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Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

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AMG AllMusic Guide: Pop Albums:

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

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  • Artist: Bob Dylan
  • Rating: StarStarStarStar
  • Release Date: July 13, 1973
  • Total Time: 35:19
  • Type: Soundtrack
  • Genre: Rock

Review

This album was unusual on several counts. For starters, it was a soundtrack (for Sam Peckinpah's movie of the same title), a first venture of its kind for Bob Dylan. For another, it was Dylan's first new LP in three years -- he hadn't been heard from in any form other than the single "George Jackson," his appearance at the Bangladesh benefit concert in 1971, in all of that time. Finally, it came out at an odd moment of juxtaposition in pop culture history, appearing in July 1973 on the same date as the release of Paul McCartney's own first prominent venture into film music, on the Live and Let Die soundtrack (the Beatles bassist had previously scored The Family Way, a British project overlooked amid the frenzy of the Beatles' success). Interestingly, each effort reunited the artist with a significant musician/collaborator from his respective past: McCartney with producer George Martin and Dylan with guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who'd played with him on his early albums up to Bringing It All Back Home, before being supplanted by Mike Bloomfield, et al. But that was where the similarities between the two projects ended -- apart from the title song, Live and Let Die was Martin's project rather than McCartney's, whereas Dylan was all over Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as a composer, musician, etc. Additionally, whereas McCartney's work was a piece of pure pop-oriented rock in connection with a crowd-pleasing action-fantasy film, Dylan's work comprised an entire LP, and the resulting album was a beautifully simple, sometimes rough-at-the-edges and sometimes gently refined piece of country- and folk-influenced rock, devised to underscore a very serious historical film by one of the movies' great directorial stylists. It was also as strong as any of his recent albums, featuring not just Langhorne but also such luminaries as Booker T. Jones, Roger McGuinn, and Byron Berline. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" was the obvious hit off the album, and helped drive the sales, but "Billy 1," "Billy 4," and "Billy 7" were good songs, too -- had any of them shown up on bootlegs, they'd have kept the Dylan semiologists and hagiographers busy for years working over them. The instrumentals surrounding them were also worth hearing as manifestations of Dylan's music-making; "Bunkhouse Theme" was downright gorgeous. It was the first time since New Morning, in 1970, that Dylan had released more than five minutes of new music at once, and it was a gift to fans as well as to Peckinpah -- little did anyone realize at the time that it heralded a period of new recording and a national tour (with the Band), along with a brief label switch, and Dylan's greatest period of sustained musical visibility since 1966. This record also proved that Dylan could shoehorn his music within the requirements of a movie score without compromising its content or quality, something that only the Beatles, unique among rock artists, had really managed to do up to that time, and that was in their own movie, A Hard Day's Night. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" may have been the biggest hit to come out of a Western in at least 21 years, since Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington had given "High Noon" to Tex Ritter to sing in Fred Zinnemann's High Noon in 1952 (and Katy Jurado was in both movies), and he'd also outdone Ritter on two counts, writing the music -- a full score, to boot -- and getting a cameo appearance in the film. The album was later kind of overlooked and neglected in the wake of the tour that followed and the imposing musical attributes of, say, Blood on the Tracks and Desire, but heard on its own terms it holds up 30-plus years later. ~ Bruce Eder, Rovi

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Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid (album)

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Home > Library > Miscellaneous > Wikipedia
This article is about the musical album. For the movie, see Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.
 This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (January 2009)
Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
Soundtrack album by Bob Dylan
Released July 16, 1973
Recorded January–February 1973
Genre Country, folk rock, soundtrack
Length 35:23
Label Columbia
Producer Gordon Carroll
Bob Dylan chronology
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. II
(1971)		 Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid
(1973)		 Dylan
(1973)

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is a soundtrack album released by Bob Dylan in 1973 for the Sam Peckinpah film of the same name. Dylan himself appeared in the film as the character "Alias". Consisting of primarily instrumental music and inspired by the movie itself, the soundtrack included "Knockin' On Heaven's Door", which became a trans-Atlantic Top 20 hit.

A gold record, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid reached #16 US and #29 UK.

Contents

Filming of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid

Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid scriptwriter Rudy Wurlitzer, who was a previous acquaintance of Dylan's, asked him to provide a couple of songs for the movie.[1] Dylan performed "Billy" for director Peckinpah, who found the performance very moving and offered Dylan an acting part on the spot.[1][2] The role he ended up getting was a character named Alias.[3] In November 1972, Dylan and his family moved to Durango, Mexico, where filming took place.[2] Filming lasted from late 1972 to early 1973.[4]

Recording sessions

Dylan's first session for the Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid soundtrack was on January 20, 1973 at CBS Discos Studios in Mexico City.[5] The only song from that day that was included on the album was "Billy 7"; also recorded were multiple other takes of "Billy", and the outtakes "Under Turkey", "Billy Surrenders", "And He's Killed Me Too", "Goodbye Holly" and "Pecos Blues".[5] The following month, Dylan recorded two days at Burbank Studios in Burbank, California. The rest of the album's songs were recorded, as well as the outtakes "Sweet Armarillo" and "Rock Me Mama".[5]

Outtakes

The Mexico City session produced two notable outtakes: "Peco's Blues," an instrumental based on the traditional "What Does The Deep Sea Say?," and the song "Goodbye Holly." Both tracks were rejected but eventually bootlegged.

The Burbank sessions yielded a few spontaneous recordings, including a jam titled "Sweet Amarillo" and a simple, improvised song titled "Rock Me Mama." Neither one was seriously considered for the soundtrack as they were born more out of leisure than actual work. The latter was eventually written fully and recorded as "Wagon Wheel" by Nashville roots rock band Old Crow Medicine Show, then subsequently by artists such as Against Me! and others.

Appraisal

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
Allmusic 3.5/5 stars[6]
Robert Christgau C+[7]
Entertainment Weekly C+ [8]
Rolling Stone 2/5 stars[9]

Robert Christgau of The Village Voice described it as "two middling-to-excellent new Dylan songs, four good original Bobby voices, and a lot of Schmylan music".[7] Jon Landau wrote in Rolling Stone that "it is every bit as inept, amateurish and embarrassing as Self Portrait. And it has all the earmarks of a deliberate courting of commercial disaster, a flirtation that is apparently part of an attempt to free himself from previously imposed obligations derived from his audience."[10]

Despite the album's lukewarm reception, it spawned a significant hit in "Knockin' on Heaven's Door," which would be covered by acts such as Eric Clapton and Guns N' Roses. Years later, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" endured as a popular favorite among critics and fans as well as a concert staple, with its inspirational tone and lyrics regarding impending death. Furthermore, such critics may have simply missed the point; with the exception of its lone hit, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid was a spare, mostly instrumental soundtrack album that many would later find to be of great integrity, once they ceased to expect the work to be just another of Bob Dylan's "modern poetry" works.

Aftermath

After Peckinpah completed his own cut of Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid, MGM re-cut the film without his input, removing several significant scenes and re-shuffling most of Dylan's music in the process.[11][12] Peckinpah's film was released to mixed reviews.[13] Years later, critical re-evaluation of Peckinpah's film would lead many to regard it as one of his major works, a revisionist view aided by the restoration of Peckinpah's original cut in 1984.

After witnessing firsthand Peckinpah's battles with MGM, Dylan had his own problems with Columbia Records. After years of minimal activity, Dylan had lost Columbia's patience, and when negotiations for a renewed contract began in 1972, the label (except for Clive Davis) had little interest in being generous. "Early in 1973 I finally did conclude negotiations for a new contract with Bob," wrote Clive Davis in his autobiography. Davis had been a longtime supporter of Dylan's, but he had been the victim of a corporate coup. While finalizing the details of Dylan's contract, Davis was fired by CBS president Arthur Taylor on May 29. Dylan testified on Davis's behalf in a well-publicized civil trial held in July 1975. In the meantime, the incident soured Dylan's relationship with CBS, convincing him to sign with David Geffen's fledgling Los Angeles-based label Asylum Records.

Track listing

All songs written by Bob Dylan.

Side one

  1. "Main Title Theme (Billy)" - 6:07
  2. "Cantina Theme (Workin' for the Law)" - 2:57
  3. "Billy 1" - 3:57
  4. "Bunkhouse Theme" - 2:17
  5. "River Theme" - 1:30

Side two

  1. "Turkey Chase" - 3:34
  2. "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" - 2:32
  3. "Final Theme" - 5:23
  4. "Billy 4" - 5:04
  5. "Billy 7" - 2:10

Personnel

Charts

Album

Year Chart Position
1966 Billboard 200 16[14]
UK Top 75 29[15]

Singles

Year Single Chart Position
1973 "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" Billboard Hot 100 12[16]
UK Top 75 14[15]

Footnotes

  1. ^ a b Heylin 2009, pp. 525–526
  2. ^ a b Shelton 1986, p. 492
  3. ^ Sounes 2001, p. 271
  4. ^ Shelton 1986, p. 491
  5. ^ a b c Heylin 1995, pp. 91–92
  6. ^ Eder
  7. ^ a b Christgau 1973
  8. ^ Flanagan 1991
  9. ^ Brackett 2004, p. 262
  10. ^ Landau 1973
  11. ^ Sounes 2001, p. 272
  12. ^ Heylin 2009, p. 527
  13. ^ Shelton 1986, p. 493
  14. ^ Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid: Billboard Albums
  15. ^ a b Bob Dylan: Top 75 Releases
  16. ^ Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid: Billboard Singles

References

Bob Dylan
Studio albums
Live albums
Compilations
The Bootleg Series
Tours
Concert tours
Never Ending Tour
Films
Writings
Books about Dylan
Related articles

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