T Bone Burnett photo courtesy of tboneburnett.com.

Producer T Bone Burnett has had a hand in a slew of important albums this decade, including the Robert Plant & Alison Krauss project Raising Sand, Elvis Costello’s current Secret, Profane And Sugarcane, plus the soundtracks to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, Cold Mountain and Walk The Line.

Now T Bone’s got his fingers on a picture that has pre-release Oscar buzz all over it, and the song that runs over the end credits should heighten the profile of Americana artist Ryan Bingham.

Jeff Bridges stars in the new picture, Crazy Heart, in which a formerly successful country singer grapples with life after his career has faded. Robert Duvall, who won an Oscar for a similar role in the 1983 movie Tender Mercies, is a co-producer of the new release. In an unconventional move, T Bone wrote the music before shooting commenced with co-producer Stephen Bruton, a Kris Kristofferson band member who died this year after working on the project. Much as he did when he oversaw the vocal performances of actors Reese Witherspoon and Joaquin Phoenix in Walk The Line, T Bone also produced Jeff’s performances as a has-been singer.

“He could deal with it in real time in a bar,” T Bone told The New York Times, explaining the character’s career turmoil. “He could sing it. But he probably couldn’t say to his girlfriend, if he had one, or even a friend, ‘I’m all washed up.’ So that became the fulcrum for the character.”

Ryan, a 2008 nominee for Best New/Emerging Artist in the Americana Music Association Honors & Awards, had played an unfinished song for T Bone before production began, and T Bone instantly recognized it as the film’s theme. The two co-wrote it and titled it “The Weary Kind.”

While the movie comes out Dec. 19 in some markets, two different versions of the soundtrack will be released in 2010. A 16-song version emerges Jan. 19 with performances by Ryan, Jeff, Colin Farrell and Robert Duvall, as well as several previously recorded titles — Buck Owens’ “Hello Trouble,” Waylon Jennings’ “Are You Sure Hank Done It This Way” and the Louvin Brothers’ “My Baby’s Gone,” among them. A deluxe edition is due Feb. 2 with seven more tracks, including George Jones’ “Color Of The Blues,” Townes Van Zandt’s “If I Needed You” and Lucinda Williams’ “Joy.”

T Bone’s racked up Grammy awards for his work on Raising Sand, O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk The Line, and he picked up an Oscar nomination for his work on Cold Mountain. With the musician-themed storyline of Crazy Heart, the soundtrack will likely get T Bone some consideration when Oscar nominations are doled out this year.

Just to underscore the possibility: Tender Mercies, the similarly themed Robert Duvall picture, notched its own Oscar nomination for Best Song. That song, “Over You,” was one of only two hits by country singer Lane Brody.

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