Charleston Post & Courier - June 1, 2006

Twenty Twenty: The Essential T Bone Burnett

By Devin Grant

Usually when I review a CD I listen to it for a day or two as I go about other business, allowing the music to slowly seep into my brain. In most cases I am able to pick out a few songs from a given CD as ones that stand out from the rest. Those are the ones I place in the "Download These" section of the review. Simple enough, right?

Occasionally though, I'll come across a CD that is either so god awful or so powerfully good, that placing song titles in that end column is either unnecessary or impossible. It doesn't happen often, but it did happen this week.

T Bone Burnett is a name that even folks who aren't Americana enthusiasts might recognize, although they might not remember from where. Although Burnett has been writing and recording music for the better part of 30 years, he is probably best known as the producer for the soundtrack to the film "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That multiplatinum-selling CD, which popularized the "old-timey" style of music for a new generation, made true fans of Burnett's work smile to themselves. While the majority of the world thought that the Soggy Bottom Boys singing "Man of Constant Sorrow" was something new and daring, in reality, Burnett has been releasing albums of roots Americana music for decades. He played in Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Review and has produced the albums of countless established artists.

"Twenty Twenty" does an above-average job of chronicling the career of Burnett. Beginning in 1977 and bringing us to the present. I could go through what I thought were the best tunes on this two-CD, 40-song collection, songs such as "Born in Captivity," "Shake Yourself Loose" and "Driving Wheel," but the truth is that when you listen to "Twenty Twenty," it will probably give you a feeling similar to when you were a kid and first realized that the entire planet didn't speak English.

Burnett's work isn't so much a sound as it is a major strand in musical DNA. About my only complaint about "Twenty Twenty" is its length. By all accounts Burnett should have made this a four-disc box set. Hopefully that will happen in the future. (A+)

Download These: Just buy the whole flippin' thing.