T Bone Burnett is a celebrated record producer (Counting Crows’ August and Everything After; Elvis Costello’s King of America; the Oh Brother, Where Art Thou and Cold Mountain soundtracks; Alison Krauss and Robert Plant’s Raising Sand, etc.) and an Oscar-winning songwriter (“The Weary Kind,” from Crazy Heart). He also happens to be a noted authority on American roots music and—maybe above all else—a proud son of Fort Worth.

On this episode of One by Willie, T Bone touches on all those topics as he explores one of the darkest corners of Willie’s songwriting catalog, the early-sixties murder ballad “I Just Can’t Let You Say Goodbye.” The song first appeared on an album that has long been considered something of a holy grail by Willie nerds, 1966’s Live Country Music Concert at Panther Hall Ballroom in Fort Worth, Texas, and it just so happens that a seventeen-year-old T Bone was in the audience the night it was recorded. T Bone talks about that show, about Willie’s years in Fort Worth and their influence on his music, about what it was like to produce Willie’s 2010 album Country Music, and tells us why he refers to Willie as a holy man.

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