Johnny Depp is a man of many hats (to put it lightly), and this time he finds his fit in an old '67 fedora, echoing Bob Dylan's The Basement Tapes, playing guitar alongside Mumford & Sons' Marcus Mumford, Elvis Costello and My Morning Jacket's Jim James.
The product: The New Basement Tapes, where Depp picks up the axe and lays some six-string riffs on "Kansas City," replacing Costello in a last minute recording session that went awry.
Perhaps there's some connection between Fear and Loathing and Bob Dylan, but the movie star had been visiting good friend T. Bone Burnett (per The Independent UK) in a Los Angeles studio when he was pushed to play as it came down to the wire.
If this is strange to think, lest we forget that Depp has performed alongside The Black Keys, Marilyn Manson, Alice Cooper and Willie Nelson in the past (remember that hat thing I mentioned earlier?).
The project comes as Dylan left songs unused for Burnett to breathe life into. And it's been confirmed by Burnett himself that these are not lowly musical follies, they are simply tracks the Tambourine Man didn't have the time to get around to.
The 12-track album is set to release this fall to accompany Sam Jones' documentary Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued.
As the Dylan man doesn't like sharing, here's audio from the I'm Not There soundtrack of James doing a Basement Tape classic, 'Goin' to Acapulco.'
