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Austin City Limits – Jeff Bridges

In October 2010, T Bone Burnett organized an impressive group of musicians, dubbed The Speaking Clock Revue, and joined with Participant Media for concerts benefiting arts education. The SpeakingClock Revue was recorded at the Beacon Theater in New York, and featured a house band made up of musicians from many T Bone-produced recordings and led by music director and guitarist Marc Ribot. The resulting album contains 11 previously unreleasedperformances by Elton John and Leon Russell, Elvis Costello, John Mellencamp, Gregg Allman, Ralph Stanley, Jeff Bridges, Neko Case, Yim Yames, Punch Brothers, Karen Elson, and The Secret Sisters.

T Bone was inspired to do the fundraising concerts after attending an earlyscreening of Participant’s documentary Waiting for Superman, from Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Davis Guggenheim (An Inconvenient Truth, It Might Get Loud), which focused on the troubled state of public education in the U.S., following a handful of promising students through a U.S. public school system and offering creative new approaches to education reform. Proceeds from the sale of the album benefit arts and music education in public schools.

It’s not often that a well known actor of the caliber and fame of Jeff Bridges successfully (commercially and critically) crosses into another medium. But the Academy Award winner breaks the mold with his music — dark, bluesy country. It’s good enough to make one forget about the celebrity at its source and just enjoy the music.

Jeff Bridges, the actor’s second album, was produced by the legendary T-Bone Burnett, and includes singer Ryan Bingham and work from the late songwriter Stephen Bruton. The album has been called a continuation of the Crazy Heart soundtrack — authentic, easy-going, and a little Southern gothic. Bridges is the epitome of a cowboy poet here, adding just enough dark bass to make it not-so-typical country. Bridges’ vocals draw comparisons to Bob Dylan, Neil Diamond and Gordon Lightfoot by turn, and the overall feel is one of quiet, constant ambling — place to place, beat to beat.

Hear Bridges play songs off his eponymous record on today’s World Cafe.

NRP.org

Performance
Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2

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