Jeff Bridges

An Oscar-winner for his portrayal of a grizzled former country music legend in the 2009 film Crazy Heart, actor, songwriter, and musician Jeff Bridges will release his self-titled major-label debut album on August 15th, 2011, on Blue Note Records. The album is being produced by Bridges’ Crazy Heart collaborator, the multiple-Grammy Award-winning songwriter, musician, and producer T Bone Burnett. It is an organic extension and culmination of his personal, professional, and now musical friendship with Burnett, whom he has known for more than 30 years.  

Recorded in Los Angeles and Brooklyn, NY, Jeff Bridges features material by a host of world-class songwriters, including Burnett’s Crazy Heart collaborators the late Stephen Bruton (“What A Little Bit of Love Can Do,” “Nothing Yet”) and John Goodwin (“Maybe I Missed The Point,” “Everything But Love,” “The Quest”), Greg Brown (“Blue Car”), and Bo Ramsay (“Either Way”).  

The album also features several of Bridges’ own compositions, including “Falling Short,” “Tumbling Vine,” I Will Wait” (which he wrote with Burnett and John Goodwin) and “Slow Boat” (which he wrote with Burnett and Thomas Cobb). To perform the songs, Burnett assembled a number of his key repertory players, including keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, guitarist Marc Ribot, bassist Dennis   Crouch, pedal-steel guitarist Russ Pahl, and drummer Jay Bellerose, as well as guest vocalists Rosanne Cash, Ryan Bingham, Sam Phillips, and Benji Hughes.  

Bridges and Burnett, who is known for his work with Allison Krauss and Robert Plant, Elton John and Leon Russell, and the Grammy-winning soundtracks to OBrother, Where Are Thou-, and Walk the Line, met in 1980 when Kris Kristofferson introduced them during the filming of the motion picture Heaven’s Gate. The relationship has continued over the years as Burnett selected the songs that appeared on the soundtrack to the 1998 film The Big Lebowski, starring Bridges, as well as co-wrote several songs for the soundtrack to Crazy Heart, including “The Weary Kind,” which earned Burnett his second Oscar nomination and first win for “Best Original Song,” along with Bingham, who also took home an Oscar, a Golden Globe, and a Grammy Award for co-writing “The Weary Kind.”