one of the finest collections of American Folk music
Normally the finest collection would be from various artists over various times throughout history of the genre. Not sourced from artists to write songs for a particular movie.
Are you serious? Let’s go over the soundtrack:
- Po’ Lazarus - Orig by James Carter, pre-1959
- Big Rock Candy Mountain - Harry McClintock, 1928
- You Are My Sunshine - Jimmie Davis and Charles Mitchell, 1939
- Down in the River to Pray - So old no one knows the origin, first published in 1867
- Man of Constant Sorrow - Dick Burnett, 1913
- Keep On the Sunny Side - Ada Blenkhorn, 1899
- I’ll Fly Away - Albert E. Brumley, 1932
- Didn’t Leave Nobody but the Baby - Slave song, but brought back into popularity by Emmylou Harriss
- In the Highways - Mother Maybelle Carter from the freaking Carter family, 1920’s
- I Am Weary Let Me Rest - Published in 1873 , popularized by the Cox family
- O Death - Moran Lee Boggs, 1920s
- In The Jailhouse Now - Vaudeville song from the 1920’s
- Indian War Whoop - John Hartford, 2000
- Lonesome Valley - The Fairfield Four, 2000
- Angel Band - Very old gospel song, 1860s.
While the album is a mixture of vintage tracks, modern recordings performed for the movie and a couple written recently, this is a fine collection of early american folk music. The date a song was performed does not take away from when it was written, as long as the artist is playing/singing it as intended. The soundtrack itself was produced by T-Bone Burnett who leaned heavily on the Alan Lomax collection at the Library of Congress.
http://revenantrecords.com/musics/products/american-primitive-vol-ii/
Check this out for early recorded music. This stuff was collected and compiled by John Fahey. One of the records was so rare there was only one copy and it was in the shape of a bowl. They had to put a window pane over it and heat it until it flattened out enough to play.
T bone did a good job but that’s really only the surface.
There’s Harry Smiths collection too.
This is the first that jumped to my head, as well. “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly” would be another one (by the same composer.) It’s odd, as I’m not into westerns, but those stick out to me for their use of music and their soundtracks in general.
If the OP doesn’t care whether or not it’s from a movie, there’s the jazz sound track by Henry Mancini from the old Peter Gunn TV series.
All the suggestions are worthy. On looking and listening some more I realize I like Jazz to be in a soundtrack to make it “profound” to me. That’s the way I roll. I don’t really care if it’s a movie or not. Peter Gunn is a little too melodramatic, but I’m going to check out “touch of evil” There’s also “Knife in the water”
The theme song for PG certainly is, but there are other tracks that are very mellow.
There’s also the soundtrack from Bird and Bridges of Madison County
I got the DVD for Christmas and the opening theme was stuck in my head the next two weeks. Generally I’m not attracted to “Irish music,” but looked up the song the theme was based on and listened to several versions. No go; I needed the bastardized, grandiose movie arrangement.
Rocky soundtrack by Bill Conti
The Celts soundtrack by Enya
Out of Africa soundtrack by John Barry
Field of Dreams soundtrack by James Horner
Willow soundtrack by James Horner
Top Gun
Walkabout and Enigma, both composed by the great John Barry. His soundtrack for the Bond films On Her Majesty’s Secret Service and The Living Daylights, while being what is expected of a Bond film, also had elements of beautiful poignancy.
Stranger
After due consideration of this topic, I nominate as my very favorite such music: The Conversation Soundtrack
Ink, a 2009 independent film.
Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon
Princess Mononoke
Tarantino says Ennio Morricone’s coming out of retirement for The Hateful Eight. So expect more along those lines.
Ry Cooder and Steve Vai in “Crossroads” from 1986. Most. Amazing. Guitar. Duel. Ever.
The soundtrack from 1993’s “Gettysburg”
I don’t really care for the movie but the soundtrack for The Horse Whisperer is lovely
(Thomas Newman is responsible for many great film scores, IMO)