“All you’ve got is the moment you’re in, so you better get right with it.”
Stephen Bruton was a prolific songwriter, singer, recording artist, and Grammy- nominated record producer who worked and collaborated with Bonnie Raitt, Christine McVie, Kris Kristofferson, Elvis Costello, Carly Simon, Eric Clapton, Alejandro Escovedo, T Bone Burnett, and the Wallflowers, among many others. He was a founding member of the band The Resentments and has several solo albums out with the record label New West. His last projects included collaborating and playing on Kris Kristofferson’s album Starlight and Stone and the noted collaboration as a music producer and composer with Grammy Award winner T Bone Burnett on the award-winning soundtrack and film Crazy Heart. (www.StephenBruton.com)
The Interview
Stephen was my first official on-camera interview for Epiphany. It was very interesting timing because his epiphany had just happened only a few months before. He had been battling tonsillar cancer for about eighteen months when we talked in his backyard in Austin, Texas. He was so present, strong, real, intense, and extremely compelling—quintessential Stephen. He lost his battle with cancer about a year later, on May 9, 2009, just two weeks after he finished his work on the award-winning Crazy Heart soundtrack. An outstanding musician, poet, wonderful friend, and example of living every day to the fullest, Stephen stayed in the moment and did what he loved—playing, writing, and producing music—to the very end.
