T-BONE BURNETT - "THE PRODUCER"

Musician Joseph Henry Burnett is more well known as T-Bone Burnett, but I've been calling him "Him Again." He has produced so many of my favorite albums of recent years, including Gregg Allman's Low Country Blues, Steve Earle's I'll Never Get Out Of This World Alive, Willie Nelson's Country Music, and the Robert Plant/Alison Krauss collaboration, Raising Sand, as well as the soundtracks to O Brother, Where Art Thou, The Big Lebowski and Crazy Heart.

A neat new compilation that I bought at Starbucks (but I don't believe it's exclusive to the chain) collects lots of the cool music he has produced over the years.  T-Bone himself writes about all the songs, which is really cool.  The collection does a good job of hitting many of his recent high points, although it omits the Willie album.  Still, definitely worth getting, particularly if you don't have a lot of these records.

CONGRATS (AGAIN) TO RYAN BINGHAM

Congrats to Ryan Bingham for winning an Oscar for "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart. Above is a performance that he did at the SIRIUS|XM studios for Outlaw Country.

RYAN BINGHAM: OSCAR NOMINEE

After winning a Golden Globe for "The Weary Kind" from the film Crazy Heart, today Ryan Bingham received an Oscar nomination for the song. He's up against two Randy Newman songs, both from The Princess and The Frog, "Almost There" and "Down In New Orleans." Also nominated: a song called "Loin de Paname" from a film I never heard of called Paris 36 and from the film Nine, "Take It All." Also up for an Oscar is Jeff Bridges, who played "Bad Blake" in Crazy Heart, he already won the Golden Globe for that role. I know he has had like four Oscar noms, but has never won. Maybe this will be his year.

Anyway, dig the above video: it is Ryan Bingham doing a solo acoustic version of "The Weary Kind" on SIRIUS XM's Outlaw Country.

CONGRATULATIONS TO RYAN BINGHAM AND JEFF BRIDGES

Well, I'm glad that Ryan Bingham won a Golden Globe tonight for Best Original Song. His song "The Weary Kind" (you can buy it on iTunes) from Crazy Heart... it kind of tied the whole film together (to paraphrase Jeff Bridges' "Dude" character). This will help his career out,  and I love when award shows are able to give much-needed exposure to deserving artists, rather than awarding the same superstars over and over. And speaking of "The Dude," congrats to Jeff Bridges for winning a Golden Globe for Best Performance By An Actor In A Motion Picture - Drama for his portayal of "Bad Blake" in the same film.

Hopefully this will lead to an Oscar nomination and win for Ryan Bingham. The Globes, as much as they are a hack award show, are often a good way to predict the Oscars. Although it isn't always the case: last year, Bruce Springsteen rightfully won the Globe for his title track to The Wrestler, but then didn't even get a nomination for the Oscars. Oddly enough, that gives the Globes a bit more cred in my mind. Oscars, you blew it last year, don't do it again! Anyway, check out my last post to see a great video of Ryan performing "The Weary Kind" on Mojo Nixon's show on SIRIUS|XM Outlaw Country.

I HOPE RYAN BINGHAM WINS A GOLDEN GLOBE TONIGHT

Yes, two of my favorite artists ever are up for the "Best Original Song - Motiton Picture" Golden Globe tonight, U2 and Paul McCartney. I've heard U2's song "Winter" from Brothers, it was cool. I really liked Paul's "I Want To Come Home" from Everybody's Fine. But I would really love to see Ryan Bingham's "The Weary Kind" from Crazy Heart win. I haven't seen the other two films, and "The Weary Kind" is pretty central to Crazy Heart. Also, Ryan is a great artist (you can hear him on SIRIUS XM Outlaw Country) who would get a big career boost from the award.

I won't be watching the Globes - 24 debuts tonight! Also, the Globes are kind of bogus.  As opposed to the Oscars, which are voted on by over 6000 people (making it difficult to "campaign"), the Globes have 82 voters, and their only criteria for maintaining voting status is to have two articles a year published.  It could be in the smallest publication. Plus, with that few voters, lots of movie stars are able to effectively campaign. There are often events where a movie star will pose for photos with all of the voters. These are probably the types of people who feel "completed" by the presence of celebs, and I'm sure that's an effective method of getting people to vote for you.  Read more about it here.

Anyway, this past week, Ryan Bingham came to perform on Mojo Nixon 's show on Outlaw Country, here's his performance of "The Weary Kind." Stunning.

The 82 voting members of this organization (the Academy has 6000) have had their credentials challenged year after year. Very few members are full-time journalists. The skinny is that they’re in it for the parties and the movie stars and, of course, the annual network TV show which nets them a tasty $6 million.

THE REAL BAD BLAKE: HANK THOMPSON

A couple of days ago, I posted about the cool new film Crazy Heart, starring Jeff Bridges as a down-on-his-luck country music legend. I compared him to Kristofferson (mainly because he looks like him) and Jennings.   It turns out that Bridgs' character, Bad Blake, is based on Hank Thompson.  The film was based on a 1987 novel written by a guy named Thomas Cobb. Read more about it at the L.A. Times Pop & Hiss blog.

I had a passing familiarity with him, I just knew the song "The Wild Side Of Life." So I went to iTunes and downloaded a few more, "A Six-Pack To Go," "Bubbles In My Beer" (written by the late great Cindy Walker, Willie Nelson does a great version also) and "I'll Sign My Heart Away." I recommend the songs highly, but if you go to iTunes, beware: there are lots of "re-recorded" versions of his songs. Lots of times artists changing labels would make a quick buck, and also thwart their former labels, by re-recording their hits to sell CDs (and licence tracks) for their new label. I'm not saying the newer versions are bad, but I myself wanted the originals. It seems like the 1965 album A Six Pack To Go is the best one.

CRAZY HEART, RYAN BINGHAM AND A THANK YOU TO OUTLAW COUNTRY

Crazy Heart was a really good movie that I recommend. It stars Jeff Bridges (aka "The Dude" from The Big Lebowski, one of my favorite films ever) as a Kristofferson/Jennings type country singer who is down on his luck, and the world has kind of passed him by, while his former protegee (a Paisley/Urban type played by Colin Farrell) has become a huge star. Well, that's not all it is about, but it is a great movie, so go see it.

But the music in the film is also notable. T-Bone Burnett was music supervisor (as he was for Lebowski and O Brother Where Are Thou, of course he has also produced recent great albums for Robert Plant & Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Elvis Costello and others).

One song that takes a kind of central role in the film is "The Weary Kind" by Ryan Bingham. Here is an interview where he explains how he got invovled with T-Bone Burnette and the film (he and his band have a small role backing Bridges' character at -- of all things -- a bowling alley).

I was kind of familiar with Bingham - thanks to the fact that I listen to SIRIUS XM's Outlaw Country. I have some songs frmo his 2007 album Mescolito, which I recommend. It was cool of T-Bone and the film's director, Scott Cooper, to involve him and expose him to a larger audience.  The song is up for a Golden Globe, and if I were a voter, I would probably vote for it over songs by U2 and Paul McCartney. But if you like "Americana" or "hardcore troubadour"-type country music, check out Ryan Bingham.

PAUL MCCARTNEY AND U2 GET GOLDEN GLOBE NODS

Earlier this week, the semi-bogus but semi-legit movie awards, The Golden Globes, announced the nominees for this year's ceremony (although on the music tip, The Globes rightly awarded Bruce Springsteen's "The Wrestler" with a trophy last year, while The Oscars didn't even nominate him).

This year's Golden Globe nominees include a U2 song that I hadn't even heard of: "Winter," from the film Brothers.  Also on the ballot is Paul McCartney's "I Want To Come Home" from Everybody's Fine. And finally, a song written by O Brother music supervisor (and awesome producer) T-Bone Burnett and singer-songwriter Ryan Bingham, "The Weary Kind," from Crazy Heart. That song is performed in the film by the star, Jeff Bridges (aka "The Dude") who apparently plays a Kristofferson/Jennings type character. So far, I've heard U2's song which is nice but didn't knock me out, and Paul's song which I really do like. I haven't heard the Crazy Heart song, but I am definitely going to see that movie, and I can't wait.

In honor of U2 and Sir Paul being nominated, here's a video of them together from Live8, performing "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band."