Keeping Track of Soundtracks Part Two

Hollywood was in free fall by 1967, a year when more independent and foreign films were in the top ten box office than big studio pictures. There had been a move toward blockbusters, including musicals like 'The Sound of Music' and 'Doctor Doolittle', but as the decade continued, those flopped regularly. 'The Graduate', using music by Simon & Garfunkel prominently, would become the norm.

There were surprises, like the soundtrack tot he British film 'Bedazzled', directed by MGM musical veteran Stanley Donen. It looks nothing like traditional Hollywood, instead featuring some of the brightest British comedians before Monty Python, Peter Cooke and Dudley Moore. Moore even did the soundtrack, which included one of the best parody psychedelic songs ever done. Not well known in America, this is a wonderful movie, worth checking out.

Not all movies were saved by rock or pop songs. There were still plenty of clunkers, like the generally abysmal 'Candy', featuring the Byrds. Even a hit song was no guarantee that the movie would make money. 'Come and Get It', written by Paul McCartney for Badfinger to perform in 'The Magic Christian', couldn't save a terrible, generally tasteless movie. Hip didn't always work.

Money from the career killing 'Head' was used to finance much of 'Easy Rider'. It was a huge hit as well as a total left field production. Cherry picking from rock hits by artist like Jimi Hendrix and Steppenwolf, 'Easy Rider' managed to negotiate music rights better than most movies of its time. The music often carries the movie, an uneasy mixture of exploitation and art film aimed directly at youth.

Spirit also did an unreleased but fully realized soundtrack around this time, for the otherwise undistinguished movie 'Model Shop'. Mostly instrumental, the group, like Manfred Mann, had enough jazz in their background to make it work. It was still rare for a rock artist or group to tackle an entire soundtrack, incidental music included. The band even appeared in the film, but it sunk without a trace. 'Model Shop' was finally released, recently included in the Spirit retrospective, 'It Shall Be'.

Pink Floyd did manage a decent soundtrack in 1969 for the anti-drug film, 'More', stealing all their good songs from the 'Ummagumma' era. The guys needed cash flow; a soundtrack was easy money. The film producers paid for the studio, giving the band a week to concoct some tunes. Then a lump sum payment on completion, quick and easy. It became a fast buck for many English groups.

'More' was a hippie film, made by hippies for hippies, with the perfect soundtrack. It doesn't matter if the songs are all over the place. Director Barbet Schroeder perfectly captured the mood of the times, the thrill of discovering new drugs, the horror of the consequences. Pink Floyd created not only the soundtrack to a film, but to a moment in time as well.

The Pretty Things, perpetually broke, did a couple of soundtracks, appearing in ultra-low-budget films in 1969, 'What's Good For The Goose' and 'Horror House.' They took it one step further, recording a series of albums under the moniker 'Electric Banana', pumping out some library music of surprisingly good quality. Any production, film or television, could purchase a license to use the music. This material appeared continuously across Europe for the next decade on television and in commercials. The Pretty Things were willing to throw away good tunes for quick payment.

In 1970, Pink Floyd probably wished that they had never signed on to 'Zabriskie Point', Michelangelo Antonioni's pointless rumination on the hippie movement in America. It's a complete waste of celluloid, Antonioni managing to waste a couple of month's time of the Floyd, making them crank out endless variations of their music, rejecting nearly all of it, settling for guitar ramblings from Jerry Garcia. Eventually, most of the unreleased music saw the light of day.

Above is the only watchable seven minutes of 'Zabriskie Point', proving that you could be a young foreign director and be as out of touch as anyone in Hollywood. Antonioni wanted country music; Pink Floyd were the most illogical choice. The movie insults the intelligence of anyone, young or old, who watches it. But there was a decent collection of soundtrack material, including some pieces reworked on 'Dark Side of the Moon', so it wasn't a complete waste of time for the band.

The Rolling Stones usually tried to keep up with the Beatles, but their attempts to enter the movie business were woeful. There was an appearance on the 'T.A.M.I Show', a strange hybrid television/movie event. Mick Jagger learns to never follow James Brown on stage. 'Charlie Is My Darling' was a one hour documentary with some live material, barely released in 1966, buried for half a century. 'Rock & Roll Circus' was a television special shot on film in excellent quality but the Who blow a rusty Stones off the stage. It too languished in the vaults for 25 years.

Things initially looked up with Jagger's performance in (ahem) 'Performance', a truly dark and disturbing masterpiece about the underside of both British gangster culture and rock stardom. Watching Mick channel both Brian Jones and Syd Barrett as a decadent has-been pop idol is unnervingly realistic. The film was too violent and experimental for the movie executives, who delayed release for two years. There was a soundtrack, only features Mick on one track. The Stones back him up, but Keith Richards was so angry at the rumors of on-screen sex between Mick and Keith's girlfriend Anita Pallenberg that Ry Cooder had to be added.

'Gimme Shelter', one of the greatest documentaries in rock history, followed. It's a terrifying experience as hippie culture collapses on screen, the band on stage often unaware of the chaos and violence mere feet away. The killing of an audience member, caught on camera accidentally, played over and over in the editing room to Charlie Watts, makes for chilling viewing, a meta exploration about the cost of fame. Seeing Marty Balin try to protect fans, getting knocked unconscious for his efforts while hundreds of thousands of hippies stand by impotent, spelled the death of the idea of a youth utopia.

One would think that having such an unkind portrait presented of themselves on screen would have made the Rolling Stones cautious, but no. Three years later, during their 1972 tour, with Keith in the depths of heroin addiction, the infamous 'Cocksucker Blues' was made. I fond the movie an unwatchable collection of hotel rooms, various groupies and roadies shooting up, an occasional appearance by a member of the band putting everyone on their guard. The film is still under a court order, locked away, only rarely shown in small bits in other Stones documentaries. After that, backstage access was cut off permanently.

Much of the greatness of 'Gimme Shelter' was due to the work of famed documentarians Albert and David Maysles. They had done a film of the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival that had shown both the emerging West Coast music scene and the new hard rock of Jimi Hendrix and the Who. It was vital, but, being the first of its kind, they forgot to make a deal for an accompanying album. The backers of Woodstock made no such mistake.

Woodstock was a world wide phenomenon, both as a triple album and movie, the dividing line in the culture war between youth and their parents. The only artist paid were the Who, too broke to accept no payment. While the promoters claimed it a free festival, unable to pay any of the performers, they were secretly signing a $4,000,000 deal for the film rights. So much for power tot he people.

The Woodstock triple album was a required purchase by every person under the age of thirty, spawning a double album follow up. The movie did gangbusters business, every promoter on both sides of the pond scrambling to have their own festival. It has been re-edited, other documentaries culled from the footage. There were even additional festivals in 1994 and 1999.

Neither Woodstock nor Monterey Pop, however, had been the first festival filmed and released. That honor would go to Murray Lerner, who over the course of four years captured performances and backstage material at the Newport Folk Festival. When Bob Dylan famously turned electric during his performance there in 1965, Murray was there, thus capturing the moment when folk effectively died, rock taking its place with the college crowds. Released in 1967, it is worth checking for some outstanding performances.

Lerner worked differently, putting up his own money, owning the footage. This could be a problem, as when he and a crew showed up at the massive and massively messed up Isle of Wight festival in 1970. He collected days worth of film, but the event was gate crashed by tens of thousands of French anarchists, as well as various Hell's Angels. Money ran out; it took him nearly twenty five years to finish the film, but it was worth it.

Unlike Woodstock, Isle of Wight details not only the superb line-up of musicians, but also the nightmares that keep piling up on the promoters. The line up is fantastic; the Who (best footage of the original band), Emerson Lake & Palmer (second gig ever), Rory Gallagher & Taste, Jethro Tull, the Moody Blues, Free, Ten Years After, Donovan, Miles Davis, and especially poignant, the last important performances of both Jim Morrison and Jimi Hendrix. My favorite moment is when Joni Mitchell loses her patience with the audience, crying and yelling.

Interviews with hippies squatting on the hills are even more terrifying. Hearing a father talking about feeding his three year old acid is mind bogglingly wrong in every possible way. Hendrix and the Doors struggle through their performances, already looking like they have one foot in the grave. I cannot recommend this one highly enough. It is exactly how I remember the hippie dream; a big pile of self-destructive bullshit.

It was the Isle of Wight in 1970 that did more to kill the festival, not Altamont, which had been spontaneous and free. The logistics of getting that many people in while that many acts moved on and off the stage was too much. The extreme left wanted everything to be free, the acts wanted to be paid. There were a few more festivals in the early 1970s - Watkin's Glen, the first California Jam - but the bloom was off the rose. Corporate America and television were pulling the strings now.

Eventually, most of the big acts - Free, the Who, Hendrix, the Doors, Jethro Tull, Emerson Lake & Palmer, the Moody Blues, Miles Davis, Taste, even Joni Mitchell - had individual releases, both of the music and extracted from the film footage. The Isle of Wight in 1970 was the moment when 1960s rock turned into the 1970s, with progressive making a strong appearance. But rock, both the old guard and the newcomers, really didn't know how to deal with film, and film didn't have a clue what to do with rock music.