It always amazes me how easy it is to form associations between an artist and a genre based on work he or she has done outside of their own area of expertise. Most often this will occur in the case of musicians who take leave of their solo careers to focus on movie soundtracks. Even if they have only produced the music, not actually composed it or performed it, in our minds they become synonymous with that genre.
This was brought home for me forcibly upon listening to T Bone Burnett's first solo album in 14 years, The True False Identity. In the minds of a lot of people, myself included, no other name has been more closely associated with the revival of interest in early Americana music. From his work with the Coen Brothers in movies such as O Brother, Where Art Thou? and The Ladykillers, his behind the scenes work on albums by Alison Krauss, Counting Crows, Gillian Welch, and his composing of soundtracks for Walk The Line and The Big Lebowski Burnett became associated in a lot of people's minds with that style of music.
In this classic example of you're only remembered for what you've done most recently, this material drove out of people's minds the memory of songs like "Heffner and Disney" and "When The Night Falls" from Burnett's days as a solo artist. Emotionally searing and socially aware, songs like those were musically as night to day the tracks from the majority of the projects mentioned above.
After the last record (1992's The Criminal Under My Own Hat), I felt I could write some new songs and go around the track again, but I didn't feel that I would get anywhere. The road had become too difficult. Music had come completely apart for me. But more importantly, I didn't have anything I wanted to say. It all seemed pointless, so I decided to explore some of the other ideas that were coming my way. I needed freedom. I needed time to find another way into playing music again. (T Bone Burnett)
The True False Identity sees T Bone coming back with a vengeance. If you thought his music packed an emotional wallop before, well suffice to say that this disc makes anything that came before it seem minimalist in comparison. His years in the control booth seem to have opened his mind and ears to how he could match the emotional impact of his lyrics musically.
The songs on True False Identity are beyond the realm of popular music, and have wandered into the area of sound compositions or aural paintings. Each song on the disc has its own unique layers of emotional texture that he evokes with the variety of sounds that are possible to generate with instruments.
I know that sounds pretentious as hell, but it's the simple truth. If there is any commonality to be found between the music that T Bone has created for this disc and the stuff he'd been working on for the past 14 years, it's the fact that they share an emotional honesty that is scarce in most of today's plastic packaged product that passes for music.
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