Tom Morello’s Musical Narrative to be Executive Produced by T Bone Burnett
Audible Inc. today announced a limited three-night live performance by Tom Morello at Audible’s Minetta Lane Theatre. In an electrifying musical narrative, Morello will share his moving personal story that also reveals the making of a committed activist and one of the elite guitar virtuosos of our time. Morello’s dissection of the role of music in social and cultural movements and the intersection of craftsmanship and conscience will be executive produced by multi-Grammy winning producer and composer, T Bone Burnett. As with the critically acclaimed Patti Smith at the Minetta Lane, Morello’s performance will be recorded live as an Audible Original production. Tickets to Tom Morello at The Minetta Lane are available today at Ticketmaster.
Running on September 18th, 19th and 20th, the show’s storytelling and music will shine a light on Morello’s singular guitar mastery, his seminal work with Rage Against the Machine and Audioslave, and his commitment to social activism, in the process illuminating moments of elegy and education, revelation and revolution, played and spoken in his genre-defining style.
Morello’s performance is the first installment in a series of groundbreaking collaborations with music legend Burnett, who will curate and Executive Produce the upcoming works exclusively for Audible.
“As a longtime fan of Tom Morello’s brilliant musicianship, I can’t wait to hear more about his view of the powerful relationship between social conscience and the lyrics in music,” said Audible founder and CEO Don Katz. “We’re also thrilled to announce this important collaboration with the legendary T Bone Burnett on multiple upcoming projects. An artist and producer, T Bone is critically recognized for brilliantly marrying music and storytelling and is the ideal collaborator in helping us reinforce Audible’s commitment to telling great stories.”
Tom Morello commented: “I was the only black kid in an all-white town, the only anarchist at a conservative high school, the only heavy metal guitarist at Harvard University, and the only Ivy League Star Trek nerd in the biggest political rap rock band of all time. The songs, the stories, the triumphs, the tragedies, the riffs, the rebellion – all will be revealed. Oh, and I’m going play a lot of ripping guitar too.”
T Bone Burnett commented: “Tom Morello is a first rate musician and a first rate intellect. He makes profound American music, and his story is a profound American story.”
Tom Morello at The Minetta Lane joins a series of recordings showcasing extraordinary performers with amazing stories. Other award-winning and critically acclaimed Audible theater performances include captivating stage productions starring Billy Crudup, Judith Light, John Lithgow, Carey Mulligan, Aasif Mandvi and others are available for download at www.audible.com/theater.
ABOUT TOM MORELLO
Tom Morello is living proof of the transformative power of rock’n’roll. As the co-founder of Rage Against The Machine, Audioslave and Prophets Of Rage, and through collaborations with everyone from Bruce Springsteen to Johnny Cash, he has continually pushed the limits of what one man can do with six strings.
But on his latest album The Atlas Underground, he’s transformed his sound into something even he could not have anticipated, blending Marshall stack riff-rock with the digital wizardry of EDM and hip-hop to create the most ambitious artistic effort of his storied career.
The Atlas Underground includes collaborations with Marcus Mumford, Portugal, The Man, the Wu-Tang Clan’s RZA and GZA, Vic Mensa, K.Flay, Big Boi, Gary Clark Jr., Pretty Lights, Killer Mike and Whethan among others. “The riffs and the beats led the way, but the extraordinary talents of the collaborators set my creativity into uncharted territory,” says Morello of the project, which was released October 12th, 2018 by Mom + Pop Music.
Assembled over the last two years in a variety of studios, The Atlas Underground is what Morello calls “a clandestine sonic conspiracy of artists working in disparate locations toward a shared goal of creating a new genre of music.” The lyrics often take the form of “social justice ghost stories,” and on tracks such as Bassnectar, Big Boi and Killer Mike’s “Rabbit Revenge” and the RZA/GZA-featuring “Lead Poisoning,” they convey the experiences of those less fortunate who were unable to speak up for themselves.
In tandem with acclaimed multi-media artist Sam Durant and director Sean Evans, who staged Roger Waters’ “The Wall,” Morello is planning an innovative live presentation of the music on The Atlas Underground, which won’t be reliant on fill-ins to replicate the guest artist’s contributions. “We’re assembling something that’s more of an art installation than a show, which is different than anything anyone has ever done,” he says. “It will be a challenging piece in non-traditional venues that will bring the ideas on the album to life — a last big event before we all go to jail.”
ABOUT T BONE BURNETT
With 50-years’ experience in music and entertainment, T Bone Burnett has earned an unparalleled reputation as a first-rate innovative artist, songwriter, producer, performer, film and concert producer, record company owner and artists’ advocate. Born in St. Louis, Missouri, Burnett grew up in Fort Worth, Texas where he first began writing songs and making records. Burnett was traveling the country as a freelance record producer when he was asked by Bob Dylan to play guitar in his band on the now-legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour leading Burnett to form the Alpha Band with David Mansfield and Steven Soles. Burnett made three acclaimed albums with the group before making a string of solo records in the 1980’s at the end of which, he began to work in film, beginning with Roy Orbison’s A Black and White Night.
Burnett is an Academy Award winner, a Golden Globe winner and 13-time Grammy Award winner. He’s worked and collaborated with musicians across many genres including Elton John, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, Rosanne Cash, Sam Shepard, The Civil Wars, Taylor Swift, Ryan Bingham, Steve Earle, Leon Russell and Sara Bareilles. Burnett’s first major foray into film was his collaboration with the Coen Brothers on The Big Lebowski, and has since held multiple titles for numerous films including O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain, The Hunger Games, Walk The Line, Inside Llewyn Davis and Crazy Heart, for which he served as one of the film’s Producers. He also has multiple credits in television including as the Executive Music Producer and Composer for the HBO series True Detective, and the initial season of the ABC television series, Nashville. He also produced and narrated an animated series with Drew Christie called Drawn and Recorded. Burnett was nominated for a 2017 Emmy Award for his work with Jack White and Robert Redford on American Epic: a multi-part, multimedia project based upon the earliest recordings of roots music in the United States and their impact around the world.
In 2018, he released Invisible Light: Acoustic Space, the first of a trilogy of albums with collaborators Jay Bellarose and Keefus Ciancia. The second and third albums of the trilogy are expected to be released in 2020.
