This week in Philly music, T Bone Burnett makes a rare appearance
Plus: André 3000, Clairo, Iron Maiden, and Lenny Kravitz at the Shore
T Bone Burnett helps others make their music, but he also makes his own.
The 13-time Grammy-winning producer — whose illustrious clients have included Robert Plant and Alison Krauss, Los Lobos, Roy Orbison, Brandi Carlile, Cassandra Wilson, Elvis Costello, and many more — has just released The Other Side, his first solo album in 16 years.
Burnett will make a rare Philadelphia appearance when he performs at the World Cafe Live on Wednesday on his first concert tour since 2006, but he has never been entirely comfortable in the spotlight.
“I’ve always thought of myself as a behind-the-scenes person,” said Burnett, speaking from his home in Nashville, where he lives with his wife, Thelma & Louise screenwriter Callie Khouri. “I’ve always been a professional listener. That’s what I’ve been learning to do all my life.”
Burnett’s résumé ranges from playing guitar in Bob Dylan’s Rolling Thunder Revue in the 1970s, to overseeing the bluegrass blockbuster O Brother, Where Art Thou? in the 2000s, to writing and producing Ringo Starr’s upcoming country album, Look Up, which is due in January.
“I’ve never been all that comfortable on stage,” he said. “From the time I was a little kid, everything about modern life made me nervous. But now I’ve gotten past all that anxiety and I’ve arrived at a new place.”
Burnett, 76, released his first album, The B-52 Band & the Fabulous Skylarks, in 1972 under the name J. Henry Burnett. His first name is Joseph. He doesn’t recall how he got the T Bone nickname. “When I was 5 or 6. I’ve made up so many stories about it, but the truth is I don’t remember.”
For The Other Side, he wrote 12 gentle, acoustic-based country songs on which he is assisted by Roseanne Cash, Lucius, and Bucks County-raised singer Weyes Blood, among others.
“This is the beginning of a whole new period for me,” Burnett said of luminous tracks like “Everything and Nothing” and “The Town That Time Forgot” that seem simple on the surface but plumb philosophical depths.
Burnett said he’s having more fun than ever playing his own music and touring, but he’s still at work at plenty of choice collaborations.
With Costello, he’s starring in The True Story of the Coward Brothers, a scripted Audible comedy series directed by Spinal Tap’s Christopher Guest, about fictional brothers Henry and Howard Coward. It arrives, along with an album of 20 new songs, in November.
Burnett has also recently teamed with four more artists that, like Starr, are of a certain age.
“They’re all over 80 and they’re all masters,” he said. With Bob Dylan and Willie Nelson, he’s been recording new versions of their classic songs. He’s also been making new recordings with composer Meredith Monk, and he worked with choreographer Twyla Tharp on a performance piece called How Long Blues that played Little Island in Manhattan in June.
“When you work with somebody in their 20s and 30s, you deal with a lot of fear of the future and anxiety and all those things,” he said. “When you’re working with someone in his or her 80s, it’s all second nature. There’s no second-guessing. When they do it, that’s what it is.”
He has taken those lesson to heart on The Other Side.
“A lot of great rock and roll came out of a sense of wild anxiety,” he said. “When I was a kid, I wanted to raise hell. But this music is the opposite of that. I want it to be peaceful. I want it to be embracing, rather than bracing.”
T Bone Burnett at World Cafe Live, 3025 Walnut St. at 8 p.m. Oct. 30. worldcafelive.com.
Many shows at the Met. Plus Clairo, Iron Maiden, and more
There’s a run of shows at the Met Philly this week, kicking off on Wednesday with Chase Atlantic, the Australian pop-R&B trio whose name sounds more like a bank than a band. The next night, the most amusingly named jam band, the String Cheese Incident, stretches out on Halloween
On Friday, André 3000 brings his New Blue Sun flute-forward tour to the Met, for his second Philly performance this year, after the OutKast rapper (who no longer raps) played the Roots Picnic in June. And the action continues next week when Leon Bridges plays with Hermanos Gutierrez on Nov. 6 and 7.
There’s a three cover band bill at Johnny Brenda’s on Halloween. Coca Leaves & Pearls — featuring guitarist Chris Forsyth and Nick Millevoi — who define their mission as “playing the music of Neil Young, cosmically” — is sharing a bill with Thin Lizzy cover band the Wild Ones, and the Misfits lovers Ghouls Night Out.
British metal heavy hitters Iron Maiden are at the Wells Fargo Center on Friday on their Future Past Tour. The band led by bassist Steve Harris will be focusing both on their most recent release, 2021’s Sengetsu, and their 1986 set, Somewhere in Time.
Clairo — the stage name of singer-songwriter Claire Cottrill — plays Friday and Saturday at Franklin Music Hall; Cottrill came to fame when bedroom pop songs she posted went viral in advance of her 2019 Immunity.
She’s now on tour for her third album, Charm, produced by Leon Michels, the member of R&B soul band the Dap-Kings, who’s also worked with Black Thought of The Roots.
The Hooters will be a day late for Halloween when they play “All You Zombies” as part of their annual two-night home stand in Glenside. They play the Keswick Theater on Friday and Saturday.
The ageless Lenny Kravitz’ first East Coast dates on his tour for his new album Blue Electric Light comes to Ocean Resort in Atlantic City. The “Let Love Rule” rocker plays Ovation Hall on Friday and Saturday.