T Bone Burnett Comes Down to Earth in LP

Poor T Bone Burnett. Even though Rolling Stone named him Songwriter of the Year a few years back and continues to review his work quite favorably, it recently derided his “tendency toward snotty moralism.”

There and elsewhere, the otherwise acclaimed singer/songwriter/producer has been accused of considering himself holier than his characters, of being a religious extremist, of having visions of grandeur and--at a towering 6-foot-6--of looking down a lot in general.

So at the end of Burnett’s funny, feisty “The Talking Animals” album--his first full-fledged rock solo LP in four years--this alleged self-righteous zealot finally goes ahead and does what his critics might have expected: T Bone Burnett plays God. Albeit a more loving, less damning God than he might have portrayed before.

In the record’s closing song, “The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper,” Burnett concocts a deviously elaborate religious allegory, in which the troubled title character interrupts the song to announce:

“All this has been happening to me because of this guy named T Bone Burnett. He’s been making all this up, and I just want to say I don’t believe in him. In fact, I don’t even think he exists, and not only that, but this song is over.”

Of course, the song isn’t over-- and a forgiving and omnipotent Burnett proceeds to ignore Frank Cash’s atheistic outburst and bless him, in spite of the character’s disbelief.

It’s this underlying theme of mercy--divine, human and otherwise--that underpins much of the new album. Burnett even includes a spoken-word interlude in the song “The Wild Truth” that’s taken almost verbatim from an essay on mercy by the famous Catholic mystic Thomas Merton.

“I’ve begun to realize how much I need mercy,” explained the native Texan, lunching at a favorite French restaurant near his Santa Monica apartment. “It’s become much more important to me the last couple of years in my life.

“I’ve written a lot of really tough songs; I’ve been really tough on my characters a lot of times. But at the same time I know any discussion of morality begins with one’s self, and the person I was really dealing with in all those things was myself. I look back at ‘Proof Through the Night’ (his controversial 1983 album), and that record was in an incredibly bad mood because I was in a bad mood. I was being real hard on myself on that record, and I decided I wasn’t going to do that on this record.”

If Burnett has genuinely turned more merciful, other artists have been his beneficiaries. His greatest prominence in the pop scene of the last few years has been as a producer: He’s worked behind the boards for such esteemed acts as Elvis Costello, Los Lobos, the BoDeans, Peter Case, Marshall Crenshaw, Tonio K. and Roy Orbison. College radio programmers twice voted him Producer of the Year.

Most of these projects have been seemingly simple productions, focused by his intention to “serve the song”--which more often than not meant a spare, spontaneous style emphasizing acoustic instruments and a lack of electronic trickery.

Add to this rootsy resume Burnett’s own past albums, from three offbeat records with the Alpha Band in the late ‘70s to an acoustic country/folk LP last year, and it’s no wonder Rolling Stone called him “roots rock’s leading flag-waver.”

However, this would-be King of Roots Rock would very much like to abdicate that throne. And the decidedly untraditional “Animals” is just the album to do it with.

Co-produced by longtime Peter Gabriel guitarist David Rhodes, and with Burnett sometimes sounding uncannily like John Lennon, the LP lands neatly in the space between the Beatles’ “Abbey Road” and Gabriel’s “So.” This move toward modernism has met with enthusiasm from college radio--and dismay from a few critics who’ve felt his stylistic shift to be a betrayal of his true instincts.

“I’ve never thought of myself as a roots musician,” countered Burnett, rising to his own defense. “To remember is incredibly important, but I think one has to be selective in what he remembers at the same time. I’ve never wanted to be an anachronism. What I want to remember from the past is the wit of people like James Thurber and S. J. Perelman, and the heart and soul of people like Hank Williams and Muddy Waters. But I don’t think it’s nearly as important to keep the style and surface of what all that was alive.

“Rock ‘n’ roll is a museum now, in the first place,” Burnett declared. “You’re not going to keep it alive by replicating the sins of the past. The only way to keep it alive is to remember that original audacity--I wanted to make an audacious record--and the lack of fear. I mean, Elvis Presley would never have cut ‘Hound Dog’ if he was afraid. Fear didn’t even cross his desk when he was making that record. He was going for broke.”

LENINGRAD CALLING: After six years of leading pop fans on music-related tours through the British Isles and to New Orleans, a Santa Monica company is setting its sights on the Soviet Union. Nancy Covey, who operates Festival Tours International and is a former concert booker at McCabe’s, has organized a June 5-19 tour that is built around four days of concerts, meetings and musical rap sessions in Leningrad. (The tour also includes stops at pop-folk festivals in Finland and Estonia.)

“This kind of contact between Americans and Soviets wouldn’t have happened two years ago, even last year,” said Covey. “The Soviet artists wouldn’t have been willing to expose themselves to censure like this. But finally change is starting to come--into their lives, not just in the Politburo--and everybody feels more comfortable talking about their dreams, and about letting foreigners into the country’s real creative life.”

The tour costs $2,850 per person, with an application deadline of Monday, Covey said. Information: (213) 395-2486.