Billy Bob Thornton: “I Have 5,000 Favorites”

The “five or six thousand” records in Billy Bob Thornton’s collection — he’s lost count — wouldn’t fit in the villa at the Sunset Marquis Hotel in Los Angeles that functions as a pied-à-terre for the actor/musician and his wife, Angelina Jolie.

Truth be told, the charmingly freakish couple seems out of place inside the staid bungalow. (How many other guests wear amulets containing their lover’s blood?) Their primary residence, a Beverly Hills home purchased from ex–Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, includes such amenities as the Snakepit studio, where Thornton recorded much of his rootsy debut album, Private Radio. “My music is southern gothic,” he says, “just like I am.”

Once a drummer in a ZZ Top tribute band, Thornton got sidetracked as a director, screenwriter and actor, nabbing an Oscar for his Sling Blade script. The 46-year-old currently appears in Barry Levinson’s Bandits and the Coen Brothers’ The Man Who Wasn’t There. But films, he says, are just a day job.

“I’m a displaced musician living in Los Angeles, working in the movie business,” he says, as Jolie rustles around in another room. After spending the early part of the afternoon having a hairpiece attached for his photo shoot, Thornton settles down to discuss the records that flip his wig.

The Allman Brothers Band, Live at Fillmore East
Capricorn, 1971
“My favorite band, bar none. Fillmore East made me want to play music. It made me want to go to concerts. It put me in a creek at 3 o’clock in the morning — sometimes I got a notion to go someplace else in another space, if you know what I mean.”


Elvis Presley, King Creole
RCA, 1958
“King Creole was my first favorite thing. My mother played it constantly when I was a kid — maybe 4, 5 years old. I’d go to sleep to that record at night. She played that and Jim Reeves and Patsy Cline and Ray Price and Rod McKuen. Remember him? The guy who did those poems with birds chirpin’ and shit?”


Pink Floyd, Dark Side of the Moon
Capitol, 1973
“If I could have the time back that I listened to this record on dope, I’d add another 12 years to my life. This was the soundtrack for lying on pillows under black lights, doing drugs and staring at the ceiling. Now I shoot pool and listen to it. It’s not really pool-shooting music, but to me it is.”


Captain Beefheart & the Magic Band, Trout Mask Replica
Straight, 1969
“I was already a huge fan of the Mothers of Invention and the Bonzo Dog Band. When I first heard Beefheart, it just fit in my world. I think Beefheart’s a genius. There’s no explaining it. Most of my friends didn’t get it.”


The Band, Music From Big Pink
Capitol, 1968
“Elvis changed things, then the Beatles changed things, then the Band did it again. They made me feel that, ‘Oh, wow, I can be from the South, I can be a hillbilly, I can be in rock & roll.’ The Band made me feel like I could be one of those guys.”


The Mothers of Invention, Burnt Weeny Sandwich
Reprise, 1969
“In Arkansas, most people didn’t know who Frank Zappa was, or couldn’t care less. I was very different. I played ‘Holiday in Berlin, Full Blown’ over and over when I was writing Sling Blade. I love the way this record sounds. I still play it all the time.”


John Lennon, Imagine
Apple, 1971
“John Lennon was my Beatle. And I’m actually not on the ‘I hate Yoko’ bandwagon with everybody else, especially since Angie and I have been married. It’s kind of like, you go from ‘John Lennon’s your hero’ to being John and Yoko. I appreciate Imagine even more because of my current state of being.”


Jerry Garcia, Garcia
Warner Bros., 1972
“I wasn’t a Deadhead, but I think Garcia is just amazing. I loved to smoke a johansen and lie on the floor, or in the car, or wherever. I played this a lot when I was recording Private Radio. The guy who mastered my record also mastered Garcia.”


Vince Guaraldi Trio, A Charlie Brown Christmas
Fantasy, 1965
“If I had to pick a record that I could listen to over and over and never get sick of, this would be it. It’s just beautiful. It makes me happy, but it’s bittersweet. You think about lost innocence and the joy of childhood. I play that record a lot when my kids are around.”


George Jones, Cup of Loneliness: The Classic Mercury Years
Mercury Nashville, 1994
“George Jones doesn’t give a shit about impressing the elite. He just sings to his people. I love that about him. His voice is magic. I can sing pretty low, like Merle Haggard, but you can’t even do an impression of George Jones. There’s no way. It doesn’t make sense.”