotel is very odd. I'm staying at a hotel in London. But do you know the scenes in 2001, the movie, that take place in that room where he sees himself as an old guy? And it's just like a white room with some fairly kind of Victorian-ish furniture in my recollection. This room looks like it was kind of based on it. It's sparse.

It's laid out oddly. room looks like it was kind of based on it. It's sparse. It's laid out oddly. I do not see an old man version of myself sitting on the chair. Wait a minute. I am him. I am the old man version of myself sitting on the chair. Where's the younger me sitting across the room or the infant me? Where's the star child? But yeah, this whole hotel looks like it's sort of a riff on kubrick like out in the hall there's like i don't know what's going on out there but it's a long gray hall that's not too kubricky but but there's a guy painting the walls out there it's it's it is a little shining like but not shining as shining as the elevator lobby. And the main lobby is very minimal.

It's trippy, man. I'm in a trippy place, and it echoes. So I'm sorry about that. But why is there a guy out there painting at 1030 at night? There's a gentleman in the hallway just patiently painting the dark gray walls at 10 30 at night i i believe he's real i don't know i did not see a pair of twins or a uh or a river of blood rushing out of the elevator but there is what i'm assuming to be a real person painting out there at 10.30 at night. I will go double check again if I see him again.

Maybe what'll unfold here is maybe I'll never leave this hotel. Maybe that's what's happening. Oh, fuck, man, I'm sleep deprived. But if I go downstairs tomorrow and ask them why is there a guy painting the walls at 10.30 at night? And they go, what guy? I don't know if you're going to talk to me again

or the show's going to get very interesting because I've entered another dimension. Am I even alive? God damn it. I don't know if I'm going to be able to sleep tonight. And because I'm a little tweaked and a little full of anxiety and because I'm slowly slipping off my regimen that got me down to the felt weight of 167 pounds that I've been holding with exercise and diet, which I enjoy a great deal.

I'm already discouraged about the possibility of going to the gym here because the pound to kilogram thing kind of fucks me up with the weights and, uh, you know, I need consistency. That's what happens. I think that's what it is folks is that when I go abroad, my sense of consistency, uh, seems to get a little tweaked. I went down to the restaurant downstairs and I think I ate a half a loaf of bread, fresh bread with the crispy crust, never eat the bread, and just maybe about a quarter cup of butter with the large rock salt sprinkled on it. Just slathered the crust of the bread with just like spoonfuls of butter and ate it. I'm realizing that may have been a suicide attempt, but I'm talking about it

and it was amazing. It's a real slow one. It's one of those slow suicide attempts, but I do have a bit of cholesterol. I do think I just, I think that butter probably stopped in my heart and I'm going to double up on the statins. That's my big plan. I will eat this half a loaf of bread and slather it with salted butter so I can feel cozy inside followed by maybe eight to 72 hours of self-loathing. So I got a plan.

I can schedule it. I got a plan. Keep myself in a sort of a slow percolation of shame, self-judgment, and a bit of self-contempt. And that's how I prepare to do shows abroad. Yep, I used to do that in the States too, but that seems to have gone away there. But I'm going old school.

Just fuck, man man what's this gonna be like god damn it i'm an asshole what the fuck did i do and now mark maron how's everybody doing yeah a little tip pro tip for you if you want to work from that place uh it's worked for me on and off, mostly off, but do what you got to do to figure out where you're at. If you got to push yourself down in the pit every few years just to pull yourself out

and make note of what you learned there or how you're going to change, then you got to do it. All right, this is turning into something that's becoming emotionally abstract. I think we should move along. I did get a funny email because you guys know how much I talk about that movie, Michael Clayton. This was good. Subject line, Michael Clayton, Mark. I also love the film and felt obligated to share this quick story. I saw Michael Clayton

in Manhattan. I think Michael Clayton in Manhattan. I think it was Kips Bay. Anyway, at the end of the film, he walks out of the 52nd and 6th Avenue Hilton and immediately hails a cab in what looks like rush hour. Someone in the theater shouts aloud, no way does he get a cab on 6th Avenue that fucking quick. It was hysterical and a great New York moment. The crowd erupted in laughter anyway

thinking of that makes me laugh love the pod thank you friend mike thank you for that it's always good so and it's nice that uh if someone's gonna yell at the screen it's nice that it happens at the end during the credits and and he delivers gets a good laugh solid Solid. Because 99.9% of the time, it doesn't get a good laugh. And the person's an asshole. And it's not at the end of the movie. So I'm glad you had that experience. Glad you shared it. All right.

Yeah, it was a little daunting, folks. A little daunting to know that I was going to have T-Bone Burnett on the show. I've always been impressed with his work. I remember some of his solo stuff from back in the day. I love that. But he was always that guy that you'd see that was producing a lot of the traditional Americana music, like the Oh Brother Where Art Thou soundtrack and a lot of live events.

But he's just one of these guys where you really, you know, you kind of pop in to check out what he's done and what he's doing and it never stops. And it was, uh, it was great. It, it kind of, this was one of those conversations that, uh, really blew my mind, uh, about music in a way it was engaging and exciting. And, um, I'm glad I had him. And his new album is very interesting. It's very good. It's the first album he's done in 11 years. The Invisible Light Acoustic Space comes out next Friday, April 12th.

You can get that wherever you get your music. And this is me talking to T-Bone Burnett back in the garage. And I'm going to, while you listen to this, I'm going to go outside in the hall and see if I'm hallucinating. So enjoy the talk. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer

becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the ontario cannabis store and acas creative it's a night for the whole family be a part of kids night when the toronto rock take on the colorado mammoth at a special 5 p.m start time on saturday march 9th at first ontario center in hamilton the first 5 000 fans in attendance will get a Dan Dawson bobblehead courtesy of Backley Construction. Punch your ticket to Kids Night on Saturday, March 9th at 5 p.m.

in Rock City at torontorock.com. Well, you don't do these long-form situations much? I haven't been doing much of anything except writing for a few years now. Really? You just hold up and write? Yeah, I sort of hold up and write. I quit producing records. I still did a... Worked with a couple of people.

Yeah. And did a TV show, did with a couple of people yeah and uh did a tv show did true detective in the last year yeah i mean i just watched the you you did the latest one i did all of them yeah the music's great so wait now is that like is that but i'm trying to remember so there's soundtrack and then there's original songs but it was there was there any um kind of archival stuff that you did or was it all no it was mostly mostly score this third season right with a few uh one piece i did with andrew bird right he's sort of a genius right he's amazing yeah that's what i hear yeah he's good he did my friend lynn's last movie did he yeah yeah he's very good. Yeah, I mean, I liked this last season.

So you got to see it before anyone else. Yeah, I did. So when you do something like True Detective, you did all three seasons and you're scoring it. Do you sit down

with someone like Nick and do you, you know, he says, watch this, you know, feel the tone and apply your wizardry?

Well, you know, we taught, I'm not a film scorer by profession. You've done enough. I do it, and I love it. At what point do you call yourself that, man? I don't know. I don't think I'll ever call myself that, but I love to put image and music together.

And I just always stay inside the character i come from completely in the character so in this case the it was a character who was degenerate whose mental state was degenerating right yeah and uh so we started off we started off with the idea that this was a dangerous place right his brain no the place of the Arkansas oh yeah Arkansas Vietnam where yeah all of that yeah but the planet Earth is a dangerous place getting getting there yeah but but as as we go into it we we started not quite as discordant of places we get to as his mind disintegrates. And so, you know, as we went along, things got more distorted, more discordant.

Oh, okay. More fractured. Right. And you were matching sound to that. Yeah. You know, I don't believe that the music is supposed to lead the viewer through the emotions. Right. I believe the music is supposed to stay with the character.

Oh, interesting. And is that something that you conceived, or is that something that was passed down to you by some elder? No, you know, I will say that Danny Elfman taught me a tremendous amount about film scoring, and he is a master, and he is a film scorer yeah among other things so if you don't consider yourself a film scorer necessarily you are

somebody that does sound tracks yeah i do i sort of just help with the music that's your job yeah t-bone burnett helps with music that's it that's on your business card yeah but i mean talking about darkness and talking about i mean i did i listened to the the new record a couple of times the the invisible light acoustic space and it seems a little dark well that's it's it is a dark meditation on the culture we're living in yes it is but that's but i do feel there's a great deal of light in it but it's invisible i think that's the. Well, no, I did.

I kind of got what you were saying, because, I mean, it's it's it seems different in in musically than than a lot of your records. There is more space and there is a sort of more of a almost mystical continuity. That's it. There's not it's not about hooks. Most it seems like most of the songs are are spoken word poetry almost yeah and that beat poetry yeah yeah you seem to like that it comes it comes and goes throughout all your stuff that's right there's usually a tune or two where you're just talking yeah well i think of myself as a beat generation person do you yeah i mean i think we're still

a beat generation world oh yeah everybody yeah. Everybody says cool now. You know, cool was a term that came about that African Americans initiated or innovated as a way of not to get shot in the street for doing nothing. Are we cool? Yeah. Let's be cool, man. And junkies had to be cool not to get arrested. So it came from that world. But at the time, it was only the initiates understood it.

Everybody uses it. Yeah, yeah. You know, the beat generation, they've redefined the way we look at everything, really. Sex, politics. It started during the Second World War when all the men were away. The dances stopped happening. So the musicians just sat down and said, okay, we're artists. We're not going to play for you to dance.

We're going to play for you to listen. I don't need to be in that big band. Yeah, so sit down and listen. And they were playing in the cabarets, which were in the basements of apartment houses, basically. So there were no drums initially because it would make too much noise. And the people snapped because they couldn't clap because that would make too much noise. Yeah.

And so it just got cool. Oh, so that was it, really? No drums to begin with? Yeah. Were a lot of them then, by saying the dancing stops, that means that a lot of them were out of work from their gig in the big band. Yeah, that's right. And then they were all, you know, they were responding to the war and to what happened, you know, the end of the war.

Certainly Jackson Pollock's paintings are like being in the middle of an atom bomb explosion as all the molecules fly apart. Right. middle of an atom bomb explosion as all the molecules fly apart right they were they were codifying these things and trying to find some order in all of this all of this lunacy yeah and then it was also sort of at that time where the the the blues really sort of moved northward that's right and and started to expand uh instrumentally that's right so you know then you you know you have that whole sort of the intensity and depth of the Chicago blues scene starting to happen alongside of this pre-Bebop, no drum jazz business in basements. Yeah, that's right. That's right. It was all

happening. And where's country music at that time? I guess a lot of the the drunky outlaws are starting to get big hits. Yeah, well, Hankiams you mean yeah sure lefty frizell yeah they were yeah you know uh hank williams co-writer uh rose what was his name i forget the guy's first name not wesley but wesley's dad uh uh he was a pit 10 pen alley songwriter and they were trying to write broad hits, too. They weren't trying to be country, necessarily. They were all trying to be pop artists.

Jimmy Rogers, who's called the father of country music. The singing break man? Yeah, he learned to play from an African-American. Hank Williams learned to play from an African-American. Really? Did he? Yeah. In fact, there's a series I did with Drew Christie called Drawn and Recorded. And there's a great story in it about Jimmy Rogers, about some missionaries going to Central Africa in the 20s and taking, or 30s maybe, and taking a Jimmy Rogers got mythologized in the Kipsikus tribe as a half-man, half-antelope. And they have a song.

They called him Chibi Rocha, and they have a song about that. So I understand the beat started what we're talking about, but the poetry of the beat, Nick, really started with, I don't know which. I guess some people attribute it to Ferlinghetti. Ginsburg. Ginsburg, yeah, to Ferlinghetti. Ginsberg. Ginsberg, yeah, and Ferlinghetti. And then there was a Carowax 200-something choruses. That was something.

But there's a rhythm to it. Lord Buckley. Yeah, I love Buckley. Right? Yeah. But it's a familiar mode of talking when you want to convey poetic impact. That's right and and you do

it throughout this record and and did you is that how you saw the background did you see because the music is not it's not obtrusive it's woven in and it seems like this is really showcasing what you're you're saying well yeah the music grew out of the work we were doing on in true detective really which became very abstract the dark kind of like yeah and i don't mean to keep saying dark because i like dark so when i say dark i i'm not saying like you know i don't know if you should it's not danceable you know i like it dark as the man said yeah exactly the music kind of floats yeah well the music i think of it it's you know the drum was the first folk instrument yeah you know the uh you know if this was being played in this village, the village over there knew not to come around.

Well, I mean, I noticed that about a lot of your stuff is that, you know, you do use, you know, we're not talking, you use indigenous American drum beats. That's right. A lot of times. So I say they're not like uh they're not blues beats they're not shuffles they're they're they're american indian yeah that's right that's right that's right but you know back in those days everybody listened to everybody back in the 20s back in the early times there's a lot if you listen to like a uh from the kiowa indians where i'm from where are you from from? From Fort Worth, Texas.

Fort Worth. Yeah, so the Indian songs would be like, hey, you know, it sounds just like bluegrass. Right, right. You know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So everybody was checking out everybody. Jimmy Rogers was listening to Louis Armstrong. No, I get that. But it's hard for me sometimes to find the integration of American Indian into certain things. And so there's a movie on called Rumble, a documentary about Link Wray and some of the pioneers of rock and roll.

Yeah, that's a good movie. It is. It's trippy, right, man? I mean, who would have known that? That was usually carried down genetically through actual individuals where they picked up the groove. But I never associate them as being singularly part of the great mix that evolved modern music, but they're kind of there. Well, they are. They're a crucial, important part of the music of the United States, to be sure. Right. Sure.

You know, here's one other interesting thing thing just off on the side for a minute a guy named mac mccormick who's probably the greatest blues archivist of all time died recently and i was down i was down in houston a couple weeks ago looking at his archives and one of the things i learned while i was they just call you and you're one of the guys it's like you might want to go through this stuff yeah they did they did they called his family called and said come look at this stuff because they were wondering where to put it and what to do with it because he was he was bipolar and he didn't want anybody to see his stuff but you know robert johnson's name was dusty spencer his real name robert johnson was a stage name wow dusty spencer is even a better name yeah i thought

so too they called him little dusty because his dad was big dusty no kidding but one of the things i learned is and he's got pictures of robert johnson no one's ever seen he's got pictures of blind lemon jefferson no one's ever seen really yeah it's an amazing archive but one of the things he'd uncovered was that you know know, Blind Lemon Jefferson had a song called The Blues Came From Texas Loping Like a Mule. And it was his theory that the blues actually did come from Texas because the blues came from all the fife and drum players back in the South in the very early days. And the Pipers, when the came into texas the pipers picked up the harmonica which the germans brought with them and mac mccormick said that was the actual beginning

of the blues through that harmonica yeah no kidding you buy it yeah i do buy it actually are those just shitty headphones no no i just i have one off does that happen whenever you wear other headphones i never wear headphones but I'm doing it here today. Thank you. This is a big step. T-Bone Burnett, the prolific producer and musical artist, has never worn headphones. Yeah, I try not to. Yeah. Well, you want to keep it real.

You don't want to mediate anything. That's right. You're so right about that. I get it. Well, I'll go with that. So the harmonica traveled from Germany through Texas into the Delta. But, yeah, but you're right. The other thing is there were all of these France, you know,

the mariachi musicians in Mexico were French wedding. It came from mariage, you know, from they played at French weddings. That was the music of the French weddings, the horns. But the polka groove came from the germans from the germans yeah and that's like you know that's the that is some of the happiest music i can listen to right i used to okay i don't understand spanish man but i grew up in new mexico and there's always a station i'm sure there's one here that was just that music all the time you know who stole the kishka yeah yeah yeah and it's just but it's speaking in spanish and i like

that i didn't understand it because it probably might have ruined it for me that's right yeah that's right well you're saying that it started with the drums on the new record oh well yeah i was saying so i i look at this music as part folk music because it's very there are two there are only two things happening they're drums and then there's electronic music so that's the global part of it the electronic music that's that's how you're trying to bring the kids in yeah i know the kids yeah i hope they come in they're certainly welcome they used to say when i would go out and talk about technology in the 15 years ago they would say hey you're just an old man saying get off our yards kids and i would say no i saying, you're welcome to play in my yard.

There's grass and there are trees and there are birds. You're welcome here, you know. Sure. Just don't bring the machine. Yeah. Yeah, don't grind the birds. Yeah. Then how did you transition to a more open-minded approach to electronic music?

Well, you know, I started when I was 17 in Fort Worth. I bought a recording studio and I started recording. And any time you put a mic in front of an instrument, whether it's an acoustic guitar or a violin or a horn, it becomes an electric instrument. I get that. As soon as you do that. So I've been doing electronic music, and especially in the early days that's a pretty broad definition though i mean and

i'm sure that at the time you were starting doing that you were sort of like which mic is going to be the most you do you did you use old mics to begin with well i used the mics they had which are great mics and people are still using them neumumann U47s. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Sure. You know. Yeah. So it was all great Class A hi-fi equipment. But in this record, there seems to be a synthesized sound that has a continuous sort of hum to it.

That's right. That's almost Eastern sounding. That's true. To this. That gives it a meditative quality. That's true. It's country and Eastern music. Yeah, yeah, well, that's right.

Do you recognize that going in? Yeah, yeah, you're right. So now, I guess when I say electronic music, was there a period, because even listening to stuff that you did with the Alpha Band and listening through your solo stuff, that there is a commitment to very clean-sounding instruments and there's not a big synthesizer sound.

Yeah, you know, we're using analog synthesizers, I will say. Where you've got to plug things in? Yeah, you know, Moogs and things. And some of the old synthesizers. Well, you know, when I started when I was 17. You used analog on this record yeah this is all yeah so that's funny so that so that like it's all analog keep it honest right yeah keep it on so you're using analog synthesizers yeah mostly but we're using everything at this point you know

because we you know we certainly it's certainly in film and television pro tools yeah you've surrendered to that yeah you're not going to be like no just tape you're not going to you're not no i still i'm getting ready to do a project on tape at the end of this month but but i have to say digital sound has come a long way since 1987 when i first started releasing beatles records that sounded like somebody scratching their fingers on a chalkboard. Yeah, well, when we were just in my house, you said that, you know, and I showed you my small record collection, I'm sure, in relation to yours, that 78s are actually the best way to, the best sounding records. That's right, the best sounding storage medium, for sure, the best sounding transcriptions. So we're not being crazy

when we say vinyl's better no it's actually no you know the there's a translation that takes place between an analog signal and a vinyl and a and a digital signal that actually degrades it right and and part of the problem is you know sound is all travels in waves. A hundred cycle tone takes probably 10 or 12 feet to fully realize. Yeah. So when you take a hundred cycle tone and you break it up into samples, you're going from a wave into these square forms. Right. It's squares. It's pixelated.

right squares they're picked it's pixelated yeah so and the problem is the more the the higher sampling rate you uh use the more the more corners you're creating you're yeah they create they try to create they try to emulate a wave with uh squares right right right i get it but it doesn't it never really happens the same way so you lose resonance bunch of blocks yeah it is just like you it's the same thing that happens with jpegs with pictures yeah you know oh yeah it's sort of like they come apart yeah the same thing happens with sound so it's not you know it's not just that for a long time they said analog sounds warmer you know and that was a cliche right but it's not that you have more depth yeah that's what i noticed the most. Yeah, you have more. The imaging is much clearer.

Yeah. You have much more resonance because those captures aren't able to really recognize all of the overtones that are happening. Like when you hit any note on a piano, every other note on the piano is happening at some volume in that note. Really? Because it just rings in the strings? Yeah, but it's just there in some volume. Most of the time, very, very low volumes. But when you hit two or three notes together, an overtone series is created,

and some of those notes that are at low volumes get repeated, and they come out at higher volumes and different rhythms happen and different whole chords, different tones happen. And that all gets flattened out and blocked. Yeah, well, it gets... Squared. Yeah, it gets removed, actually.

Oh, no kidding. Yeah, because it just doesn't see it. It can't hear it. It's like, you know, what they call in video, they call it the soap opera effect when you see an old film yeah that's transferred to some kind of high definition video yeah suddenly it looks like every everybody's uh you know the depth is weird yeah yeah yeah you see the space between the people and you know it's not real yeah and and the thing about this is a thing joel cohen and i've

talked about quite a bit the thing about film is it's already too high definition that's why they put smoke and filter that's why they have filters for the lights yeah they're always trying to create uh some sort of glue between between the different to give it to make it... To make it what? Softer? To make it feel real. Oh, interesting. To make it feel like you were looking at something.

Oh, I see. So Joel Cohen and you have discussed this idea that the detail of film actually works against creating something that is convincing. Yeah, that's right.

That's right. Because you can see the, too much. You see the process rather than being, listening to a story. That's interesting because they're so meticulous, those Coens.

They are indeed. About framing and about dialoguing, like everything is meticulous. Everything. You know, it's fun to sit behind the screen

when they're shooting and they're just pointing to different points in the screen like what's happening there why is something during a shot yeah well in the viewfinder yeah in the viewfinder no shit yeah they are meticulous that's a and and and yet it seems so free-flowing they do one or two takes one two you know two or three it seems to me from people i've talked to that have worked with him, I've not talked to them yet, that they know exactly what they want. Yeah. Yeah, every day, every actor gets sides with his lines, with the frame above them. So he knows exactly where the camera's going to be when he says this line.

So, you know, he gets ready and it just flows. Right. That's why they're able to do what they do because they do it line so you know he gets ready and it just flows like right that's why they're able to do what they do because they do it economically you know yeah so but getting back to this idea of uh yeah i think we started with you know the the progress that has been made in technology in terms of honoring what i assume you were saying is a more authentic sound, it enables you to be a little less hard on yourself about using certain technologies. Well, yeah, it's come a long way. And we've learned, we've spent a lot of time learning how to put smoke into the digital realm. Right.

To filter it so that it feels like something's actually happening well neil young tried with that pomo player that's right did you like it yeah i did i mean it wasn't a big enough idea in the face of this avalanche that we've been of disposable garbage yes well that's the thing that i noticed when i started getting into records again was that you know music that i grew up with which you know i'm, I'm 55. So, you know, I'm just talking about radio. And I had records when I was a kid, but I mean, I don't know that my system would have enabled me to be sensitive to it. But I was listening to stuff that I knew well on record,

maybe for the first time through a good system since I was in high school. And I didn't hear how it was supposed to sound until I listened to it. Like I got a pretty good system in there, but it's really about the depth, and it's about the mix, that the mix flattens out, whether it's through an AM speaker or even through a mildly, even through a fairly good car stereo, it still flattens out. That's right. So when you hear records through a decent system for the first time,

you're like, what's wrong with this song? Yeah. You know, I was talking to Gillian Welch the other day, system for the first time you're like what's wrong with this song yeah you know you know gillian well i was talking to gillian welsh the other day and she said she was looking listening to astral weeks and they she said they have two systems a digital system upstairs and an analog system downstairs and she was listening to astral weeks on the digital system and then she went downstairs and put it on on on a record and she said suddenly there was she was able to hear everything she needed to know for how to play that kind of music in the analog so that's a

description of it that's a good description of it it's a hard thing to to you know you can't put it into a word like it's warmer you know that's right that's right i think it's more about depth yeah and and clarity and And clarity and size. And honoring the mix. Yeah, that's right. I mean, you know, that's what really gets flattened out is like the decisions that a producer or an artist made in what should be up front and what should be in the back. And, you know, because everything kind of gets smashed together. Yeah. Everything's the same volume, essentially.

When you started, you grew up in Texas the whole time whole time yeah you're a texas guy essentially yeah yeah and and uh were you playing in high school what was it you know when did it start yeah i started playing my mom brought me back an acoustic guitar for a gut string guitar from mexico which is the story of just about every texas guitar player i know. The gut-string classical guitar. Right, right. From Mexico. Probably cost $5 or something. But it made this crazy sound,

and so I started playing with it. Yeah. And also, one interesting thing, since we're back there, the first song I learned to play was Wildwood Flower, Maybel Carter, playing Wildwood Flower. Yeah. And that turns out it's just

about every rock and roll guitar player learned to play guitar from maybel mother maybel really yeah i don't i don't know that one because i'm a different generation maybe but i don't even know who she is well she was the she was the uh uh daughter she was one of the carter okay got it so yeah oh she's the extended carter family yeah ap pop carter yeah his his wife was sarah and then i think maybell was was he she the mother i think she was probably the mother no yeah she was called mother maybell so yeah so it was a country folk uh what appalachian trip yeah that's right exactly and and that's what you learned first yeah because that that's just what everybody learned that was that was like the step one that laid the original groove that was the first track

you recorded in your brain she grooved like a mother i'll say that yeah yeah she did so okay so you're doing that with your gut guitar and then what year are we talking when did rock and roll ruin your brain uh you know i i think the first rock and roll record I bought was a Ricky Nelson song called Waiting in School. And I think that's where I first connected with rock and roll was on the Ozzie and Harriet show. Oh, really? Because at the end of every show, Ricky Nelson would come on and play a song. And he killed it. He was, you know, James Burton was the guitar player.

Yeah. Monster guitar player. Yeah. Monster guitar player. Yeah, and so, but before that, what was being played in the house? What enchanted you? Well, downstairs, my parents had a 78 collection that had been retired. Oh.

But there was a 78 player and shelves of 78, so I was listening to Duke Ellington and Louis Armstrong and Cole Porter and Ella Fitzgerald. So you had that in your brain, that sophisticated melody. Yeah, and also just the idea, the thing that I loved the most about all that old music, there was a song called The Naughty Lady of Shady Lane that was about a three-month-old baby and the way you could play with the whirls.

And there was a song called Begin the Beguine. Yeah. Oh, that's great. That's a great song. I think I heard Artie Shaw do that. Yeah, Cole Porter tune, I think. But I was taken with how you could create a whole world, a whole environment with a song, with a piece of music.

Right. So I would put that on and close my eyes and I would be in some world of tropical splendor, as the lyric said. Right, right. With these people dancing the bagine, whatever that was. I don't know. Yeah. But it took you out. Yeah, it did.

It was psychedelic. Yeah, early on. Yeah. That's the weird thing when you really think about the way you're talking about music. What music isn't psychedelic? That's right. If it's not psychedelic, it's probably not doing its job. It's probably not music.

Or else it's just a pop song. Yeah, right. You know, pop songs do a different thing. I think a pop song is designed to satisfy quickly. And, you know, I think they can go pretty deep, obviously. But I think to really, you know, get get into a song to get into it as a a place an environment right you know you got it it's a different part of the brain that's right yeah yeah so so you start playing the gut guitar but then are you compelled towards rock music

yeah well at the time you know elvis costello says that uh you know there was rock and roll and then it became rock music and as soon as it rock, it took on all the qualities of a rock. It was hard and inert. But I look at it this way, that there are two kinds of music. There's sex music and war music. And rock music is more of war music. It's martial. It's dum-kum-kum-kum.

Really? Yeah. And rock and roll is sex music it's swing music oh okay so that's the differentiation rock and rock and roll yeah so i would say there's swing music and and uh yeah you gotta swing gotta have a good drummer yeah that's right so you know river dance or those things that's martial music even though dancing you can feel that yeah yeah uh right but like so where do you put the uh what's your take on the first rock song is it rocket 88 or is it rock around the clock or is it blue suede shoes what do you think's the first rock and roll song well it's first right

you know a lot of people say rocket 88 i know so you know but i don't know i hear it going back to milton brown and the brownies and jimmy rogers certainly played rock and roll songs yeah if rock and roll part one definition of rock and roll it's the blending of black and white culture you know yeah so you know that jimmy rogers would certainly be hank williams would be an early version of that yeah you know move it on over that's certainly a rock and roll song oh yeah so when you started when you get this studio would certainly be Hank Williams would be an early version of that yeah you know move it on over that's certainly a rock and roll song oh yeah so when you started when you get this studio at 17 I mean what's uh what's your agenda what what compels you are you in a band at the time

no I I at the time I wanted to be uh Burt Bacharach I thought he had the ideal life he wrote songs for movies wrote great songs yeah did arrangements produced records yep got to work with dion warwick got to work with him every one right married married angie dickinson yeah had racehorses that was your life that's what he wanted that was the aspiration that's yeah that's that's the direction i was going yeah but uh but we were doing a lot of experimental music i was working with a band with working with some guys that later became Space Opera, they were called, doing psychedelic music. But we were turning tapes around backwards and cutting things. We were doing a lot of-

In what year is this? 65, I would say. Oh, okay. Yeah, okay. So you're a little ahead of the curve on that. Well, it was already being done, but yes. It was being done in the 50s even, you know, in the 60s. Yeah.

Yeah, as soon as people got tape, they started playing with it. Yeah, give people something, they'll turn it inside out. That's right. Yeah. So you're recording your own stuff in the studio. That was the plan. That was the plan, yeah. The plan was to write songs and get other people to sing them so you were you're already in the you you had a business

mindset about it yeah i guess i did i have to say you knew that you know you're gonna write this down and get someone who's got some juice to do it that's right yeah you're gonna build an empire yeah the uh harlan howard said once he said, you can either write 10 songs and get a truck and a PA system and a bus and some musicians and a publicist and a producer and you can go around and play those songs. Or you can write 10 songs and get 10 guys with 10 trucks and 10 buses and PA systems. And yeah, I thought there's some wisdom in that. Did you land any? No, not really. Not early on. The first stuff I started doing, funnily enough, was blues bands. Like who? Anybody? My favorite record was a band called Robert Ely and His Five Careless Lovers that

we recorded live in the New Blue Bird nightclub. I worked with a band called the Van Dykes. I remember that name. They were an R&B band in the 60s. And then there was a club in town called Panther Hall. In Fort Worth? Yeah, in Fort Worth where all the country musicians play. And Friday and Saturday nights, they would come over after work and record in the studio.

Oh, yeah? In your studio? Yeah, so Conway Twitty. Early Conway Twitty. Yeah, and Doug Kershaw and those cats. Oh, Doug Kershaw. Yeah, he lived long enough to go hippie, didn't he? Yeah, he did. He was pretty hippie from the get-go, I've got to say.

Conway never went hippie. No, no, he went very bouffant. Yeah. Who else? And permed. Yeah, sure. But then there were a lot of kids. That wave that goes up, yeah then there were a lot of kids that wave that goes up yeah

there were a lot of kids uh there was a there was a tina gogo scene in fort worth at the time so i worked a lot with a lot of bands band sculpt like the cynics there were you know no very i don't think anybody really did anything out of that scene but there were there was a thriving scene at the time you ever come across uh across Billy Gibbons in any iteration? Well, I saw him. I met him much later, but I saw him at the time playing at the Cellar Club. What were they called, Moving Sidewalks?

Yeah, I think that's right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, and they played. There were two or three cellars. There was one in Houston and one in Fort Worth and I think one in Dallas, and that was a circuit, the Cellar Club circuit, owned by a guy named Pat Kirkwood, who was a character.

Sure. They're all characters, the guys who own clubs. That's right. Yeah, yeah. It's their world. Yeah. Yeah. That's right.

They are the king of their world. That's right. You're so right. So how do you shift out of that groove into, like, you know, what changes for you at what age to where you start playing more and and playing your own songs and well uh um i bob i ran into bobby new earth it's a funny story really just after janice joplin died yeah i got a call from albert grossman who wanted me to come up to woodstock and audition with the Full Tilt Boogie Band.

For what reason, I don't know. But I guess because Dylan had liked my songs and Albert had heard the songs. Which songs did Dylan like? I had recorded maybe eight or ten demos that I was sending around to people to get recorded. And Dylan heard a friend of mine named Lindsey Holland was working for Dylan at the time

and was playing the songs on the bus. Yeah, oh, wow. And Dylan liked them. So anyway, I got this call from Albert Grossman to come up to Woodstock. And I was standing at my friend Stephen Bruton's house. And the first night I was there, there was this extraordinary jam session with Bobby Charles first night I heard Tennessee Blues he had just gotten

out of jail in Tennessee and yeah came to town with this song Tennessee Blues what was going on in Woodstock that everyone's going up there well the band was up yeah I knew that you know yeah so they were kind of attracting uh everybody they were wrangling the roots of America that's right yeah that's right amos garrett was there who had just played this great solo on midnight at the oasis and we played music all night long drank a lot of tequila yeah there was this guy bobby newarth there i know his name yeah he's an extraordinary cat he was the straw that stirs the drink as they say in the in the folk music in cam and in New York.

Yeah. And he was in Don't Look Back with Dylan. He was Dylan's aide to camp in that movie, Don't Look Back. And I woke up the next morning not remembering going to bed at all. And I woke up, and we were in these two twin beds. And I looked up, and New Earth was in the other bed, and there was a bottle of tequila between us. Yeah. And I looked at him through the tequila, and I looked up and New Earth was in the other bed and there was a bottle of tequila between us. And I looked at him through the tequila and he woke up and he grabbed the tequila and took about three massive swallows of this thing and handed it to me. And I sipped it and he said, I didn't see any bubbles. And that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship.

And New Earth and I have been close friends since that night. He's still around? Yeah, he is. Yeah. And when he was putting together the Rolling Thunder Review in New York with Bob. So is he a producer or an A&R guy? No, he's a songwriter and a painter. He's never signed a contract in his life.

He's got records out? Yeah, he does he wrote lord won't you buy me a mercedes-benz okay right okay good yeah he's a great songwriter okay worked with christopher okay yeah that's how i know the name worked with worked with jim morrison and janice joplin and at any rate uh you didn't take the gig with the uh the full tilt boogie band no i no i didn't take that gig, but then this Rolling Thunder thing came up, and I was not really ready to be a performer for the Full Tilt Boogie Band or Rolling Thunder.

They wanted you as a guitar player? Yeah, and to sing some songs. Yeah. But I took the gig for the Rolling Thunder tour, and that was the beginning of me trying to learn how to perform. So that was a real circus, yeah i mean like wasn't ginsburg there too for a while he was there the whole time sam shepherd yeah like odd odd sorts everybody traveled together to all the shows yeah so what

did you learn on that thing what'd you take away from it to you kind of enter your own music oh everything you know i've repeated that rolling thunder a few again and again the roy orvis in black and white night show was a version of the rolling thunder review uh-huh uh the the uh the oh brother where art thou the down from the mountain tour and film that came after oh brother where art that was a version of the rolling thunder so just the uh the kind of, not quite a variety show, but a traveling community. Yeah, that's right.

A collaboration among various artists. And being able to, Jacques Levy actually really helped me and taught, I talked to Jacques a lot about how he, do you remember Jacques Levy? I don't. He directed O Calcutta off Broadway. Okay. And he wrote Desire with Bob. He directed O Calcutta off-Broadway. And he wrote Desire with Bob.

He did. And he directed The Rolling Thunder Review. And he taught me a lot about how you tell a story with different songs and different artists over a period of time. So you can do a three or four hour show where you're changing the voice every 10 or 15 minutes. So the audience never has the chance to become used to a voice. Right. And then you combine those voices in different configurations. Right. They don't get used to a voice, but they get used to the context.

Right. You've created this vast context. Yeah, you create a context and then you tell a story. And what are the songs about and what part of the story are they telling? Right. So that's exactly what we did with Oh Brother Where Art Thou, right? Well, yeah, man. I mean, it's like, you know, I don't know.

I know that's a lot of what people know you for. I think the first time I got into your stuff was that the album The Talking Animals. Oh, yeah. Yeah, because I was like in college. It was probably my last year at school. And I was like, what the fuck is this? And that was before I knew anything really in any broad sense about music or what you might have been doing previous or what you were producing

or anything else. But I loved that record. And from there, when I kind of record, you know, and from there, you know, when I kind of start to hear about you here and there, and then, oh, brother, where art thou? I just pictured you as this guy that, you know, would go out and do your music, but then just, you know, be overwhelmed by all the music in the world. I think that's probably a pretty good description I'll take that so but but that thing is it like it was so funny because when I was walking around my house before you came trying to figure out where to start a conversation with you I I might for some reason I

the in that moment I was like I have to ask him if he believes in ghosts. Oh, yeah. Why not? Well, because when I think about, you know, when you put together something like that, that soundtrack and that group of artists to do songs that are traditional and older, and they're specific songs that you chose from, you know, however you chose them, that you start to realize that music, if you honor it,

especially traditional music or old music, that that is sort of a good ghost. That's right. That you're trying to honor a ghost and then allow them to talk again. That's right. Right? Yeah, yeah, that's right. I agree with that. So what was the process?

I mean, I know you did a lot of solo records and on your own, but, you know, production and and curating, you know, seems to be have taken up a lot of your time. Right. Well, yeah, that's that's what I've spent most of my time on. Just recently, about three years ago, Marshall Brickman called me up. You know, Marshall Brickman. Yeah, he's a screenwriter, right? Well, he's an interesting guy. I wanted to give you a quick description of Marshall Brickman. He was one of the original folk musicians in Washington Square Park in Greenwich Village in the 50s. Yeah.

And he played all the instruments. He played on Judy Collins' records. He played on a lot of records. He was a session guy. He was the guitarist on dueling band shows from Deliverance. Oh, so I'm thinking of a different guy, I guess. No, I'll get to that.

So he did that for a number of years. He ended up, by the time he was in his early 20s, he ended up in Hollywood working on Candid Camera with Alan Funt.

Right. Then by the time he was 23, he was head writer on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. Uh-huh. And then he invented the Dick Cavett Show. Just whatever you call it. Right. Then by the time he was 23, he was head writer on the Johnny Carson Tonight Show. Uh-huh. And then he invented the Dick Cavett Show.

Just whatever you call it. Yeah. Oh, and that's where he got hooked up with Woody Allen through Rollins and Joffey and Dick Cavett. Right.

And then he wrote Manhattan. Yeah. And then he wrote Annie Hall. Right. And then he got into Broadway and he wrote

Jersey Boys and some other plays. That's recent yeah recently he's still going yeah he's he's an amazing interesting uh but it's interesting the guys that that survive because they change yeah you know because i've i've talked to a couple of cats from that scene in new york like i've talked to david bromberg and i've talked to uh john hammond jr and you know they neither one of them, you know, after the fact, I realized, you know, they were both sort of hobbled by drugs at different points in their careers. But they were part of that, and they stayed within the confines of what happened at that time.

Right. Yeah, they didn't move on. Right. Yeah. But Hammond's pretty great. They're both great. They're both killer musicians love john hammond jr the best yeah so marshall brickman calls up and says he's writing

a play about the people who played roy rogers and dale evans and most of your listeners may not even know who roy rogers and dale evans were but but Roy Rogers was the biggest cowboy star, singing cowboy in the 40s. He was a huge movie star. And then in the 50s, when my generation, my friends were all growing up, he had a television show. Right. And, you know, everybody wanted to be Roy Rogers. He was the most marketed person. They had Roy Rogers everything.

Sure. Roy Rogers lunch boxes. There was a restaurant, chain restaurant for years. Exactly. Sure. Roy Rogers lunch boxes. There was a restaurant, chain restaurant for years. Exactly. Yeah. So, but it was an interesting idea to me because the people who play, we all thought that Roy Rogers and Dale Evans were actual people, but they were actors.

It was a guy named Leonard Sly who played Roy Rogers and a woman named Frances Fox who played Dale Evans. Was his horse Trigger? Yeah, that was his horse. Right. And his dog was Bullet. Yeah. Good name.

Yeah, but he was also Native American, so he never would shoot an Indian in any of his films or television shows. At any rate, I started writing the music for this play with Marshall, and it took me a solid year once i started once i took the job of writing a musical yeah and even though sam shepherd and i worked on several plays together i was writing music for plays but this was different this was like a where i was writing lyrics that became part of the story. Right. And I started studying all the great Broadway composers. Frank Lesser, who I think is the greatest of them all.

I read Sondheim's books. Yeah. And I listened to Rodgers and Hart's stuff and how they went about doing that. And it was daunting, and it took me a solid year to write it and after i got through i started i started waking up at four in the morning every morning and writing for three or four hours and then when i got through with those 20 songs i uh just kept writing right which is all the stuff that's turned in the into the invisible light yeah i mean even in like because i really listen to talking animals and like it seems like thematically that first song that i think was a

little bit of a hit for you the wild truth yeah is is would it fit on this record right i've i've only written about the same thing my whole life yeah you and me both yeah right i think that's what everyone does but i've written about self-delusion and self-deception my whole life. Oh, yeah? Except I know so much more about it now than I did when I was a kid. So have you finally, do you know when you're deluding yourself at this point? Yeah, I'm better. I catch it more quickly. Yeah. Well, you know, there is a certain amount of self-doubt that you have to let go of in order to, you know, engage in your creativity. And maybe, you know, I'm projecting, but, you know, if that's been the struggle, I could see your appeal to working with other artists.

You know what I mean? I don't know if this is real or not. Can you just do your thing yeah well well yeah it you know it helps uh i'm able to help them not make the same mistakes i've made you know that's that's been part of that the whole time so that brings us where does it bring us where are we exactly when did you come to los angeles i came to los angeles in 1965 to sell a record I'd produced. And then I went to New York in 65 for the same reason. And then I moved out here probably about 1967 or 68.

So you were here through all the Laurel Canyon shit and you watched it all turn to garbage. Well, yeah. In a word, yeah. You saw something beautiful just turn into garbage. That Manson deal really hurt everybody badly. Yeah, he fucked the whole movement. He really did. Yeah, gave everybody a bad name.

Gave everybody a bad feeling. Did you see him around? No, never saw him. And as soon as that thing happened, I got in my car and left. I just thought, this is bad. I drove back to Fort Worth. Going back to Texas, where things make sense. Yeah. Go look at the flatness. Yeah, right.

That's right. Yeah, I can't imagine. It just seemed like, yeah, it was bending into some sort of drug-driven chaos out here in the late 60s, wasn't it? Yeah, it was. Joni Mitchell was the queen of everything back then. She was so beautiful. It was like Elkie Summer, if Elkie Summer could have sung and written the most extraordinary songs.

There was this feeling of possibility and feeling of this is going to go someplace and it ended up just sort of getting turned into a commercial venture you know yeah and in a drug-ridden cesspool yeah that too yeah but you were there for the the like you know um the troubadour you know all that every night yeah oh yeah so you saw everybody coming up. Yeah. Somebody went through the window of the Troubadour one night. In the car? No, from inside. Oh, out.

I can't remember who. I don't remember if I had anything to do with it. I might have had something to do with that. I guess that's a good description of the time. A guy went through the window, not sure if I was involved. Yeah. But were you friends with, like, Harry Nelson or any of the eagles guys or ronstadt or i knew ronstadt a little bit yeah i met harry nelson later i met them all later but at the

time i was maybe just a little bit younger than them graham parsons no no missed that but you work with emmy lou yeah and you know what i did see saw Richard Pryor there, who absolutely killed. I saw incredibly great shows there. And I'm sure I ran into all those guys and talked to them and everything, but nobody knew. Long Branch and Penny Whistle, I think that was maybe J.D. Souther and Glenn Fry or something like that. I just got one of their records, the two of them. Yeah. It's all right.

Yeah, they were there. I would talk one of their records, the two of them. Yeah. Is that all right? Yeah, they were there. I saw, you know, I would talk to those guys. I would see Linda around. But see, that's interesting because that was sort of, you know, that kind of, I guess that's within the parameters of sort of your world in the way that, but I think you go deeper into it. That that was this idea that we were moving forward american music you know we're melding uh you know contemporary rock and what was known as country into something else with the with the birds and you know and ronstadt and you know jd and those guys were doing something with singing singer songwriter stuff that was taking

it out of that nashville model but it wasn't really, it just became the Eagles, really. Yeah, that kind of happened. They soaked the whole thing up. Right, and made it popular music. And that's sort of the template until, for a long time, for country music, actually. The country music came around right appropriated it and still didn't give those guys the the credit they deserve that's true so do you see like you

know let's let's move from uh oh brother you know so you you feel as much as everyone else felt that that was sort of a a master work of curation and production for you well it was it was a it was an extraordinary collaboration with joel and ethan who are two of the smartest and funniest people I know. Deeply funny. Was that where you started your relationship with Gillian Welsh, or was that before? No, I started working with Gillian. I'm sorry, Gillian. Yeah, I started working with Gillian.

I produced her first couple of records. I saw her playing at the Station Inn in Nashville for about 12 people. Uh-huh. And she had beautiful songs. Yeah, she's something, right? Yeah. So you started really producing full-on in the 80s, right? No, I started out as a writer-producer.

Right, right. Oh, yeah, but full-on, yeah, I started probably in the 80s right no i produced i started out as a writer producer right oh yeah but full-on yeah i started probably in the 1980s and you like it it seems very eclectic to me i've only talked to a few producers i yeah i talked to uh john kale about production which was a you know i fucked that interview up because i i at the time i talked to him, I really wasn't on the pulse of his solo career, which is astounding. Yeah, he's amazing. I'm talking to him about producing Patti Smith and Iggy and the Stooges, and he's like, I just took the gig, man. They knew I could move the knobs.

You know, he made some great records with Bobby Newerth, too, the cat we were talking about earlier. Yeah, I don't remember the name of him. They did him over in Germany, I think. He records with Bobby Newerth, too, the cat we were talking about earlier. Yeah, I don't remember the name of him. They did him over in Germany, I think. He produced them, Newerth did? No, they collaborated. Yeah, I probably have them. I kind of scramble to get caught up on people.

But that whole crew of people in England, you know, Ayers and Eno and a couple of the other ones, it was some odd, interesting music. Very much so, yeah. That was from the time of experimentation and freedom. I'm trying to live in that ghost on this new stuff we're doing, to work in full autonomy, because the greatest art is made by artists working at full autonomy. Right. To work in full autonomy. Right. Because the greatest art is made by artists working at full autonomy. Right.

And the more, you know, this is why I love to, as a producer, I love to work on first records with people, like I did with Gillian and Los Lobos and the Bodines. And I've done a lot of first records, the Counting Crows. Because, not because people say, well, they had 20 years to write their first record and then not much time to write the second one which is all true but the writing for 20 years they were writing in full autonomy yeah they had nobody uh no record company telling them what the charts right or right yeah so i i feel you get you get a real pure shot of the artist in that first record. And you did that with, well, I mean, did you do, was that Marshall Crenshaw's first record? No, I did his, that was probably his third record or something. But it seems like you work with the Bodines every few years.

Every once in a while, yeah, I like those guys. Yeah, the first Bodines record was a pretty big record. Yeah, it did really well. Yeah, and Elvis Costello you picked up later in life. Yeah, that's right. But Spike's a great record. You did Spike? I did Spike and King of America, which is...

Oh, yeah. King of America is one of my favorite records I've ever gotten to work on. Yeah? Yeah. Elvis is an extraordinary cat. Great teacher. Yeah, he does have the big brain. He works under full autonomy himself.

Sure. He's always maintained full autonomy so have the coens you know yeah so is dylan yeah those are the these are the so is sam shepherd sure so all of these guys have this is one of the things i've learned from them is how to do that and certainly this this new record where nobody's telling anybody anything did you ever work under those pressures yeah as a solo artist yeah record companies yeah yeah the occasionally but they've never they've never said much to me the right the record companies actually although they had terrible reputations because they would rob artists blinds certainly but they didn't they didn't completely destroy artists lives like the

internet thugs have right sure you know yeah but uh by and large they were almost patrons of the arts compared to what we have now yeah except on that second or third record yeah well they imagined they're just wonderful on that first record because they're rolling the dice they could they could meddle but i never got anything like the kind of notes that i've seen uh networks give to to writers and artists oh yeah so many people yeah yeah it feels to me that with the record companies just one asshole with tv there's like a dozen yeah and they would usually say everything's great except we need a single right it would usually be just like how are we going to sell this?

Give us something to sell this with. Right, right. So the other 12 or 15 or 10 or however many songs, they would let you do what you wanted to. Yeah, if they could move that thing. If you would just give them the one thing. But what's interesting about the production resume is that you seem sort of adept at really approaching a lot of different types of people, and there's people that you've recorded several times. I mean, I think that last Almond Brother, that was really a great bit of producing.

Oh, I love that record. I love that record. I love Greg, and that's another one of my favorite records I've ever gotten to work on. I think that was his last record, right? Yes. I think he may have made one more. But Low Country Blues, I think he may have made one more. But Low Country Blues, I think you opened that portal.

Yeah. I just went down. You know, C.S. Lewis said if you're doing a mathematical sum and you come up with the wrong answer, there's no use proceeding from there. You have to go back and find where you made the mistake. Yeah. And then that's where progress can begin so sometimes progress moving forward is accomplished by moving backward and that that's what i've done with several artists i've gone back and you get to move backward in in a vehicle that's modern that's right so you get to do both at once you have to go two directions at once and

that's what we did with low country blues and I've tried to do that with Elton on some of his things. On the Leon Russell record? Yeah, definitely. The two of them? Yeah. And I was there at the Troubadour when Elton came to town. The first time? Yeah, for that week and blew everybody's mind and was, you know, just exploded into a major star in a week. Did you feel that you had success in doing that with elton yeah yeah i thought so the record we made diving board yeah it was very much a trio piano bass and drums record huh which is how he was playing at the time of course i mean his voice is at least an octave lower than it was sure i listen to those early elton records now it sounds like he's on helium or something there's a good band though oh the band's great and he was great i don't mean that to denigrate

yeah but like it's what you know as people get older to strip it down it makes it interesting i mean i think that you know what uh what ruben did with johnny cash was sort of astounding right beautiful yeah it's the same that's the same idea go just go back to the core of who the person is and what he loves in the first place right go find try to try to identify the person's true love right i mean but you recorded you recorded bb king late too i mean 2008 same sort of process going back into going back into you know see that my grave is kept clean, and those songs of his youth. Yeah, yeah.

And though you didn't get to work with Bob, you did carry Jacob through a couple, huh? Well, I wouldn't say carry him, but yeah, I loved him. Jacob's a beautiful artist. Oh, yeah, he's great. Yeah, I've talked to him. Yeah, it's funny because it was one of those interviews where it's sort of like, am uh you know they it was one of those interviews where

it's sort of like am i allowed to talk about his dad and then like you know and even if he's reticent to it eventually you're sort of like you know well do you talk to your dad he's like yeah of course he's my dad well jacob is a very funny witty guy very funny and he uh he never reveals that in in public for some reason he's very guarded which i understand i used to be very guarded too i've given up on being guarded well i mean it's like you know i mean he knew what he was getting into it's like if your dad's bob dylan i'm gonna gonna be a singer songwriter yeah well yeah good luck yeah he knew what he was getting into but there was no way for him he knew what he was getting into, but there was no way for him to know

what he was getting into at the same time. But he's a great songwriter in his own right. And I love, you never got to work with the Heartbreakers, though, huh?

Tom Petty and those guys? No, I never did. It would seem like it would be a good match. Yeah, I would have loved to have worked with Tom. I did music direct his Music Cares tribute a year before he died.

And I love Tom. He was an amazing cat. He's one of those guys where if you just sit with the catalog, you're like, holy God. Yeah, one great song after another. Really something amazing about that. And you recorded your ex-wife a few records? Yeah, six or seven records, yeah. That's great.

Yeah. It's nice she's she is still one of my very she's maybe my favorite artist i've ever worked with yeah sam phillips is incredible she's a great great songwriter she lives right around the corner from where we're sitting at the moment that's wild now i know that she's a great songwriter and a deep soul woman yeah and then out of like wherever you do a Cassandra Wilson record. Yeah. Well,

I've worked with Cassandra a lot and we just put her, we used her to good effect in the latest series, a season of true detective. She sang the, the title main title song. that's her. Yeah. That makes sense.

Yeah. I mean like I didn't keep up with her, but like the first time i heard her was like holy shit yeah she's she's uh she's the last living jazz singer you know interesting is that true i i think so probably i mean i i think you could say diana crawl is a jazz singer but she's not she's not the kind of jazz singer that Cassandra is. Right. Diana is a great pianist. She was Oscar Peterson's protege.

Oh, wow. Yeah. And she's a brilliant musician and a great singer. She's also Canadian, you know, and Cassandra's from- Doesn't have the same baggage. Yeah, that's right. Doesn't have the American baggage. Well put. Yeah. You know, Cassandra says't have the same baggage. Yeah, that's right. Doesn't have the American baggage. Well put. Yeah.

You know, Cassandra says that down in Mississippi, they say the reason there's so much trouble between the races is because we're all related. You know, and she comes from right down there in the Delta. And she's got she's got all of that. And you also helped old Robert Plant turn his his vibe around. I hope to do that again one of these days. You like that guy. I do love Robert, and I love Robert and Allison together. The two of them have extraordinary chemistry.

And, you know, speaking of someone who, when you listen to his early stuff, sounds like he's on helium, you know. Sure. But as a grown man, when he lowers his voice into that softer place yeah that's still it's more mystical it's more beautiful it's more well he can sing yeah he can sing great and the two of them together they have these beautiful tones yeah create five other people i i like that uh that like here's the weird thing about superstars aging. Is that, you know, and I've talked to a lot of them, a few of them anyways, and they always think they're doing their best work now.

And they might very well be. It's just that the audience has gotten a little smaller. Right. And the expectations are different. And they're older gentlemen. And they may not get the reverence that they once had for what they did when they were kids. and they may not get the uh the the the reverence that they once had for what they did when they were kids but they they could be right uh you know and it's funny because i interviewed mccartney you know it was one of the greatest moments of

my life because because every guy his age and i've talked to says that like let's talk about the new record you know and a lot of times they're not right but it's fine you know but but i said to mccartney i said to him i said uh you know uh a lot of times they're not right, but it's fine. But I said to McCartney, I said to him, I said, you know, a lot of artists your age think they're doing their best work now. Do you feel that way? And he goes, I was in the Beatles. Well, good for him. Because how do you put down the Beatles, man? That's a pretty high bar.

They're our Bach, you know. They're just in another. It was so funny. It was so beautiful. But a very good provocative question, I have to say. I know. I really thought I had it in the bag. I didn't get them on that one.

Nope. Completely self-aware. What are you, kidding me? Yeah. I'm not going to. It was really something. Now, let's just talk a couple more minutes about working with the Coens. Now, Inside Llewyn Davis.

One of my favorite. That's maybe their best movie yeah i love it you know not everybody loved it but i liked it because it was the story of my life that's what i thought yeah i know yeah so and springsteen said it's a story of my life except with a happy ending yeah but that's that's what we all that's what we all went through that was the that was the gauntlet we ran. Oscar Isaac did an incredible job of playing authentic folk music from the 50s. Did you have to coach him? No. Yeah, a little bit.

I mean, what I did mostly was just keep everything away just to let him, give him space to do what he did. But I'll tell you, he did an extraordinary thing, which the Coens wanted to shoot all the music live, which is the best way to do it. We did it without a click track, which you never do in the movies because you can't cut from one shot to another if it's not done to a consistent tempo. So I was sitting about four or five feet away from him with a stopwatch, timing measures. You can't cut from one shot to another if it's not done to a consistent tempo. Yeah. So I was sitting about four or five feet away from him with a stopwatch timing measures. Right. While we shot.

Yeah. To make sure he didn't speed up or slow down. And he had drilled so hard for six months that he didn't once. He never varied tempo. Huh. It's an extraordinary feat. Yeah. I do have to watch that again so all that stuff you just uh did you was it the what was the process of deciding the songs for all of it i don't know we've we've always just kind of talked about it until they're there you and the

coens yeah and that's the same with the oh brother yeah all of them yeah yeah. And what other ones did you do? The Lebowski? Big Lebowski. Yeah. Lady Killers. Yeah. And we've done a few documentaries in between. Right. Maybe another one or two in there. I can't remember. Yeah, but you guys all get along?

Very much so. In fact, they're so good at getting along, the two of them, and they are able to reach a consensus so effortlessly that they are able to include anyone else in their process. So I've never seen a really uncomfortable moment on a set with those guys. One of my favorite movies is A Serious Man because I'm an American middle class Jew, and it all seemed very familiar to me. But I just thought it was seemingly a very personal movie. And again, the ending with the old rabbi listening to White Rabbit. Yeah.

The kid stoned his bar mitzvah. Too good. It's too good. I got to watch them all again. So let's zero in on uh one other thing i i i want to talk about this because i got the record and i didn't know what the fuck it was and i still don't know where it comes from but music from the american epic sessions oh yeah you know i and i listened to it and i'm like you know i did third man put it out did i get that okay yeah jack put it out and I'm like, you know, did Third Man put it out? Did I get that? Yeah, Jack put it out.

And what was the conceit of that? You were involved with it. They pulled out an old machine? Yeah, they found an old – there were these – back in the old days, what happened was in 1926, the record business collapsed because of the proliferation of radio in the big cities. And all the records were sold in the big cities. And because people could get music for free, they didn't want to pay for it anymore.

So the record companies took these portable recorders down south and started going recording blues and country musicians with the idea they weren't called blues and country musicians at the time they were recording poor musicians in poor parts of the world because they didn't have the same radio uh access that they had and they could still sell records so they would go to a furniture store in mississippi and say is there anybody around here who's good? Because all the records and the record players were sold in furniture stores and manufactured by furniture companies. Oh, interesting. This is in the 20s. Yeah.

Yeah. So they would go down. They would say, well, if you go down the road here, this road, there's a guy down there who's really good. Mississippi John Hurt. Go down there and record him so they would take these massive machines that were portable down the road and they would record no electricity no electricity it was all done by pulleys right and how did they work it was like the weight would drop in a certain time frame yeah and that was what was digging the grooves yeah and you only had it would last two minutes. Two minutes and 20 seconds was all the time you had.

So you had the weight hooked up to a pulley that was hooked up to the needle that was grinding. It was hooked up to the turntable. That was digging the plate. Yeah. The turntable was moving. The needle was stationary. Right. But it would move around the needle.

And that's where you get the original plate. Right. And so they would take those recordings and they were on they were on discs and they would pack them in ice they could only record in the winter because it was done on wax oh my god so they would pack it in ice and they would ship it up to new jersey or wherever the pressing place that's crazy and the guy at the furniture store would say okay well if well, if you do that, I'll take 1,000 records. So they would send the discs up, the masters up. The wax masters.

Yeah, and then send back 1,000 records, and that would be it. So you got one of those machines and recorded a bunch of current artists and a couple of older artists on them. Yeah, I thought the Nas piece was really great. Yeah, some of them are good. on them yeah i thought the nas piece was really great yeah some of them are good it's interesting that what was interesting to me listening to it is that you know some of the way those records sounded was was not age it was the equipment that's right which would make sense but a lot of times you assume like you know it gets something's old about it but it was amazing that the sound was there that it did work that, that you could hear. Yeah, it still works. I mean, it's pretty crude mechanics, but it still works really well.

You and Jack, you must have good talks. He's an analog freak. Yeah, Jack and I are, he's like a younger brother. Right. Yeah, he's doing those direct to disc, direct to, what do you call it? All those third men, the records that he records in the stage space go right onto the plate. Right. Yeah.

That's right. Some of them are great. Yeah, they are. As I said, it's still the best sound. The best sound, I think every musician will tell you, that when you're working in tape or digital, any time you go to a disc, the acetate that you first record on is the best sound you'll ever hear and that's what is that made out of copper or aluminum no it's

made it's i think it's aluminum with an acid it's an aluminum uh base with an acetate on top right but the acetate is very soft so once again the needle pressing into the groove creates heat which melts the acetate right that's same with wax the you couldn't once you cut one of those masters you couldn't play it you just had to send it off and get it made wild because they would melt so acid the acetate is the first step you take in making a an album a vinyl record. But if you just listen to the acetate before you... Press. Yeah. Then it's the best sound you'll ever hear.

The pressings never sound as good as the acetate. Do you have an acetate collection? I do, actually. Yeah. I do, but they've all been played, so they're all pretty scratchy. They're spent? Yeah, pretty much.

Yeah. Well, the new record's great. Thank you, man. And, you i i i hope it finds an audience i think it will we'll see but you're happy with it it's autonomous it is autonomous there's there are three of them we've just finished recording the second one and we're going to put them out every every few months is it the acoustic space series it's the invisible light series okay the second one's series. Oh, okay. The second one's called Spells. We've recorded the second one because I hope to put it out in August or September. And is it thematically different?

Yeah, it's a little more driving. It's a little more up. Okay, so you're starting low. But thematically, it's all about the same thing. All of it is about the fact that human beings have undergone over a century of electronic programming and what that's done to us as a people and where that's led us. Between the conditioned responses that Pavlov pioneered. Sure. Yeah, our addiction to our film,

but it's also led us to the place where we started where you could do a lifetime of work and celebrate it in three sentences, put it out into the world, and someone with no name and a picture of Bob Newhart as an avatar will say, you suck. It's funny, and I'll tell you one, I'll tell you a true story.

From the time I was probably 10 or 11 until the time I was probably 16 or 18, I had a recurring nightmare, which was I was in the parish hall of my Episcopal church, and we were all lined up against the wall. And at the very far corner were these men dressed all in black. I couldn't see their faces, but they were black, and they were intimidating and threatening. And they were taking off everyone's right hand and replacing it with an electronic hand that would be their new control mechanism. And I would wake up every night from that dream in a cold sweat, panicked. I had it probably 15 or 20 times. And it wasn't until probably 15 years ago

that I walked into a coffee shop and I saw everybody staring at their hands and I realized, oh, they didn't have to cut off our hands, they just put it in our hands. Yeah, right. And I feel that that dream was was uh was given to me because actually that's what i've been writing about all of these years is that that dream sort of propelled me into this it's i started reading tayyar de chardin and i started reading chakalul and

and marshall mccluhan yeah and getting into this idea of what this idea of where are we going with this technology? With every technological advance, we have to stop and take a minute to determine whether this is going to be something that makes us more human or less human. And at the moment, this current digital technology is certainly making us less human. This current digital technology is certainly making us less human. And just that way you said that somebody who no one's ever heard of and has never done one good piece of work suddenly becomes an expert on everything that's wrong. Or just an asshole. Or just that, yeah. It's usually just that.

Yeah. Because like nine times out of ten when you respond and they're like, I got you. Yeah. They just want to connect. Yeah. So're like, I got you. Yeah. They just want to connect. Yeah. So that is, that's human. Yeah. That's all that's left.

That's all too. Yeah, that's right. Well, we'll see. They don't care how they connect. Yeah. Or for how long. Yeah. But what they're really doing is disconnecting. And that's the problem.

Have you used the description of that dream in any of the spoken pieces? No, I haven't. You know, I just, I did an interview and somebody asked me, why did I get into this? And I started thinking about it and I realized, oh, that's why I got into this. That's why I started, I went on this whole. Fear of the hand. Yeah, that's right. Yeah. Don't talk to the hand. Yeah, that's right. Yeah.

Don't talk to the hand. Yeah. Too late. Good talking to you, man. You too, man. That was T-Bone Burnett, the new album, The Invisible Light Acoustic Space, comes out next Friday, April 12th.

You can get it wherever you get those records. I may have been hallucinating. If you're still hanging in, I may have been hallucinating. And I may need some sleep. And I have no idea what the future holds for me in a lot of ways. If everything works out in the immediate future future it'll be a show in Manchester tonight oh god

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