• The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation

  • Words + Music, Vol. 7
  • By: T Bone Burnett
  • Narrated by: T Bone Burnett
  • Length: 1 hr and 37 mins
  • 4.4 out of 5 stars (1,244 ratings)
The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation  By  cover art

The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation

By: T Bone Burnett
Narrated by: T Bone Burnett

Publisher's summary

"Racism is a disease of white people, and I don't intend to be quiet about it." (Albert Einstein)

“I agree with Einstein about that, and I don't intend to be quiet about it either.” (T Bone Burnett)

Legendary Grammy Award-winning producer and towering musical icon T Bone Burnett speaks plainly, which is all the more reason why his stunning new Words + Music, The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation, lands with such force. And his songs, delivered straight from the heart, carry with them the weight of unvarnished truth and the wisdom he’s gathered from a lifetime.

Through performance of his own words and music, in just a little more than 90 minutes runtime, T Bone confronts the choking influence of white supremacy in the United States - from its inception to its current state - reckoning with the musical, political, and personal influences that have shaped his career and his understanding of the human spirit in America. Part history, part personal essay, it is above all a call to action: to reject white supremacy and reconcile our nation’s racist past.

Delivered in his steadfast, gritty voice, T Bone’s meticulously crafted prose recounts the horrors of our nation’s history, its far-reaching, systematic oppression of African Americans to this day, the delusion of grandeur much of Anglo-America still suffers from, and the critical need for personal and societal change if we are to redeem ourselves in any capacity - and survive as a people. All of this T Bone lays bare, not by high-and-mighty finger pointing but through a sense of shared destiny and faith in each other. T Bone’s Words + Music is an honest hand reaching out for ours, urging us to grapple through this, mindfully, together. His words are further punctuated by his own heart-rending music, seamlessly woven in and out of his storytelling, and building upon his open plea. Each song, including “River of Love”, “Quicksand”, and “Hefner and Disney”, is thoughtfully plucked from his prolific catalog.

As T Bone connects the dots for us using well-established facts, personal experience, and skillful songwriting, we are drawn to a resounding truth: that although our past is undeniably paved with unspeakable ills, they must be spoken; denying it only compounds the problem. As T Bone rightly concludes, we are all at a difficult crossroads. But his solution could not resonate any clearer: the path forward requires a hard look within. Join T Bone Burnett and listen to his call.

“Let's make a future where we all want to live.”

“Let's make a past we don't have to forgive.”

(T Bone Burnett)

©2020 T Bone Burnett (P)2020 Audible Originals LLC

Our favorite moments from The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation

"Music doesn't lie..."
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"We stand on a precipice…"
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"I've never forgotten that moment..."
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  • The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation
  • "Music doesn't lie..."
  • The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation
  • "We stand on a precipice…"
  • The Confederacy: Truth and Reconciliation
  • "I've never forgotten that moment..."

About the Creator and Performer

With 50 years’ experience in music and entertainment, T Bone Burnett has earned an unparalleled reputation as an 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 as a teenager. In the mid-1970s, Burnett was traveling the country as a musician and record producer when he was asked by Bob Dylan to play guitar in his band on the now-legendary Rolling Thunder Revue tour. That experience led Burnett to form the Alpha Band with David Mansfield and Steven Soles, making three acclaimed albums with the trio before releasing a string of critically acclaimed solo records in the 1980s. Toward the end of that decade, Burnett displayed his unique abilities to effectively meld music with film, producing the groundbreaking all-star music special, Roy Orbison and Friends: A Black and White Night.
Burnett has won an Academy Award, a Golden Globe, a BAFTA, and 13 Grammy Awards. He’s worked and collaborated with musicians spanning many genres, such as the aforementioned Bob Dylan, Elton John, Robert Plant, Alison Krauss, B.B. King, Tony Bennett, k.d. lang, Elvis Costello, The Civil Wars, Taylor Swift, Ryan Bingham, Counting Crows, Steve Earle, and Leon Russell. Burnett’s highly successful and acclaimed work in film throughout the past 30 years includes his collaboration with the Coen Brothers on The Big Lebowski, O Brother, Where Art Thou?, The Ladykillers, Inside Llewyn Davis, and The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, as well as Cold Mountain, The Hunger Games, Walk The Line, and Crazy Heart, for which he served as one of the film’s producers.
His work in television includes serving as the executive music producer and composer for the HBO series True Detective and the first season of the ABC television series, Nashville. In 2014, T Bone handpicked a diverse group of artists to form a band and compose music for newly unearthed Bob Dylan lyrics written at the time of the artist’s historic Basement Tapes recordings. These sessions resulted in the Burnett-produced Lost on the River: The New Basement Tapes album and the accompanying Lost Songs documentary on Showtime. Burnett was nominated for Emmy awards for the scores of True Detective and for his work with Jack White and Robert Redford on American Epic: a multi-part, multimedia project that explores the history of music in America, as well as its global roots.
His work as a recording artist continues with an ambitious three-album series in collaboration with drummer Jay Bellerose and keyboardist Keefus Ciancia, The Invisible Light. The first volume, Acoustic Space, was released in 2019 and the second will be released in early 2021.

Foreword by Caroline Randall Williams

Caroline Randall Williams is a multi-genre writer, educator, and performance artist in Nashville Tennessee, where she is a writer-in-residence at Vanderbilt University. She is co-author of the NAACP Image Award-winning cookbook Soul Food Love. Her debut collection of poetry, Lucy Negro, Redux has been turned into a ballet by the Nashville Ballet—Caroline performed her poetry as an integral member of the cast, all set to an original score by multi-Grammy nominee Rhiannon Giddens. Named by Southern Living as "One of the 50 People changing the South," the Cave Canem fellow has been published and featured in multiple journals, essay collections, and news outlets, including The Iowa Review, The Massachusetts Review, Cherry Bombe, Garden and Gun, Essence, and The New York Times. Most recently, she was ranked by The Root as one of the 100 most influential African Americans of 2020.