LOS ANGELES - When T Bone Burnett joined the roster of Warner Bros. recording artists in 1981, his satchel already contained enough credits to make a comfortable career for almost anybody else. Yet he was only beginning to step out of the shadows and declare his intentions as an artist when he released his debut EP in 1982. The six tracks raised expectations high but Burnett did not disappoint with his first full-length a year later and a follow-up EP in 1984. Rhino Handmade presents Burnett's official recordings for Warner as the collection PROOF THROUGH THE NIGHT & THE COMPLETE TRAP DOOR. The two-disc set will be available as an individually numbered limited edition of 5,000 copies on May 29 at www.rhinohandmade.com for a suggested retail price of $29.98.

Burnett's proposed Warners kickoff-Broadway My Way, in which he would devise startling new settings for venerable show tunes-was lauded by the label as a concept but nixed as a strategy. Instead Burnett released the 1982 EP Trap Door, six songs spread over two 12-inch vinyl sides.

The band-Burnett and David Mansfield on guitars, bassist David Miner, and drummer David Kemper-had been gigging regularly, so Trap Door exudes an enormously appealing small-band pop energy. Produced by T Bone and Reggie Fisher, it contains an assortment of songs unlike any other in the Burnett catalog. “I Wish You Could Have Seen Her Dance” is a gem of pure conversational reportage, while “Poetry” is one of his few straightforward love songs.

Proof Through The Night (1983) remains an album rightly regarded as a major work. After the tightly focused framework of the EP, the album's 11 songs presented an artist off the leash. It is true that with each successive release his mastery has grown, but this is where we first sensed the full scope of T Bone Burnett, a widescreen template he's worked tirelessly to perfect ever since. The album's closing track, “Shut It Tight” was recorded at a preliminary session featuring Burnett, with Davids Mansfield (fiddle) and Miner (bass) and Richard Thompson (mandolin). The session also yielded a rendition of Luke The Drifter's “Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw,” which has remained unreleased until now.

T Bone is no slouch as an instrumentalist, and his guitar interplay with Mansfield is one of the consistent delights of these two discs. Proof also features guest turns from guitarists Ry Cooder, Mick Ronson, Richard Thompson, Pete Townshend, and other notables.

Released in 1984 on the U.K. label Demon, Behind The Trap Door was another six-song EP from Burnett and Co. The collection spotlights T Bone's predilection for picking writing partners from other disciplines. His collaborators include Richard Thompson and Bono, but also a painter, a sculptor, a screenwriter, a psychiatrist, and his then-manager.

These quickly sketched songs are so unapologetically downcast that even “Welcome Home, Mr. Lewis,” a sweetly nostalgic instrumental composed with Thompson as film music, seems like it must be harboring something sinister. Burnett puts the album's mood into context in the album's liner notes: “I was just starting to come out of a dark personal time, and was working these things out of my system. My original title was Beneath The Trap Door. That's how it felt.”

The conclusion of his Warners sojourn coincided with Burnett's production of the first two albums by Los Lobos, triggering a parallel career on the other side of the studio glass that has grown to encompass recordings by Elvis Costello, Roy Orbison, Sam Phillips, Counting Crows, The Wallflowers, and many others; film projects like O Brother, Where Art Thou? and Walk The Line; a record label; and God only knows what else.

PROOF THROUGH THE NIGHT & THE COMPLETE TRAP DOOR

Track Listing

Disc 1

• 1. “The Murder Weapon”
• 2. “Fatally Beautiful”
• 3. “After All These Years”
• 4. “Baby Fall Down”
• 5. “The Sixties”
• 6. “Stunned”
• 7. “Pressure”
• 8. “Hula Hoop”
• 9. “When The Night Falls”
• 10. “Hefner And Disney”
• 11. “Shut It Tight”
• 12. “Be Careful Of Stones That You Throw”

Disc 2

• 1. “Hold On Tight”
• 2. “Diamonds Are A Girl's Best Friend”
• 3. “I Wish You Could Have Seen Her Dance”
• 4. “A Ridiculous Man”
• 5. “Poetry”
• 6. “Trap Door”
• 7. “Strange Combination”
• 8. “Amnesia And Jealousy (Oh! Lana)”
• 9. “Having A Wonderful Time, Wish You Were Her”
• 10. “The Law Of Average”
• 11. “My Life And The Women Who Lived It”
• 12. “Welcome Home, Mr. Lewis”

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