T-Bone Burnett - Early Life and Musical Career

Early Life and Musical Career

Burnett was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1948, and raised in Fort Worth, Texas. He attended R.L. Paschal High School, and is featured in the school's Hall of Honor. He played rhythm guitar in a band called The Shadows. His first significant contribution to the music field was as the manic drummer for the Legendary Stardust Cowboy's novelty hit, "Paralyzed."

T-Bone first appeared on The Unwritten Works of Geoffrey, Etc. as part of the pseudonymous Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit and Greenhill, released in 1968 on Uni Records and on which he also produced and wrote 4 of the 11 tracks. Also, in 1968, he produced 6 songs for a group of friends, called at the time, "The Case Hardy Boys". Later this band would move to Los Angeles and become known first as "The Fare", and later as "El Roacho", and would have songs produced by T-Bone Burnett and Daniel Moore (who sang on T-Bone's most recent album), as well as Steve Katz. In 1972, he moved to Los Angeles and recorded his second album, The B-52 Band and the Fabulous Skylarks. In 1975 and 1976, he toured with Bob Dylan's Rolling Thunder Revue. When the Revue ended, Burnett and two other members of Dylan's band, David Mansfield and Steven Soles, formed The Alpha Band, which released three albums. The Alpha Band and Spark in the Dark were both released in 1977, while The Statue Makers of Hollywood was released in 1978.

T-bone and singer-songwriter Sam Phillips were married in 1989 and divorced in 2004. He produced many of her albums, including Martinis and Bikinis and Cruel Inventions. He is currently married to Academy Award-winning screenwriter Callie Khouri.

Read more about this topic:  T-Bone Burnett

Famous quotes containing the words early, life, musical and/or career:

    “If you are willing to inconvenience yourself in the name of discipline, the battle is half over. Leave Grandma’s early if the children are acting impossible. Depart the ballpark in the sixth inning if you’ve warned the kids and their behavior is still poor. If we do something like this once, our kids will remember it for a long time.”
    —Fred G. Gosman (20th century)

    “When we speak the word “life,” it must be understood we are not referring to life as we know it from its surface of fact, but to that fragile, fluctuating center which forms never reach.”
    —Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)

    “Creative force, like a musical composer, goes on unweariedly repeating a simple air or theme, now high, now low, in solo, in chorus, ten thousand times reverberated, till it fills earth and heaven with the chant.”
    —Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    “I’ve been in the twilight of my career longer than most people have had their career.”
    —Martina Navratilova (b. 1956)