NEW YORK — At an age when many contemporaries contemplate retirement, musician T Bone Burnett has made big changes in his life and art.
His disc, “The Other Side,” comes out Friday, the same day as Taylor Swift’s new “Tortured Poets Department.” They will not be competing at the top of the charts. His list of credits also include a solo Dylan years later, Counting Crows, Brandi Carlile, Elvis Costello, Sara Bareilles, Roy Orbison, Los Lobos and his ex-wife, Sam Phillips. Elton John once said Burnett restored his love of recording. Soundtrack music for “Cold Mountain,” “Crazy Hearts” and “Nashville” bear his imprint.
Knowing that a studio is where an artist is most naked, trying to coax creativity onto a blank tape, Burnett says his philosophy is that 90 percent of the job is offering support. He’d been doing some writing for a musical about Roy Rogers, and studying the work of Broadway songwriter Frank Loesser. That influenced his own writing on “The Other Side,” a love story that is tight and concise with simple rhyming structures.