The GRAMMY Museum in partnership with the Americana Music Association is thrilled to present an intimate conversation with T Bone Burnett followed by a performance at National Sawdust in Brooklyn, NY. The conversation will include a discussion about the creative process of his new album, The Other Side, his career, and more.

T Bone Burnett is part of the many artists to be featured in the GRAMMY Museum’s New York City program series, which includes bringing a slate of the GRAMMY Museum’s renowned GRAMMY In The Schools Education Programs and Public Programs to the East Coast. “A New York Evening With…” is generously supported by the Dawn and Brian Hoesterey Family Foundation.  

Check-In: 6:30pm

Show Time: 7:30pm

ABOUT T BONE BURNETT

When T Bone Burnett was making his new record The Other Side, he was thinking a lot about “you.”

“I was reading a news story that some shocking percentage of number one hit songs had the word you in the title,” says the Oscar -and Grammy-winning composer-producer-songwriter well known for his work with everyone from Robert Plant and Alison Krauss to Brandi Carlile to Elton John and on iconic soundtracks including O Brother Where Art Thou and Walk the Line. Burnett started contemplating who all those “you”s are and what it means when an artist puts them in a song.

Burnett says he realized that for many years, when he worked on his own solo albums as a singer-songwriter — in between acclaimed stints of coaxing the best work out of a wildly diverse set of artists as a producer or curating ideal soundtracks for an equally disparate group of films and series —he had been “tough” on listeners.

“I view the purpose of art as creating conscience, so I was constantly appealing to people's consciences,” he says of a solo career that stretches back to the mid-‘70s and includes several well-reviewed albums including 1992’s The Criminal Under My Own Hat. “But I realized when a songwriter use the word you, he is, of course, in the world of conscience, but he’s also in the world of people's dreams. And when you enter into people's dreams, you have to be very careful with them.”

And the man born Joseph Henry Burnett knows about the power of dreams. As a teenager, he had a recurring nightmare. He and other members of his Episcopal church were lined up around the walls of the parish hall where people’s right hands were being replaced with electronic tracking devices that could be controlled by shadowy black figures who lorded over a larger dystopian landscape.

Burnett often wondered what would happen if he ever did make it to freedom from the hellscape of that dream. Now he knows: The Other Side, a clutch of songs that reflect a new outlook and approach Burnett didn’t even know he was seeking and featuring old friends Rosanne Cash and early bandmate Steven Soles, newer artists Lucius and Weyes Blood, and longtime trusted musical companions including Dennis Crouch, Stuart Duncan, Jay Bellerose, and Rory Hoffman.  

“With this record, I tried to treat myself as kindly as I would try to treat other people,” says Burnett, who likens his producing approach to that of a photographer. “I try to find the person's best angle and light them so they look the most like themselves or the best version of themselves. And this time, rather than staying in the romantic notion I previously had of myself—of a rebellious artist, a firebrand or whatever I thought I was trying to be—I just tried to be kind to myself.”

Ultimately, in looking for “you,” T Bone Burnett found himself on The Other Side.