T Bone Burnett Is Wrong

T Bone Burnett

T Bone Burnett Is Wrong

While discussing working on the Coen brothers upcoming Greenwich Village folk-movement inspired soundtrack for “Inside Llewyn Davis,” with American Songwriter singer/songwriter/producer and auteur of the austere T Bone Burnett took the occasion to deride both technology and self-promotion.

Now the negative impact of technology on the music industry, from piracy to inferior audio quality, is well documented and debated. Given Burnett’s years of expertise as a successful musician and producer he has the upper hand when discussing technology’s impact on sonic and creative part of the music industry.

Where Burnett gets it wrong is when he says:

“Self-promotion is a horrible thing. As soon as an artist self promotes he ceases to become an artist, he becomes a salesman.’

T Bone should know better.

Many early twenty century artists that influence Burnett’s dust-bowl aesthetic were quite adept at using the technology of their day to have their music heard and to make people aware of upcoming shows and new releases.. They were equally adept at the art, yes art, of self-promotion as they were songwriting and performing.

Ralph Stanley, who Burnett worked with on the Americana watershed OST for ‘O Brother Where Art Thou,” recounts in his book “Man of Constant Sorrow: My Life and Times” that he, his brother Carter, regularly made use of the self-promotion technology of the day, radio, becoming regular personalities on the local station WNVA in Norton, Virginia.

After graduating from high school, and receiving an honorable discharge from the Army, Stanley returned to Virginia where he and Carter formed a and their band, the Clinch Mountain Boys, and established themselves in Bristol, Virginia’s WCYB scheduling.

Would Burnett consider Ralph Stanley a “salesman” in the derisive vein he spoke above? I don’t think so.

But there Dr. Ralph was, utilizing the social media of his day, the radio — promoting his music and upcoming live shows at local schools and churches. In other words self-promoting.

Many of the folk artists that paved the way for Americana and country music honed their chops, both musical and self-promotional, traveling with medicine shows. These mobile infomercials arrived shortly after the Civil War and employed tumblers, dancers, fire-eaters, snake handlers, comedians and hillbilly musicians to attracted the locals with pockets full from selling their harvest. Once a crowd had formed some smooth-talking huckster pitched some panacea sure to cure all ailments.

These traveling shows might not have cured folks, but they allowed musicians to perform in front of an audience. It also taught them the importance of promotion and selling.

T Bone himself owes much of his storied career to the tools of self-promotion. After a series of post high school bands he landed a plum gig. a touring guitarist for a master of self-promotion, Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue.

In 2000, Burnett produced the soundtrack and wrote the score for the Coen Brothers film, ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou?’. The award-winning, best-selling soundtrack featuring Emmylou Harris, Alison Krauss, Ralph Stanley, Gillian Welch and others. This not only brought rural roots and blues music back into mainstream consciousness it brought it’s creator there as well.

More movies, like Crazy Heart and I Walk the Line, and production credits for Elvis Costello, Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, B.B. King, Elton JOhn and many others looking for a particular, and lucrative, sound followed.

These gigs didn’t fall out of the sky or find just the right man the right mix of talents serendipitously. Burnett’s reputation preceded him. A reputation formed partially by talent and partially by promoting, self or otherwise.

Art and commerce has always had a thorny relationship, Cultural artifacts — visual arts, music, theatre , etc. — in modern history have always relied on state or private benefactors to assure the creator the lifestyle to create more work and, ideally, free from intrusion. This arrangement doesn’t come cheap.

It’s cliche to say the music industry is in turmoil. Much of the churn is self-inflicted apathy fueled by short-term, greedy delusion that music would always remain trapped in physical objects. And that the price of those objects would forever be dictated by the labels.

But the Genie made it out.

We now see the product is not the record/tape/disc. It’s the music. The invisible music contained within the grooves or tape has been released, forever to buy on demand, anywhere. Or to steal just as readily.

But in turmoil there;s often opportunity and affordable technology has also allowed artists to take control of their careers by allowing access to production, communication and promotion.

I respect Burnett, and everything he’s done, and continues to do, for a the Americana genre I deeply love. But the above quote exhibits a state of ideal detachment, of artistic purity, that he himself has not practiced.

This idea that is dangerous for budding artists that want to make music a sustainable vocation, as well as for fans that want to hear that music. If this advice was to be taken as gospel many trees would fall in the forest unheard.

But young artists know better. They’ve grown up in a mediated culture that not only feeds into their art but also into how they present it.

Just as Americana music has to recreate itself to thrive as a viable genre in the contemporary world, and not a cultural tinotype thick with nostalgic dust, musicians have adapted and thrived. We have more music being produced now than anytime in human history.

Burnett , of all people, should understand that self-promotion, and prudent technology use with fair and equitable reimbursement, is a age-old practice that paves a way for creativity and discovery.

Listen Up! Chris Cornell and Joy Williams “Misery Chain”

cornell joy
Photo ChrisCornell.com

12 Years a Slave is the tale of a man abducted in New York and sold into slavery. The story’s soundtrack, overseen by R&B singer John Legend, inspired an eclectic group of songwriters and performing roots, blues, pop, and R&B.

Artists represented are Gary Clark Jr., Alabama Shakes and Cody Chesnutt as well as tracks from the score by composer Hans Zimmer.

Also included is is a new cut from “Misery Chain” by Soundgarden and Audioslave frontman Chris Cornell. This slow burner features soulful background vocals by the Civil Wars’ Joy Williams.

Cornell and Williams cut the track in Nashville and it’s produced by Charlie Peacock (The Civil Wars, Holly Williams)

Cornell told Rolling Stone “I was moved by this film and the story in a way that transcends any film experience I have ever had,” he said. “I was inspired to write a hundred different songs, but finally landed on one based on what I believe is an extremely important message I took from this man’s journey. Compassion, basic human rights and love must be our priorities above race, religion or commerce. Every generation needs a reminder of that simple idea.”

Here “Misery Chain” below.

“Strange and Wonderful Things Happen” : Interview with “My Fool Heart” Writer-Director Jeffrey Martin

For a movie slated for test-screening next month in Charlottesville, VA (fitting since the the movie takes place in Virginia) details on My Fool Heart (Facebook) are as rare as hen’s teeth.

Here’s what we do know, first the official  story brief :  “… Jim Waive stars as a humble Virginia diner singer who is the target of two London hit men in the debut feature film MY FOOL HEART from writer-director Jeffrey Martin.” “Throughout the movie, Jim Waive keeps losing his treasured possessions. Justin plays the Mysterious man who finds Jim’s lost things on the sidewalks of Nashville.”

Then there’s the extraordinary cast from Americana, Country and Bluegrass music fields – Elizabeth Cook, Justin Townes Earle, Merle Haggard, Wayne Henderson, Sarah Jarosz, Jim Lauderdale, Charlie McCoy, Jesse McReynolds, Dr. Ralph Stanley and Jim Waive and the Young Divorcees

Then there’s the oddly dark “Popcorn teaser” posted on YouTube.

I contacted the writer-director Jeffrey Martin on the road to shed some light on this intriguing film. He was very forthcoming in an email interview on  his motivation for the film and how how love of music helped to influence My Fool Heart.

I very much look forward to seeing this film soon and readers of this blog might feel the same way after reading this interview. Enjoy


Baron Lane – Who are some of your influences as a director?

Jeffrey Martin – MY FOOL HEART was influenced by Cassavettes and other directors who believed even if your bank account was low you could grab a camera and make a movie. It’s a stupid idea but it obviously influenced me.  When you make a really cheap film, you get to call the shots and take extravagant chances.  Sometimes they pay off.

BL – My Fool Heart is billed as a comedy, but based on what i’ve been able to glean online it looks more like a black comedy. Is that accurate?

JM – Most black comedies have a more bitter or cynical take on life. I think of MY FOOL HEART in the classical sense of comedy.  It’s about how things come out in the end and in this movie things do come out okay in the end.  But coming out okay is a serious struggle. For me, whenever you look closely at anything in life, especially the serious things like love, marriage, children, death, there is something comical. It’s like when things in life get so bad and crazy you have to just laugh.  In the South, tragedy and comedy seem tightly intertwined.  Weird and terrible things happen and people laugh about it.  Humor makes a lot of things more bearable.  Life is hard.  There’s not a lot of cynicism in this movie.

BL – What time period is the movie set in? How did that time period shape the music chosen for the movie?

JM – The movie is set today.  It’s also set in Virginia which is a place where long ago and today sit side-by-side.  That’s what I love about Virginia.  I grew up in California and Florida suburbs so when I first went to Virginia I was enchanted by the old things.  Even current things seem to have an old feeling in Virginia like a faded photograph or like you’re looking through wavy antique glass.  I love Virginia.  I spent 30 years there, but I’m not a native.  To be really from Virginia isn’t like a jacket you can buy or just put on.  The music chosen began in  Albemarle County, Virginia and moved outward.  If you’re into Americana or bluegrass music, you’ll notice all the lines and connections.  The geography lessons.

BL  – Where did your story of My Fool Heart  come from?

JM – I don’t know.  Strange things just pop into my head.  I saw Jim Waive, a local Charlottesville musician, playing for tips at the Blue Moon Diner and this whole crazy idea came into my head about a musician like Jim being hunted down by professional killers.  It seemed both serious and funny.  Like what kind of great music he might start writing under the pressure of death.  Like in the old westerns when the bad guys shot at your feet and made you dance.

BL – Cameron Crowe and Quentin Tarantino create films where the music becomes a character in the film. Does music come front and center in My Fool Heart?

JM- Music is huge in this film.  It’s the subject and it’s the air you breath watching the movie.   But the movie’s plot and characters are also commenting on the music you’re hearing which is a little unusual in a fictional feature film.  Also the bluegrass, country and Americana music – old and new – blend together in a way that maybe makes you think of the music’s history if you’re a music fanatic.  Crowe and Tarantino are both great, but they use music differently.

BL – What did you grow up listening to?

I had older brothers so I grew up deeply immersed in the music of the 1960’s and 1970’s:  Dylan, the Beatles, the Band, the Beach Boys, Van Morrison.  I went to college in North Carolina and first heard Emmylou Harris who had just moved away from Greensboro and cut her first album.  I got to see Lester Flatt when Marty Stuart was his teenage guitar player.  Also lots of bluegrass and pickers and bands like the Dillards who were playing locally then.  I was listening to that first Scruggs Brothers LP, Doug Sahm Band, John Hartford, Johnny Cash, Earl Scruggs, Mac Wiseman, Doc and Merle Watson.  The mid-Atlantic was an amazing musical region during the 70’s and 80’s with people like Emmylou Harris, Danny Gatton, Stevie Ray Vaughn playing in ridiculously tiny venues.  I stood next to all of them playing their sets, two feet away.  The Band, as well, with Richard Manuel singing in that beautiful voice.  I always liked old American sounds.

Lucinda, who co-produced the movie, was from Charlottesville, Virginia and took me up there when I was 18.  She’s from really old Virginia culture.  Her great grandfather, Col. Charles Marshall, was General Lee’s military secretary who spent the entire Civil War on Lee’s personal staff and wrote Lee’s famous Farewell to the Troops and is the guy between Lee and Grant in the schoolbook Appomattox painting.  Lucinda introduced me to the mountain people still living in Sugar Hollow where they had a farm.  Hand-churned butter, brown eggs, horses and wagons – I thought I was dreaming but there it was:  time frozen.  A lot of that gets into the movie somehow.  Lucinda went to country dances out there in the Hollow with the Virginia Vagabonds playing, some of those guys played at the White House for FDR.  For her, this would have been as a litle girl around the early 1960’s when Paul Clayton had his cabin near there. Bob Dylan visited the area for a week in 1962 and it seems to have revolutionized his world when he went back to New York and came up with “Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright.”  Dylan writes about all that in “Chronicles.”  Dylan’s deep inside this movie.  Jesse McReynolds and other older bluegrass guys told me about Dylan’s influence on them.  We tend to think the river flowed the other way, but it was definitely two directions according Jesse.  It’s hard to underestimate the influence of Bob Dylan on music.  He’s way bigger than Hank Williams and that’s a stupid comment to make if you haven’t thought about it too much.  I dug into Appalachian music up one side and down the other and kept seeing Bob Dylan peeking out.  Growing up though I also listened to whatever came on the radio.  It was a great time.  As a teenager, I moved to Winter Haven, Florida where Gram Parsons was from.  He was a Snively so he was related to everyone down there.  I remember my next older brother talking about him and all that country music.  And in college in Greensboro, N.C., Emmylou Harris was playing down on Tate Street just a few years before so I picked up on her when the first album came out and never let go.  I remember being 15 in Florida and turning out all the lights in the house and listening to Johnny Cash “Folsom Prison” and imagining I was in jail.  Until I left Florida, part of me was.

BL – The cast for My Fool Heart -  Merle Haggard, Dr. Ralph Stanley, Jim Lauderdale, Elizabeth Cook, Justin Townes Earle – reads like a who’s who of classic country and Americana. What was the motivation behind casting such a heavy assortment of musicians?

JM – My joke rule was that nobody who was a SAG member could be in the movie.  Keep it to nonprofessional actors.  We did become a SAG movie though when Merle joined us.  The inspiration or idea came from this thought I had. I sat and watched Jim Waive play at the diner for tips and drew this imaginary line from the guys at the bottom playing for free and going all through the middle level and to the very top of the music business, the icons.  I thought the story was about that.  What is success?  Is it talent?  Luck?  I knew people at the top always considered themselves just a step away from that diner tip jar because you never forget where you came from.  And sure enough, a bunch of them dug the idea and wanted to play a part in it.  We wound up with Dr. Ralph Stanley and Jesse McReynolds, two IBMA Bluegrass Hall of Fame members.  Also Merle Haggard and Charlie McCoy, two Country Hall of Fame members.  I used to sit on my bed reading Dylan’s liner notes and I would always see the name Charlie McCoy.  It came full circle for me when Charlie agreed to give me a tour of Nashville and that old recording world of working with Elvis, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash – all the greats.  That’s in the movie.  It’s worth the price of admission.  And Jesse McReynolds tells about playing with Bob Wills, amazing stuff.  But it’s not a documentary.  This all unfolds in the course of the story.

BL – Finding one musician that can act is pretty rare, where you concerned with the high odds of bad acting in such a large roster of musicians?

JM – Filming musicians is like handling dynamite.  You have to be on your toes.

Everybody gets nervous.  Merle was nervous.  I was nervous.  Ralph Stanley told me that he’d been dreading it for days.  But if you can help them relax and just take the temperature down and get into that space, strange and wonderful things happen.  Merle is powerful and mesmerizing. I wrote his lines, but Merle went deep into the country preacher.  And Justin Townes Earle is fantastic.  Most of the film, he’s silent.  Then at the end, he finally talks and he has the entire film on his shoulders.  Justin is a sweet, soulful, deep guy and he brought something  to the film that I never expected.  I actually expanded his part to use all his great footage.  Merle too.

BL – What was your background in music and how did you choose the music for the movie?

JM – I have no background in music.  I sang in my elementary school choir until the director tried to isolate where the bad voice was.  When I stopped singing and just faked it, she said, “That’s better.”  I have no talent which is good.  I’m 100% enthusiastic fan.  Musicians fear no competition from me.  I’m in awe of musicians.  I can’t duplicate what they do.  I’m not a director or writer with a guitar at home.  I suck at everything musical except loving it.   MY FOOL HEART’s soundtrack is the music I love:  Elizabeth Cook, Merle Haggard, Charlie McCoy, Jesse McReynolds, Wayne Henderson, Jim Lauderdale, Ralph Stanley, Justin Townes Earle.

BL  – If you could make a biographic film of one musician’s life who would it be and why?

JM – I don’t think I’d be interested.  The magic is in the songs, not the person. Documentary is a better angle on hitting that target.  A biopic wouldn’t be my thing.

News Round-Up: Dwight Yoakam Cast in Upcoming Lone Ranger Movie

  • Looks like Dwight Yoakam will adding to his acting resume which currently includes excellent turns in Sling Blade, Panic Room and Crank. Yoakam has been cast to play Butch Cavendish, the villain of Disney’s The Lone Ranger joining Johnny Depp, Helena Bonham Carter, Barry Pepper, James Badge Dale and director Gore Verbinski.
  • Loretta Lynn’s 2004 LP Van Lear Rose will be released on Jack White’s Third Man Records.The album will be available on August 9 on standard black vinyl, there will also be a special blue version limited to 300 copies. A hundred of these limited editions will be sold on release day at the Third Man store in Nashville, TN. The label hasn’t yet revealed where the other 200 will be available, but the announcement said, “We haven’t done a contest in a while… Hmmmm…”

Dolly Parton To Release 4-CD Box Set

  • “Dolly,” a deluxe, 40CD box set covering Dolly Parton’s 4 decade spanning career to feature 99 hits , deep cuts, unreleased tracks, rarities and B-sides as well as 11 Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton duets.  The set will incude a 60-page full-color booklet including rare photography and memorabilia, plus liner notes by Laura Cantrell and by Holly George-Warren. The music selections will represent Dolly’s work with the Goldband, Mercury, Monument, RCA Victor, and Columbia labels. Available at both physical and digital retail outlets
    starting October 27, 2009, through RCA Nashville/Legacy. Available for pre-order at www.shopdolly.com
  • John Boncore, who plays a character named Predator in the upcoming Ray Wylie Hubbard’s western (co-wrote the script with Tiller Russell and provided the film’s score)  The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, let us know that the film premiered in Los Angeles on july 27th and are waiting to see if it gets picked up as a premier in the Toronto and Venice Film Festivals. No official release date has been set.
  • Watch the Avett Brothers Perform Off-Stage at the Newport Folk Festival. (Paste Magazine)
  • Apparently you have to be really drunk to enjoy a Kenny Chesney concert.
  • If you’re a touring musician or band that’s looking for a place to crash while on the road or someone with a couch or floor to offer check out the Better Than The Van website. It’s a networking site with a specific  purpose of providing  DIY support for working musicians and allowing fans to offer that support. (Austin Business Journal)

Wall Sreet Journal Covers Big Surprise Tour

  • The Wall Street Journal talks to some of the performers on the Big Surprise Tour. The toue is traveling the East coast and  showcases the Old Crow Medicine Show, Justin Townes Earle, The David ­Rawlings Machine (featuring Gillian Welch) and the Felice Brothers.
  • Houston Presses’ William Michael Smith in his Lonesome Onry and Mean column tells of  his son leaving the petroleum engineering program at University of Houston to, over time, become a guitarist for Hayes Carll, looking down the stage and seeing Guy Clark (arms folded) and being heckled by David Allan Coe (My Son, the Guitar-Slinger)
  • Jennifer Aniston has signed on to signed on to produce and star in Goree Girls, a film about the Goree All Girl String Band, a country music group that had a popular 1940s-era radio show despite the fact that its members were all inmates at a Texas prison. (E Online)
  • Kevin Costner wants to help victims of Canada’s Big Valley Jamboree country music festival in Canada where his band “Modern West,” was set to perform.  Storms at the event injured 70 people and a 35 year-old woman died when the wind blew down a speaker on her.

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride

I’m really pleased with the recent crop of westerns that have hot the big screens as of late – 3:10 To Yuma, Appaloosa, No Country for Old Men – but there’s one in particular I’m looking forward to.

The Last Rites of Ransom Pride, co-written by Texas music legend Ray Wylie Hubbard, is a violent Western (the studio says it’s going to be “Sam Peckinpah meets Quentin Tarantino” ) set in the early 1900s about a woman trying to bring her lover, a murdered outlaw, home to Glory, Texas for burial.

Scott Speedman (Underworld) plays the title character in flashbacks, country music legends Dwight Yoakam and Kris Kristofferson portray villain, W. Earl Brown (Al Swearengen’s right-hand man Dan Dority from HBO’s too-soonly defunct Deadwood), Lizzy Caplan (from HBO’S vampire series True Blood)  and Beverley Hills 90210’s Jason Priestley are all on the roster. The film is in post production and is slated to be out in early 2009.

I’ll be paying $10. for this one.

Appaloosa

I went to see Ed Harris’ big screen adaptation of Robert B. Parker’s Western Appaloosa, about two friends (Harris and Viggo Mortensen) hired to police a small town that is suffering under the rule of a bloodthirsty rancher (Jeremy Irons).  The movie pretty much runs directly from the book so if you read and liked that I think you’ll be pleased. I highly recommend this lean and tense movie to anyone who loves the oater genre.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sw1XFu-mFVk[/youtube]

The Bittersweets Readies “Goodnight, San Francisco,” Offers Free Download

  • Nashville Tennessee’s The Bittersweets – Chris Meyers (guitar, keyboards, vocals), Hannah Prater (vocals, guitar) and Steve Bowman (drums) – are offering a song “Wreck” from their upcoming release “Goodnight, San Francisco” ( 9/9/08)  produced by Lex Price, Mindy Smith. Personally I take the title of their new release as a good omen for my new home.

“Wreck” mp3

  • The Americana Music Association has announced that Austin City Limits producer Terry Lickona will be their recipient of their Lifetime Achievement Award.
  • Not sure how I feel about Johnny Cash Remixed (10/14.) If it’s anything like the Nina Simone or Blue Note remix releases it could be cool. Featuring Buck 65 and Moceon Worker and John Carter Cash involvement in the project makes me think it’s a step in the direction of very cool. Cash often jumped and defied genres his entire career so this release could make a certain amount of sense.
  • Right now I’m watching “The Last Waltz,” the Martin Scorsese’s film of the final concert of The Band, 1978, Thanksgiving Day in San Francisco. Featuring guest appearances by Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Emmylou Harris, Neil Young, Muddy Waters, The Staples Singers, Dr. John and many more. Can muisc ever be this essential again? I doubt it.

Five Minutes To Live Movie (aka Door to Door Maniac) -1961 – Johnny Cash

Originally released in 1961 as Five Minutes to Live, this low-budget crime drama was later re-released as Door-to-Door Maniac. It’s a bit cheesy but is worth watching for Johnny Cash’s performance as a sadistic hit-man. The entire movie is on YouTube and is cut into 8 segments.[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IkcXWC43C0[/youtube]