Original Soundtrack - Crazy Heart Review

T
he latest soundtrack album from Hollywood roots-music maven T Bone Burnett pairs original tunes sung by "Crazy Heart" stars Jeff Bridges and Colin Farrell with classic country cuts by such artists as Buck Owens ("Hello Trouble"), the Louvin Brothers ("My Baby's Gone") and Townes Van Zandt ("If I Need You"). So far, so typical. The surprise on the set is how well the new music holds up against the vintage material. "Fallin' & Flyin' " finds Bridges and Farrell joining forces for an effortlessly tuneful honky-tonk gem, while Bridges unloads a bit of plain-talking, beer-hall existentialism ("I used to be somebody, but now I am somebody else") during "Somebody Else." Alt-country artist Ryan Bingham contributes a pair of tracks, one of which ("The Weary Kind [Theme From 'Crazy Heart']") recently won a Golden Globe for best original song....full text Most songs in films are, for better or worse, aural parsley, incidental to the real meat of a movie.

T Bone Burnett — the man behind the soundtracks for Walk the Line, The Big Lebowski, and O Brother, Where Art Thou? — seems to have made it his mission to turn music into a more substantial cinematic side dish, if not an entrée, and in the dusky vérité drama Crazy Heart, he finds a fitting muse. As Bad Blake, a dissolute Merle Haggard/Kris Kristofferson country-outlaw type, Jeff Bridges croons of wrong turns and ruin in a whiskeyed road-warrior warble; he's a man who's used up his second, third, and fourth chances.

Bridges and his onscreen protégé, Colin Farrell, give admirable heft (yes, they're really singing) to originals penned by Burnett and a crew of veteran sidemen — particularly the honky-tonking ''Fallin' & Flyin''' and jaunty pedal-steel rambler ''Gone, Gone, Gone'' — even if the album's inclusion of old songs from real-life legends like Buck Owens and Waylon Jennings makes them seem a bit like callow movie-star interlopers in comparison. But relative newcomer Ryan Bingham is the soundtrack's real scene-stealer: The 28-year-old troubadour's aching, evocative ''The Weary Kind'' is the stuff Oscar-night upsets are made of....full text The soundtrack for Crazy Heart was produced by T Bone Burnett and contains 16 songs from the film starring Jeff Bridges. The movie is dedicated to Stephen Bruton, the legendary Texas musician, and a lifelong friend of Burnett's, wrote or co-wrote most of the original music performed by Bridges and Ryan Bingham. Bruton died from cancer shortly after finishing the project. While officially based on a book by songwriter Hank Thompson, the film took just as much of its inspiration from the life of Bruton, who lived the life that Bridges' Bad Blake did for over three decades. Musically it’s the performances by Bridges that are the most arresting here. He can deliver a rollicking honky tonk song (“Somebody Else”), a lost-on-the-highway-of-life road song ( the punchy blues rocker "Fallin and Flyin’"), a love song (“Hold on You”), or a weeper (the Greg Brown-penned "Brand New Angel") with the requisite amount of bravado and grit, and tenderness of a seasoned country artist. Bingham, a songwriter and relative newcomer, proves himself a worthy counterpart in his performances --especially on the film's theme song, "The Weary Kind." The soundtrack also gifts the listener with a worldweary a capella performance of Billy Joe Shaver’s “Live Forever,” by Robert Duvall, and a hardcore trucker anthem in “Gone Gone Gone,” by Colin Farrell! There’s also a killer duet version of “Fallin & Flyin’” by Farrell and Bridges. The rest of the set is filled out with cuts by Buck Owens, Waylon Jennings, Townes Van Zandt, the Louvin Brothers, Lightnin’ Hopkins, and Sam Phillips -- the female songwriter, not the Sun Records founder. The original tunes are played by a cast including Burnett, Bruton, Greg Leisz, Jay Bellerose, Buddy Miller, Dennis Crouch, Joel Guzman, Thomas Canning, and Patrick Warren. The catalog material is well-chosen and not obvious, adding much to the listening experience. [There is also a deluxe edition that contains seven more cuts by various other artists sequenced in the order they appeared in the film providing the full soundtrack.]...full text