T Bone Burnett Release has Bite

By I Mar. 27, 2008

Nonesuch Records will release T Bone Burnett’s Tooth Of Crime on May 6. The album, completed shortly after Burnett’s work as producer and arranger of the Robert Plant/Allison Krauss collaboration Raising Sand, is an outgrowth of a collaboration with playwright Sam Shepard that began with the 1996 musical staging of his noted play Tooth Of Crime (Second Dance) in New York.

“Tooth Of Crime is a prophetic play that Sam first wrote in 1972, and it takes place in a time much like now,” Burnett said. “It’s a time when there are zones of fame that flare up and people can become incredibly famous in their own zone and nobody else can know it. And then the zone completely disappears, but the famous person doesn’t realize it because you can’t even find the zone anymore. You have to hook up a toaster to a television to a microwave to a piano – very post-apocalyptic. That was the initial inspiration for the album.”

Burnett crafted the sound of the album while working with guitarist Marc Ribot and drummer Jim Keltner.

More info: tboneburnett.com