When it comes to Jeff Bridges’ self-titled country record, most critics are in agreement. He is an excellent actor. His long and steady climb in an industry that rarely supports either recently culminated in two memorable roles: Rooster Cogburn, a belligerent US Marshall, in the Coen brothers’ True Grit and the Academy Award winning role of Bad Blake, a washed-out country singer in Crazy Heart. His new record out on Blue Note seems like a natural extension of these two projects.
One thing I found surprising is how many actors have crossed into the music industry. Did you know that Clint Eastwood, Burt Reynolds and Kevin Costner have all released country albums? (Neither did I.)
One thing Jeff Bridges has going for it compared to prior vanity projects is a world class production team. This was less spur-of-the-moment and more of an organic creation with a group of friends, one of them being T Bone Burnett, a man responsible for the music of O Brother, Where Art Thou? and producer of Allison Kraus and Robert Plants’ Raising Sand.
Still, even with the best in the business by his side, the result is a mixed bag or as Steven Hyden of the AV Club writes “Jeff Bridges is one shaggy dog of a record, ambling along amiably without a clear destination in mind.”
The Blue Note press release states Jeff Bridges had help writing the songs with the likes of Stephen Bruton, John Goodwin, Bo Ramsay, Greg Brown and even Burnett contributing. After listing to the record a few times, it was easy to see too many cooks may have been in the kitchen. None of the songs seemed to fit together. I did a quick rating of each track with arrows going up and down and my results looked like a graph of the recent stock market swings.
On a positive note the bookends of the record “What a Little Bit of Love Can Do” and “The Qwest” are solid and radio friendly. On the other side “Slow Boat” is just that as the song starts to sink within the first minute.
I don’t think Bridges would mind such criticism. For him, music is something he likes to do, much like painting and photography, which you can see on his webpage, jeffbridges.com. He is comfortable in his own skin, a relaxed renaissance man with a Buddhist temperament. He sees the big picture. So if someone has a problem with his latest project, he may quote one of his more favorite characters, Jeff Lebowski and say “Well, that’s just your opinion, Man.”
Dave
