"Crazy Heart" soundtrack a labor of love

Jeff Bridges poses with his award for best male actor in a leading role for ''Crazy Heart'' at the 16th annual Screen Actors Guild Awards in Los Angeles January 23, 2010.

NASHVILLE (Billboard) - The film "Crazy Heart" and its accompanying soundtrack are examples of the importance of relationships.

Jeff Bridges, whose performance as a hard-living, down-on-his-luck country singer already has garnered a number of awards in the lead-up to the Oscars, had passed on the role until he discovered his friend T Bone Burnett would be involved. Burnett says he agreed to sign on after a doctor advised him to "only work with people that love you." Bridges, director Scott Cooper and the late Stephen Bruton, who co-wrote many of the songs and co-produced the soundtrack with Burnett, fit the bill.

So did Cameron Strang, founder/president of New West Records, which released the soundtrack January 19. Bruton, who died of complications from cancer in May, was a close friend of Strang and Burnett. He also recorded for New West. "It was definitely one of those moments where everyone realized this was supposed to be," Strang says.

The soundtrack debuted at No. 6 on Billboard's Top Country Albums chart for the week ended January 24, No. 5 on Top Soundtracks and No. 38 on the Billboard 200. Also available is a limited-edition deluxe version that includes all 23 of the Fox Searchlight movie's songs, a Digipak and a booklet with lyrics.

Among the honors Bridges has received for his portrayal of Bad Blake is a Golden Globe for best actor in a drama. "The Weary Kind," sung by Ryan Bingham, earned a Globe for best original song in a motion picture. Bingham, who co-wrote the song with Burnett and records for Universal Music Group Nashville's Lost Highway, also has a role in the movie. He plays the leader of Tony & the Renegades, a pickup band that backs Blake at a bowling alley gig.

GETTING INSIDE THE CHARACTER

Burnett, Bruton, Bingham and Gary Nicholson created songs they thought the fictional Blake would sing. "We spent five or six months sitting around writing and talking about the character; who he was, where he came from, what he liked, what was the first record he bought, his first hit, the first song he ever wrote," Burnett says. "The songs grew out of the ground of this person."

Bridges' co-star Colin Farrell, who plays Blake protege Tommy Sweet, takes a turn at the microphone on "Fallin' & Flyin'," a duet with Blake, and solos on "Gone, Gone, Gone," written by Bingham and Burnett.

Burnett rates Bridges' and Farrell's vocal abilities as "pretty damn good. It's not one of those situations where it was Auto-Tuned and manipulated. They are both great storytellers who made the transition to telling the story in song. Jeff and I have been playing together for 30 years. I've heard him conjure up a storm on several occasions."

In addition to original material, the soundtrack features such country classics as Buck Owens' "Hello Trouble," the Louvin Brothers' "My Baby's Gone," Townes Van Zandt's "If I Needed You" and Waylon Jennings' "Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way." Another song, "Reflecting Light," by Burnett's ex-wife Sam Phillips, appears on the soundtrack because co-star Maggie Gyllenhaal's newspaper reporter character Jean Craddock lives in Santa Fe, N.M., where Phillips has a following.

Burnett says the creative process was "great fun. It was a group of friends getting together and playing songs. Bridges is a brilliant film intellect. To get to conspire with him to create an identity was fun. It wasn't a challenge at all."

The soundtrack was finished just weeks before Bruton died. "The sense of completion was incredibly important to him and to all of us," Burnett says. "He was the id of the music (and) my first call when I found out we were going to make the movie. He was on the set every day and the touchstone to that world. I've been in the studio most of my life, but Stephen was on the road for 30 years."