Burnett hopes radio will accept his gospel

T BONE BURNETT took home an armload of Grammys two years ago for his work putting together the music for “O Brother, Where Art Thou?”

Music he oversaw for “A Mighty Wind” and “Cold Mountain” will be up for four Academy Awards next Sunday.

What next? A Nobel Prize?

Burnett says he’ll leave that honor for his friend Bono. But he does have a new goal for music from “The Ladykillers,” which reunites him with Joel and Ethan Coen, the makers of “O Brother.” He’d like a radio hit -- and he actually cites Bono in the quest.

“Bono said to me a number of years ago that we can’t abandon the Top 40,” says Burnett, who will be on stage at the Oscars show backing Alison Krauss on the “Cold Mountain” song “The Scarlet Tide,” which he co-wrote with Elvis Costello. “It’s attractive to look at the alternative ways to get music heard, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t assault the Top 40 at any opportunity.”

He’s picked an odd way to try it. The music Burnett is working with for “The Ladykillers” is drawn from the world of African American gospel. The remake of the 1955 English comedy is set in the modern-day South, with Tom Hanks taking over Alec Guinness’ role as leader of a team of would-be bank robbers posing as musicians.

The soundtrack centers on vocal quartet traditions, complemented by choice choir selections and blues-related figures such as Blind Willie Johnson as well as contemporary gospel star Donnie McClurkin.

But aiming at radio, Burnett recruited hip-hop act Nappy Roots to perform on three tracks, including the single “Coming Home,” and a version of an old song, “The Trouble of This World,” that also features Rose and Freddy Stone (of Sly & the Family Stone) and Rose’s daughter, Lisa.

“We sample ‘The Trouble of This World’ a few times in the movie, a Renaissance version orchestrated by Carter Burwell, then into a Bill Landford version from the ‘40s, and then Nappy Roots with the Family Stone singing the chorus,” Burnett says.

The single will debut March 2, with the album due in May from DMZ Records, the Columbia-distributed label run by Burnett and the Coen brothers. Tentative plans are being made for concerts involving artists from the movie, with a possible tour under discussion in the mode of the “Down From the Mountain” treks that followed the phenomenal success of the “O Brother” album.

Intriguingly, the project caps a revelatory gospel experience for Burnett, a devout Christian who as an artist himself has avoided explicitly Christian material.

“I’m Jonah,” he says. “I’m this guy who said he was going to follow God, but I wasn’t going to have anything to do with Christian music because it’s doctrinaire and a poor imitation of pop music. And I find myself all these years later, and everything I’m working on is gospel. The curtain has been ripped back from the tabernacle and we all are in the reality of the modern world. I no longer can recognize the distinction between secular and sacred.”

Morrissey tells how he really feels

Morrissey may have gone seven years since his last album, but the English singer’s notoriously terse, tart tongue has not been blunted in the interim.

Asked if the producers of VH1’s “Bands Reunited” series had the temerity to approach him about a Smiths episode, given the famously bitter rift between him and former bandmate Johnny Marr, he offered, “I’m standing at the top window with an air rifle, waiting for them to arrive.”

That attitude bodes well for fans who waited out the hiatus for his new album, “You Are the Quarry,” due May 18. The layoff has not changed their hero one bit.

“I still think the human race is vastly overrated,” he says, summing up the tone of his new material. “It’s a bit of an emotional splurge, but it couldn’t be any other way, to be honest.”

The pent-up emotions, he says, came from his inability to find a satisfactory label to sign with. That changed last year when he made a deal with Sanctuary Records. Then, in a move that helped sharpen the attack of the songs, he teamed with Jerry Finn, a California producer known for his work with Green Day and Blink-182.

“It would have been easier to go with someone who was somewhat safer,” Morrissey says. “But I thought Jerry was a risk, and it’s a risk that worked fantastically well. The music is very emotive, very incendiary, difficult to ignore.”

Tolkien, rap: What on Middle-earth?

Whatever happens with “The Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King” at the Academy Awards, hobbits will be hopping around town next weekend -- hip-hopping.

Lords of the Rhymes, a Tolkien-themed rap duo based in New York (or the highlands of Dorthonion, according to the act’s bio), is booked for a show Saturday at the Echo and a sold-out Oscar-night party hosted by a “Rings” fan club.

“Since the third movie came out, we’ve added a new intro to our live show during which we enact a coronation of the King of Gondor,” says Quickbeam, who shares the rapping duties with partner Bombadil.

“Our king has a mullet hairdo, but he’s regal nonetheless. Before we -- the two rappers -- run out onto the stage with confetti poppers, the king stands with sword aloft, flanked by elf-girls, while our DJ, dressed as a wizard, cuts the movie theme song with a hip-hop beat we made.”

While Quickbeam acknowledges that the Lords’ show is a little shy of Peter Jackson’s efforts in terms of special effects (plastic swords, a black rider tooling around on a bicycle), he does say it has some strong morals and a triumphant conclusion.

“As any decent hobbit would, we promote safe sex at our shows,” he says. “We’re promoted by a safe-sex nonprofit organization to hand out free condoms at the show. We also throw candy into the crowd and after defeating the forces of evil and destroying the ring, we end every show by popping champagne and leading the crowd in a sing-along of ‘There ain’t no party like a hobbit party, cause a hobbit party don’t stop!’ ”