Jeff Bridges: big country

JEFF Bridges opens up his crazy heart about T-Bone Burnett, Bad Blake and the importance of music.

Jeff Bridges

SECOND albums can be tricky. Often there is a weight of expectation on the artist; pressure to follow up on the template set by their illustrious debut.

Jeff Bridges isn't feeling the heat, however. It has been 11 years since his previous album, a tidy mix of folk, roots and pop called Be Here Soon. While it was well received critically, the album didn't put Bridges on the pedestal of rock 'n' roll stardom. Nor was he particularly bothered when it didn't. This singer-songwriter had bigger fish to fry.

One of those fish, the 2009 movie Crazy Heart, is partly why the famous actor set foot in a recording studio once more. The film, about a down-at-heel country singer called Bad Blake, won Bridges his first Oscar at the age of 60 and triggered the self-titled album of country songs released a few weeks ago.

It's a largely rewarding affair, featuring songs written by Americana veterans Greg Brown, Bo Ramsay and Steve Bruton, among others, as well as four written or co-written by the star. The album was produced by the award-winning T-Bone Burnett, who also worked on Crazy Heart.

Even so, Bridges, now 62, is aware that the public generally doesn't take kindly to actors making records -- but not all actors can portray so convincingly the heart and soul of a muso on the big screen, as he did with Blake. "The great thing with Crazy Heart was it primed the audience to accept me as a singer," he says.

And while his persona as a country artist is relatively new, his experience as a musician goes all the way back to childhood.

"When I was a kid my mother had me take piano lessons," he says. "One of the big regrets in my life is that my mother listened to my bitching long enough to say that I didn't have to take piano lessons any more. I sure wish I'd kept up the lessons. I still play piano but nothing like I used to."

Growing up in Los Angeles in the 1950s, Bridges' early music education came from his brother Beau. "He is eight years older than I am and he was listening to Chuck Berry and the birth of rock 'n' roll . . . Little Richard and all those guys. That's what I grew up on."

The star of True Grit, The Big Lebowski, The Fisher King and a string of movies stretching back to the late 60s has had brushes with music on the silver screen before, notably as the aspiring jazzer in 1989's The Fabulous Baker Boys, in which his brother Beau co-starred. But the roots of Jeff Bridges, the album, go back further, to the $US44 million flop Heaven's Gate (1980). During its filming the star, Kris Kristofferson, introduced on-set singalongs. One of the musicians in the band was Burnett. "Kris brought a lot of his music buddies along with him," Bridges says, "people like T-Bone and Ronnie Hawkins, Steve Bruton and Norton Buffalo. When we weren't making the movie we were making music. So the roots of Crazy Heart go back to Heaven's Gate.

"When Crazy Heart first came to my attention I passed on it because there was no music. There were no songs and that movie wouldn't have been good without music."

The catalyst was Burnett, who before Crazy Heart had won a handful of Grammys, including four for his work on the 2002 Americana vehicle O Brother, Where Art Thou?.

"I ran into T-Bone one day and asked him what he thought of Crazy Heart and whether he'd be interested in working on it," Bridges says. "He said: 'I'll do it if you'll do it.' That was the birth of it. I figured even if we didn't have the songs, as long as he was in charge we'd be in good shape."

The singer's hunch proved correct. The main song in the movie, The Weary Kind, won Burnett and co-writer Ryan Bingham a Golden Globe, an Oscar and a Grammy.

Bad Blake also gave Bridges an opportunity to learn some of the tricks of the country music trade with expert coaching from seasoned muso Bruton.

"Bruton was there with me every step of the way when we were shooting the movie," Bridges says. "He not only wrote some of the great songs in it but he also was so familiar with that kind of life that Blake had -- it was his own life in a way -- that he would give us great tips, making sure that it was authentic all the way, like the opening scene where you're driving from gig to gig, pissing in a plastic bottle. He also helped me with guitar . . . brought my playing and singing up a notch or two."

Bruton, a professional musician for 40 years who had worked with the cream of American roots artists, died of throat cancer seven months before the film's release.

While Bridges can be thankful for the coaching that improved his skills as a musician, he can be proud also of the fact his songwriting on his album is on a par with those whose work he covers. Two songs in particular stand out -- Falling Short, a song he wrote solo more than 30 years ago, and Slow Boat, which he co-wrote with Burnett and Thomas Cobb, who wrote the Crazy Heart novel.

Where did these songs come from?

"Life, unfortunately," is how Blake answers that question, one of the best lines in the movie, but Bridges has a different perspective. "When I asked T-Bone if he wanted to produce this album I invited him up to my house and we went through about 60 or 70 songs that I was considering.

"He really wanted to make sure that the album reflected my own music and my tastes and not just make a country album that was coming straight out of Crazy Heart. We wanted to explore some new territory.

"He liked a lot of my songs. Falling Short must be 30 or 40 years old. It still holds water for me, though. In the novel Crazy Heart Cobb mentions a song that Blake has written called Slow Boat, although there were no lyrics mentioned or anything, so I thought I'd try my hand at writing one.

"To me they have some kind of melancholy, but Slow Boat is about . . . you know, 'it's a slow boat but we are getting there'. I can't give you any kind of real certainty about the sentiment of the song."

Bridges has taken his music on the road in the US, playing to 40,000 people at a motorcycle rally and at select club gigs. He'd like to play in Australia, too, since he has never been here. "I'd love it, man," he says.

Jeff Bridges, the album, is out through EMI.