T Bone Burnett (born January 14, 1948, St. Louis, Missouri, U.S.) is an American producer and musician, one of popular music’s most prolific and successful producers, known for his work in a wide range of genres including rock, country, and folk.
Burnett spent his childhood in Fort Worth, Texas, and it was there that he acquired the nickname “T Bone” and became involved in the local music scene, initially as a guitarist with local blues bands and later as the founder of his own recording studio. He moved to Los Angeles in the early 1970s and recorded his debut solo album, The B-52 Band & the Fabulous Skylarks (1972), a straightforward collection of bluesy rock tunes. In 1975 he received his major break into the industry, touring as a guitarist on Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue tour. His second solo album, Truth Decay (1980), shows Burnett’s maturation as an artist, but he found greater success in the production booth than he did as a performer.
In 1984 Burnett produced the critically acclaimed major-label debut from Los Lobos, How Will the Wolf Survive?, and soon after he worked with Elvis Costello, whose King of America (1986) and Spike (1989) feature Burnett as both producer and performer. While these and other projects helped to establish Burnett professionally, his work on The Turning (1987), an album by Christian pop artist Leslie Phillips, proved significant personally. Burnett and Phillips—who recorded as Sam on later albums—became involved romantically, and the two were married in 1989 (they divorced in 2004).
Posted from: https://www.britannica.com/biography/T-Bone-Burnett
“You know, Ronnie Hawkins used to say, ‘If this show business thing doesn’t work out, by the time I’m 80, I’m gonna look for another line of work’,” said T Bone Burnett, getting chatty with an audience in the back room at McCabe’s Guitar Shop in Santa Monica, where he was doing a multi-night stand. Burnett seemed happy to have a legendary rock figure to quote with as sardonic a sense of humor as his own.
“And I was thinking about that,” he continued, “because it might not work out for me. I’m getting close to 80 [he’s actually 78], and I thought, ‘You know what I’d be great at, is being an influencer.’ Don’t you think? Like, I’m gonna influence the fuck out of you tonight,” he promised.
Posted from: https://variety.com/2025/music/concert-reviews/t-bone-burnett-mccabes-concert-review-1236396768/
