T Bone Burnett

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Third Man Records

T Bone Burnett at The Blue Room

Limited Seating Available - First Come First Served

When T Bone Burnett was making his new record The Other Side, he was thinking a lot about “you.”

“I was reading a news story that some shocking percentage of number one hit songs had the word you in the title,” says the Oscar -and Grammy-winning composer-producer-songwriter well known for his work with everyone from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to Brandi Carlile to Elton John and on iconic soundtracks including O Brother Where Art Thou and Walk the Line.

Burnett started contemplating who all those “you”s are and what it means when an artist puts them in a song.

Burnett says he realized that for many years, when he worked on his own solo albums as a singer-songwriter — in between acclaimed stints of coaxing the best work out of a wildly diverse set of artists as a producer or curating ideal soundtracks for an equally disparate group of films and series —he had been “tough” on listeners.

“With this record, I tried to treat myself as kindly as I would try to treat other people,” says Burnett, who likens his producing approach to that of a photographer. “I try to find the person's best angle and light them so they look the most like themselves or the best version of themselves. And this time, rather than staying in the romantic notion I previously had of myself—of a rebellious artist, a firebrand or whatever I thought I was trying to be—I just tried to be kind to myself.”