Pop Quiz: Cassandra Wilson

Pop Quiz: Cassandra Wilson

Aidin Vaziri | Cassandra Wilson doesn't follow rules. She's a jazz singer who covers Van Morrison and the Monkees. She did an entire album dedicated to Miles Davis, a trumpet player. And on her latest, "Thunderbird," the Grammy winner teams up with producer T Bone Burnett, who is best known for his work on Elvis Costello's "King of America" and the bluegrass-heavy soundtrack of "O Brother, Where Art Thou?" Sometimes it pays to go against the grain. The disc is drawing some of the best reviews of her career. We talked to Wilson, 50, by phone in her native Jackson, Miss., where she recently returned to care for her ailing mother.

Cassandra Wilson
Q: Your production company is Electromagnolia. T Bone Burnett's recording studio is called Electromagnetic. You had no idea, did you?
A: Yes, that's the truth. We didn't discover it until we started working together. But it was several things. We were wearing very similar sunglasses on the very first day of recording. He would put his sunglasses down and I would put mine down, and somehow I picked up his sunglasses because they looked like mine. It was little things like that. He would wear his hat to the studio and I would park my cowboy boots next to his hat. It was interesting how all these synchronicities were popping up.
Q: Has your life always been like that or is it just like that with him?
A: No, it's always been like that. I think life is like that for everybody, and it's just a matter of noticing it.
Q: Or, more likely, just that T Bone wears women's glasses.
A: No. These were Persols. They're men's sunglasses.
Q: So once he determined you weren't trying to swipe his specs you got on well?
A: It took us a while, I think, to become comfortable around one another. I have a great deal of respect for him, and I think I had a certain distance because of that. It took us a minute to really get comfortable with each other. But once that kicked in, it was really a great, great time.