O brother, thou art back

NEW YORK — Even if you don’t know T Bone Burnett, you’ve probably heard his work. In a varied career spanning decades, Mr. Burnett has helmed the hit soundtrack for “O Brother, Where Art Thou,” trained the voices of Joaquin Phoenix and Reese Witherspoon for “Walk the Line” and produced a myriad of musicians, from Elvis Costello to Roy Orbison.

Going back to Bob Dylan’s fabled 1975-76 Rolling Thunder Revue, with which he toured, Mr. Burnett’s fingerprints have been sprinkled across three decades of American music like notes picked up and down a guitar’s fretboard.

But while his work behind the scenes has made him one of the most in-demand producers, his own music has largely taken a back seat. It’s been 14 years since his last album, 1992’s “The Criminal Under My Own Hat.”

On Tuesday, Mr. Burnett will return with both the new “The True False Identity” and a two-disc retrospective, “Twenty Twenty: The Essential T Bone Burnett.”

“At this point, I’m starting over,” says the 58-year-old songsmith and guitarist. “I’m starting from scratch.”

In person, Mr. Burnett, tall, wiry, clad in black and wearing his trademark black shades, appears invigorated by his new direction and refreshed to be outside of the studio.

“I grew up in the studio,” he says. “I bought a studio when I was 17. I’ve hidden from the world — from my own life — in the studio. A few times, I’ve ventured out into the public, nervously.”

Mr. Burnett submerged himself after “Criminal,” feeling uncompelled to write music or even touch his guitar. What initially got him going again was composing and playing music for a 1996 production of Sam Shepard’s play “Tooth of Crime.”

“I wanted to break from the record business because it had reached a stagnant point,” he says. “I started looking for other ways to get music heard than through the traditional record business, and the most interesting one I found was working with Sam Shepard on ‘Tooth of Crime’ in New York.”

Mr. Burnett was emboldened by a new fondness for performing live music, and his collaboration with Mr. Shepard led directly to one with Ethan and Joel Coen, who spoke to him at the play’s premiere.

He has since worked with the directing brothers on the music for “The Big Lebowski,” “The Ladykillers,” and the old-timey “O Brother,” which turned into a cultural phenomenon, selling millions and spawning a lucrative tour and the 2000 documentary “Down from the Mountain.”

Meanwhile, Mr. Burnett was writing his own music again, beginning with a simple but beautiful eight-bar blues that would later become the track “There Would Be Hell to Pay” on the new album. But it would be years before anything concrete emerged, and Mr. Burnett’s efforts were instead concentrated on producing other artists, which he says “was like treading water for me.”

“I would start to record (the new songs) and then I would stop,” he says. “I would have things set — I was going to put out the ‘Tooth of Crime’ stuff, but then stopped. Something was always stopping me.

“Finally — let me put it this way — nothing was stopping me anymore.”

“The True False Identity” — which Mr. Burnett calls a “black comedy record” — is a startling, off-kilter mix of blues, gospel and spoken-word. It creates its own feverish, absurd world, as Mr. Burnett sings of places like “Palestine Texas” and “Zombieland” (the album’s first two tracks).

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