Jeff Bridges names his 10 favourite albums
Most of you will know Jeff Bridges from his portrayal of The Dude in 1998’s The Big Lebowski. His career took off in the early ’70s with performances in Burgess Meredith’s The Yin and the Yang of Mr. Go and The Last Picture Show. Despite Hollywood’s fixation on Brando-esque intensity during this period, Bridges’ relaxed charm won him scene-stealing roles in films such as Tron, The Fabulous Baker Boys and The Fisher King. What you might not know is that Bridges also heads up the country rock five-piece The Abiders, which features the actor-musician on vocals, guitar and keyboards. We join the actor as he names ten albums that have inspired him over the years.
The first album on his list is a bonafide classic. As Jack Black reminds us in High Fidelity: “Don’t tell anybody you don’t own fucking Blonde on Blonde. “Bob Dylan’s a lot to take in,” Bridges told Music Radar. “Man, I just love Blonde On Blonde. What an amazing album all the way through. Of course, I’m into a lot all of his records, really. I’ve been following Dylan from the beginning, all the folk stuff and then on to the electric stuff, Highway 61 Revisited, and everything else. It’s kind of mind-boggling.”
Bridges went on to name another New York icon, though one a little more comfortable on the curb than Dylan. Discussing Moondog’s eponymous 1969 album, the actor recalled: “I remember seeing him when I was a little kid, probably about eleven or 12. He’d be across from the Hilton Hotel, passing out little leaflets, like, ‘Come to my concert.’ Through the years, whenever I’d come to New York, he was there, rain or shine – so now I’m talking when I was between the ages of 12 and 25. One day I went into a record store, and I saw his picture on an album cover. I picked it up and looked at the liner notes, and who do you think wrote them? Leonard Bernstein! I bought the album and listened to it. It’s very avant-garde, modern music – pretty fascinating. He’d built all of his own instruments and did his own thing. I dig so much of his stuff. T Bone put some of his music in The Big Lebowski.”
Moondog’s avant-garde approach is echoed in another of Bridges’ choices, The Beatles’ epoch-defining concept album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. “They put out album after album too, but suddenly the gap between them got longer than usual,” says Jeff. “We were all expecting something from them, and when they finally put out Sgt. Pepper, it was unlike anything we’d ever heard before – and unlike anything The Beatles had ever done before. A phenomenal record and achievement.”
Check out Bridges’ full selection below.
Jeff Bridges’ 10 favourite albums
- Blonde on Blonde – Bob Dylan (1966)
- Moondog – Moondog (1969)
- Full Sail – Loggins and Messina (1976)
- The Fabulous Style Of The Everly Brothers – The Everly Brothers (1960)
- Stop Making Sense – Talking Heads (1984)
- Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band – The Beatles (1967)
- Be Here Soon (2000) and Jeff Bridges (2011) – Jeff Bridges
- Are You Experienced? – The Jimi Hendrix Experience (1967)
- Untitled – The Byrds (1970)
- Everybody Digs Bill Evans – Bill Evans (1959)
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