Fifteen years after his double-platinum debut album “The Way It Is” catapulted him onto the radio and into the public consciousness, Bruce Hornsby [ tickets ] is keeping busy by touring on his own and with Grateful Dead offshoot the Other Ones, and by contributing songs to film scores. A live record titled “Here Comes the Noisemakers,” which chronicles Hornsby’s solo efforts from the end of 1998 to the beginning of 2000, will be in stores on Oct. 24.

“There are some songs from 'Austin City Limits,' there’s a song from BET’s ‘Jazz Central’ and there are songs from Woodstock last year,” said Hornsby. “All I can say about the live record is that if anyone comes to me and says,' ... I know your name but I don’t have a sense of what you do,' I would give them this record. ... It really is a good document of what we did and I’m really proud of it.”

Hornsby recently finished scoring the title track to Spike Lee’s upcoming film “Bamboozled.” Having previously recorded a song for Lee’s “Clockers,” Hornsby wasn’t surprised when Lee called him around Christmas of last year, asking if he could repeat the feat for the new flick.

“It’s a very interesting, different movie. It’s Spike, and he pushes the envelope, and this is no different. ... I thought the script was very good, very unique, so I tried a few ideas, put ‘em down on tape.”

A collaboration with country star Ricky Skaggs [ tickets ] on a song for a planned Bill Monroe tribute album went so well that Skaggs and Hornsby are scrambling to find time in their schedules to record an entire bluegrass album together. “He’s the man, to me, in bluegrass. There’s such a strong connection, and every time we play together sparks fly.”

Putting keyboards and piano on a bluegrass record might seem odd, but Hornsby said Skaggs heard through his father-in-law that it was something bluegrass creator Bill Monroe had always wanted to do.

“Ricky said that Buck White, his father-in-law, was a great piano player and he was a friend of Bill Monroe’s. Bill Monroe always wanted Buck White to play in his band but he never got around to it. But Ricky knows Bill Monroe always wanted to hear piano in bluegrass. They put our track [“Darlin’ Cory”] first. It’s probably the most adventurous one on there. It’s not straight bluegrass. You’ll hear it and you’ll see why we want to do a whole record.”