AND NOW HERE’S THE NEWS: When T...

AND NOW HERE’S THE NEWS: When T Bone Burnett goes out on tour this March, guess who his opening act is? Easy--himself. Since the popular guitarist/producer is just as at home with country as with rock, he’s hitting the road with two bands. He will open the show with a country group, then close it with his rock band. Burnett’s new album, due out this week from Columbia, is “The Talking Animals.” It features “Purple Heart” (with U-2’s Bono on vocals), “The Strange Case of Frank Cash and the Morning Paper” (co-written by Tonio K.), “The Image” (with Ruben Blades and Cait O’Riordan) and “Killer Moon,” which was co-written by Burnett’s favorite new collaborator--his young daughter Molly. . . . Ziggy Marley and Sting have recorded a new version of the Police’s “One World,” which will debut on a European TV special in May for the Council of Europe’s North/South Campaign. One of Sting’s most royal fans personally asked for the song--Spain’s King Juan Carlos I. . . . Speaking of Sting fans--it doesn’t appear that the New York Post’s Page Six is very high on the list. Columnist Richard Johnson recently revealed the popster’s beauty secrets, which include no-prescription horn-rimmed glasses, a nose job (performed “years ago”) and a “reweaved” hairdo, a charge which prompted a denial of sorts from a Sting spokeswoman, who said “If (he had a weave), they did a bad job and he hasn’t admitted to it.” A source very close to Sting added: “The glasses are real--he’s nearsighted--and so’s the hair.” . . . Closer to home--the Club Lingerie’s “Mardi Gras Ball ‘88” continues tonight with a rare L.A. appearance by New Orleans guitarist Snooks Eaglin, who’ll be joined by Texas Cajun-country singer Michelle Shocked. The four-day fest ends tomorrow night with Cajun wiz Jo-El Sonnier (who has a new album due out on RCA Records) and Treat Her Right, a R&B; band from Boston.