From Amazon.com
SORRY T-BONE YOU ARE NOT JOE HENRY
Album Rating: (3 of 5 stars)
Review Comments: Probably too early to write a review, but having listened to it a few
times, I get this feeling that T-Bone is trying really hard to come off
sounding like Joe Henry, but Joe Henry is much much better and original since
he's been doing this sound for several albums now.
Everytime I listen to this recording, that's what comes to mind - Joe Henry
but not as good. Sorry Mr. Burnett. Maybe next album you get Joe Henry
to produce YOU!
Sterile Country ?
Album Rating: (3 of 5 stars)
Review Comments: The striking thing about this album is how impersonal it is. It's been said that T-Bone is a man of many hats. I would add spiritual advisor to his long list of impressive talents. His "Behind The Trap Door" helped me survive some difficult times. This album has T-Bone turning knobs and adjusting the dials for what amounts to a collection of special effects. It's entertaining, but not very moving. The percussion is, as usual, very entertaining. T-Bone's ability to interface with the technology, the psychology, and the art of music makes him a great producer. For anyone unfamiliar with his him, I suggest you start with one of his many productions. If you find an artist you like, and he produced it, you're in luck. I especially liked his "Down From The Mountain" concert album.
Are you kidding me?
Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)
Review Comments: This is a masterpiece. T-Bone's best yet. He not only is one of the best producers he's better then the people he produces.
It's bleak. So what. Look around you. Open your eyes and ears.
We need this kind of artist.
It's a crime alright.
An Avant Garde Masterpiece
Album Rating: (5 of 5 stars)
Review Comments: This is the album I think a million alternative bands are trying to make. This is the album Pete Townshend, Maria Muldaur, Patti Smith, and the rest of T-Bone's pals will be listening to, not to mention numerous studio execs. You in?
I read the fifteen page lyric booklet, and the lyrics didn't make any sense. Bill Hart is there thanked for directing the first production of the play. It's a play? This is a soundtrack? Sam Shephard is credited for inventing an "intense nulanguge", and some of it reminds me of his play, True West.
But slip the CD in, and it's a different story. T-Bone's talking blues style perfectly fits the sleek, stylish music, 180 degrees from radio. The album starts off with a noir/ modernist jazz feel on "Anything I Say Can and Will Be Used Against You." There's a dazzling interplay of English major words (and I was an English major), but musically, it's probably T-Bone's best album (and that's saying a lot for a T-Bone fan). Glimpses of startling imagery and snatches of arresting phrases slide through the naked, suggestive music, recalling songs like "Mad Ave" and some of Alpha Band, like "Born in Captivity": "Then when you're the object of complete derision/ I'll make you a star on television."
Sam Phillips provides wonderful vocals on "Dope Island" (and four other songs), reminiscent of her stunning debut, The Indescribable Wow. Roy Orbison is listed as a co-writer on the incredible "Kill Zone". Whatever is going on onstage during the play visually, it must be amazing to hear this audio soundscape performed live. For those new to T-Bone's endless invention, this isn't his most accessible album. Those would include Proof Through the Night, for some reason released only as a limited edition by Rhino on CD, an EP called Trap Door, Truth Decay, and a collection called Twenty-Twenty. But after you hear those (or whatever you can find of those) you'll want more. Take heart, for just when you thought you'd die if they played those same twenty "alternative" songs on the radio again, here's something completely different, and it seems the Muse can sing again.
If this album seems somewhat bleak, it's merely because it is, and whatever else this retro/ future SF/ noir album is, it's an excursion through the dark side of the human condition. Lines like this from "Kill Zone": "How much grief and sin/ til a heart caves in?" simply make you long for the other side of the blues, which T-Bone explores elsewhere, the good news called gospel.
T Bone Burnett is a Keeper!
Album Rating: (4 of 5 stars)
Review Comments: I have been listening to T Bone Burnett for years and it's been a long time since he's put out an album. It is very good listening and he has used his producer, musician skills well over the years. I highly recommend this CD.
Purchases
1 Anything I Say Can And Will Be Use
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