Thread by @DavidLambertArt

A pattern among many of the Westerns made after 1970 is the singer/songwriter or rock musician score. Popular musicians have done music for Westerns since the advent of sound, but I'm talking about the entire score, not Elvis singing Flaming Star on the soundtrack. Here's a list:

The earliest example I can recall is Little Big Man's score by John Hammond, son of the legendary producer w/ the same name & an acclaimed blues artist in his own right. He also introduced Bob Dylan to The Band. The score got taken down so here's the film:

Leonard Cohen didn't write any music for McCabe & Mrs. Miller. Robert Altman was using 3 songs from Coen's 1967 album The Songs of Leonard Cohen as temp tracks but fell in love with them and kept them. There is no other score outside of diegetic music...

The Songs of Leonard Cohen was popular that year, as 2 of the 3 songs used in McCabe & Mrs. Miller were also used in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore which is not a Western, but I would watch a Western with that title.

Also in 1971, Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand had a strange, atmospheric score by folk icon (and inspiration for Mr. Tambourine Man) Bruce Langhorne. It's the highlight of the film:

The most famous of these Western scores is likely Bob Dylan's for 1973's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. It's undeniably more famous than the film itself, thanks solely to Knockin' on Heaven's Door, one of Dylan's most popular compositions

Originally Dylan worked on the score with Wild Bunch composer Jerry Fielding, but Fielding was not happy with Dylan's unorthodox approach to scoring, with the rock drums on Knockin' on Heaven's Door being his breaking point. He left the project...

Dylan also acted in the film, to mixed results... but he throws a knife in a dude's throat! Kris Kristofferson fared a bit better as Billy the Kid & wrote a song for the film that wasn't used (link ⤵️). Musicians Rita Coolidge & Donnie Fritts also appeared

More about the recording of the album (plus links to bootlegs of unused songs) here:

https://twitter.com/DavidLambertArt/status/1603277477492637696?s=20&t=gAa99XlIEshrZqCrz_4Afw

I guess I'll post a link to the Pat Garrett bootleg here too. In it, you can hear Dylan talk about how Jerry Fielding is going to shit when he hears what he's doing, along with many songs that never made it into the film:

Lucio Fulci's 4 of the Apocalypse, a Manson-inspired Spaghetti from 1975, had a score composed by Fabio Frizzi, Franco Bixio & Vince Tempera w/ lyrics by Rink Greenfield & Peter Cook, who performed it w/ everyone's favorite band The Benjamin Franklin Group

The following year Enzo Castellari's Keoma would try to emulate McCabe & Mrs. Miller and Pat Garrett by ruining a good DeAngelis Bros score with Sybil & Guy caterwauling over it. It makes potentially powerful scenes laughable, especially when Guy seems to be channeling a seal...

Listen at your own risk:

In 1977, Sergio Martino made a Keoma knockoff called Mannaja that was also scored by the DeAngelis Bros, this time with some guy named Dandylion singing over it. The vocals are still silly, but much more tolerable than Sybil & Guy's efforts:

In 1980, Ry Cooder provided the score for Walter Hill's The Long Riders, which just might be the best part of the film (besides the squibs). The Long Riders started life as a play, then a country musical called The Bandit Kings, then a film:

David Mansfield, who, along w/ T-Bone Burnett, was part of Dylan's band during the Rolling Thunder Revue, started scoring films w/ Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate. Both played small parts as members of the roller rink band. Ronnie Hawkins appears too:

The next notable example is Joe Strummer's score for Alex Cox's purposefully anachronistic satire Walker. Like Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, this film had a screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer:

Speaking of Wurlitzer (see alt text), Jim Jarmusch's 1995 acid Western Dead Man had a score by Neil Young. Roger Ebert said it sounded like "a man repeatedly dropping his guitar" but I think that's a bit harsh. It's actually good, if a bit repetitive:

Nick Cave & Warren Ellis scored 2007's The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for fellow Australian Andrew Dominik. Dominik's not a Western fan but cited Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as an influence. Nick Cave cameos as a barroom singer:

2015's Slow West was written & directed by Scottish musician John MacLean of the groups The Beta Band & The Aliens, but Australian singer/songwriter Jed Kurzel took care of scoring duties (more on him later):

The Zellner Bros enlisted Texas "Indietronica" band The Octopus Project for Damsel, their 2018 Western/Comedy starring Robert Pattinson & Mia Wasikowska:

This wasn't intended as an exhaustive list, so feel free to add any you think I should've included. I'll be back later with some honorable mentions for Australian Westerns, pseudo Westerns & Western scores made by some of the folks already mentioned. Cheers!
🤠🤠
🪕🥁🎶

Tony Richardson's 1970 Australian Western Ned Kelly stars Mick Jagger but has music written by Shel Silverstein & performed by country artists Waylon Jennings & Kris Kristofferson.

I'm just as confused as you are (watching it doesn't help)

While we're on the topic of Ned Kelly, Gregor Jordan's 2003 biopic featured music composed by Klaus Badelt & performed by Australian singer-songwriter Bernard Fanning:

While we're *still* on the topic of Ned Kelly, Justin Kurzel's 2019 film True History of the Kelly Gang features a score by Jed Kurzel, who previously scored Slow West. I think it's nice that Justin is giving his little brother work:

Staying in Australia, John Hillcoat's The Proposition (2005) features a score by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis (I'm sure this got them the Assassination of Jesse James gig). Cave also wrote the screenplay. They all reteamed on 2012's Western-tinged Lawless