American Way - May 1, 2006

The True False Identity & Twenty Twenty - The Essential T Bone Burnett

By Bob Bozorgmehr

Missouri-born, Texas-bred, and L.A.-based T Bone Burnett has made a respected name for himself as a kind of music-industry polymath. Of late, his efforts have been focused on supervising a string of hit sound tracks (Cold Mountain, Walk The Line), handling various productions jobs (for Gillian Welch and Counting Crows, among others), as well as serving as the guiding force behind roots label DMZ, a company he launched with filmmaker pals the Coen Brothers. All this behind-the-scenes activity has tended to obscure his greater talents as a hotshot guitarist (including a memorable sting with Bob Dylan) and literate singer-songwriter.

But finally, Burnett has decided to return to the spotlight, releasing a new studio album, The True False Identity – his first since 1992’s Grammy-nominated Criminal Under My Own Hat – and a best-of set that collects the cream of his back catalog. The atmospheric and politically charged Identity proves that the long layoff has done nothing to diminish Burnett’s considerable skills as a pop craftsman, country songsmith, strident rocker, and instinctively gifted blues artist, as he effortlessly mixes genres and styles on songs like “Zombieland,” “Earlier Baghdad,” and “Fear Country.” Meanwhile, the 40-track double-disc Twenty Twenty is a thoughtfully assembled anthology that traces Burnett’s work all the way back to his early ‘70’s recordings with the Alpha Band. In addition to a standout selection of solo originals, the set includes his collaborations with Elvis Costello as the Coward Brothers and a handful of unreleased gems (among them a cowrite with the late Roy Orbison), as well as covers of the Jane Russell/Marilyn Monroe classic “Diamonds Are A Girl’s Best Friend” and the J.B. Lenoir blues nugget “Man, Don’t Dog Your Woman.” Taken together, the two releases offer a rich and well-rounded portrait of one of contemporary music’s most gifted figures.