{"id":9371,"date":"2009-04-23T19:02:01","date_gmt":"2009-04-23T19:02:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=9371"},"modified":"2024-04-08T07:27:43","modified_gmt":"2024-04-08T11:27:43","slug":"album-review-walk-the-line-soundtrack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2009\/04\/23\/album-review-walk-the-line-soundtrack\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Walk the Line (Soundtrack)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"walktheline\"<\/p>\n

Val Kilmer would be proud. The nearest, best antecedent to the soundtrack to the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line<\/i> is Kilmer’s vocal turn in Oliver Stone’s The Doors<\/i>. In the Cash film, the decision was made to use new recordings of old classics, rather than having actors lip-synch to other recordings (presumably robbing Ashlee Simpson of her chance to co-star as June Carter Cash).<\/p>\n

Paradoxically, the approach lends an air of authenticity to the proceedings. Neither Joaquin Phoenix (Johnny) nor Reese Witherspoon (June) apes their subjects; instead they work to capture their feel, their essence. Arguably they nailed it.<\/p>\n

Throughout the disc — though most notably on Witherspoon’s “Juke Box Blues,” Phoenix’s opener “Get Rhythm” and the rollicking “Jackson” duet — the musical spirit of Americana is faithfully evoked. In spots, the vocalists sound slightly winded; this merely adds to the charm and “authenticity” of the renditions.<\/p>\n

Credit is due as well to T-Bone Burnett an old hand at this sort of thing (The O Brother Where Art Thou?<\/i> soundtrack, Spinal Tap) for his pastiche approach to production values. No overt attempt is made to “update” the songs or soften their edges for contemporary audiences.<\/p>\n

In sum, Walk The Line<\/i> is quite successful for what it is, and (perhaps most importantly from an artistic angle) likely to encourage a generation of new fans to seek out the original recordings. For an extra credit assignment they should find out why Johnny Cash, this most American of artists, wore black.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Val Kilmer would be proud. The nearest, best antecedent to the soundtrack to the 2005 Johnny Cash biopic Walk The Line is Kilmer’s vocal turn in Oliver Stone’s The Doors. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[20,65,70],"tags":[2535],"class_list":["post-9371","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-country","category-review","category-soundtrack","tag-walk-the-line","cat-20-id","cat-65-id","cat-70-id"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9371"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27416,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9371\/revisions\/27416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9371"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9371"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9371"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}