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Fort Worth native Stephen Bruton plays on Sixth Street in Austin in 2002.
The strange, poignant story about the contested will of the late Fort Worth Stephen Bruton musician has been racing through cyber space since it's turned up on The New York Times Web site on Thursday night.
If you haven't yet heard, basically Bruton's wife is contested his will, which bequeathed virtually Bruton's entire $1.2 estate to his brother. The ex-wife, Mary Keating Bruton, also claims that T Bone Burnett had an undue influence over the musician, while the two of them were working on the Crazy Heart soundtrack in the final months of his life.
It's a sad postscript to the story of Crazy Heart, the lovely country music drama that has brought Bruton the kind of success that often eluded him while he was alive. (He died of cancer last spring.) Here's hoping that no matter how it all turns that's Bruton achievements aren't t obscured: The music in the film -- indeed, the entire air of country music melancholy that infuses the drama -- is too good to be turned into tabloid fodder.
