Film - T. Bone Burnett Knows the Territory of Crazy Heart - NYTimes.com Brentwood, Calif. IN Hollywood these days an Oscar-handicapping conversation can't be conducted without mentioning Jeff Bridges as the wrung-out country singer Bad Blake in "Crazy Heart." When Mr. Bridges was first sent the script, he wasn't sure the role was for him. Though the pages were filled with descriptions of the smoky dive bars and broken-down bowling alleys where the onetime star has been reduced to playing, the actual songs Bad Blake would sing had not been written. A year later Mr. Bridges changed his mind on the film after receiving a phone call from his old friend, the songwriter and performer T Bone Burnett. "He was like, "You know this movie "Crazy Heart"?" " Mr. Bridges recalled. "I said, "Yeah." He said, "Let's do it." Then we both jumped at it. A fleeting "I'll do it if you will" pact with Mr. Burnett would nowadays be enough to win over a lot of actors. In the music world he has long been a sought-after producer whose name can be found in the CD liner notes of talents like Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison and K. D. Lang. But it wasn't until 2000 that Hollywood executives also began to take Mr. Burnett, a Texan transplanted to Los Angeles, seriously. That's when he gathered a collection of rootsy bluegrass, gospel and old-timey country music for the movie "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" That soundtrack sold seven million copies and, in 2002, won five Grammys, including best producer for Mr. Burnett. Since then he's overseen the music for films like "Walk the Line" and "Cold Mountain." For each film the approach was the same: music was composed or assembled before a single frame was shot. The more conventional method is to match the music to the finished film. For "Crazy Heart" this meant first sorting out with its director and screenwriter, Scott Cooper, which musical acts might have influenced a 50-something country singer who grew up in Texas. Their answer: Lefty Frizzell, George Jones and Peggy Lee. After that Mr. Burnett and Stephen Bruton, a guitarist and songwriter he had known for years, began composing tunes that fit Bad Blake's brand of hook-driven blues-rock. When Mr. Bridges rasps out "I used to be somebody/Now I am somebody else" in the movie, audiences will hear it as just another of Bad Blake's rueful toe-tappers. But to Mr. Burnett and Mr. Bruton, those two lines ground the entire movie and define the way their greasy-haired, whiskey-drinking protagonist might unload his frustrations. "He could deal with it in real time in a bar," Mr. Burnett said. He could sing it. But he probably couldn't say to his girlfriend, if he had one, or even a friend, "I'm all washed up." So that became the fulcrum for the character. Roughly three months later, with the songs in "Crazy Heart" completed, Mr. Burnett and Mr. Bridges moved into the recording phase. The way Mr. Bridges described it, he was unnerved by Mr. Burnett's vast grasp of musical history and putteringly low-key in-studio persona. "I really wanted to pull this off," said Mr. Bridges, who sings five of the songs backed by the Musicians, a supergroup of fiddlers, pianists, guitarists and pedal-steel masters gathered by Mr. Burnett. My process is that I work on stuff: I memorize my lines, I do the work. But Bone has a kind of Zen approach where he just kind of creates space for this thing to occur. It kind of made me anxious. In person Mr. Burnett, a towering 6 foot 5 with a wet, infectious laugh and a low, whispery voice, is a striking if unusual presence. Sprawled out in the front room of his spacious Brentwood house on a recent morning, his lank hair low over one eye and the cuffs of his white button-down shirt extravagantly long and crisp, he looked as if he'd stepped out of a Civil War-era tintype. Born in St. Louis, T Bone (his real name is Joseph Henry Burnett) was raised in Fort Worth and began playing guitar and writing songs by the age of 14. At 20 he opened his first recording studio, one that catered to country singers who would show up after their Saturday gigs with a bottle of amphetamines and a fifth of Jack Daniel's and record until dawn. He traces his love for pairing music with film back to 1972, when he was hired to score a promotional film, featuring a cocktail party, meant to be shown at the opening of the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth. While trying out different songs he began to notice how the mood of the music he chose radically altered the feel of the soiree. "I thought, "Gosh, I could make this cocktail party either really sophisticated or completely change the nature of it," " said Mr. Burnett, who eventually tabled his experimental notions and had the good sense to go with "warm, ethereal cocktail party," using Nat King Cole's dreamy "When I Fall In Love" for his film-scoring debut. Back when "Crazy Heart" was still in preproduction, Ryan Bingham, a young musician from New Mexico who had landed a bit part as a member of Bad Blake's pickup band, played Mr. Burnett an incomplete version of a tune he was writing. "That's the title song," Mr. Burnett instantly told him. When "Crazy Heart" is released on Dec. 16, Mr. Bingham's reflective, ultimately hopeful ballad "The Weary Kind (Theme From "Crazy Heart") " will play over the end credits. Mr. Burnett is listed as co-writer. There will also be an on-screen dedication to Mr. Bruton, who plays guitar and mandolin on some of the tracks and had a hand in writing many of the songs. In May he died of cancer at Mr. Burnett's home. "I have to say I've yet to get over it," Mr. Burnett said, his eyes welling up. But I'm deeply gratified that Stephen's last act is going to see the light of day.