Does anyone know if the "Hud" soundtrack is available anywhere?
I'm talking about the score AND the fabulous country songs we hear being played on Brandon De Wilde's pocket radio throughout the movie.
Thanks!
Dry your eyes baby, it's out of character. ~Notorious
If there ever was a ‘Hud’ soundtrack released, history has done a neat job of hiding it away.
Like all aspects of the film, the music serves up a flawless piece of the perfect whole.
Plaintive noodlings on a gut string guitar ripple across the infinity of west Texas.
Twangy cowboy harmonies strain out of Lon’s transistor radio.
Music is used sparingly -- not a measure more than is necessary--to evoke the mood of this masterpiece.
The ambient tracks, heard on the transistor and jukes in town, were recorded in Hollywood by Skeets McDonald’s band with Janet McBride singing harmony.
The selections are Wabash Cannonball (made famous by the Carter Family and Roy Acuff), Driftwood on the River (an Ernest Tubb bellwether by Klenner and Miller) and Honey Love ( a Tubb obscurity from Clay Allen and Leon Rhodes).
I’ve scoured the nooks and crannies of the internet in search of these recordings and they are nowhere to be found.
In their absence, y’all might enjoy Skeets McDonald on YouTube performing 'What a Lonesome Life it’s Been' with Billy Mize on pedal steel. I can just imagine that number blaring out of Lon’s heart pocket.
You’ll find a brief mention of the 'Hud' recording session in Janet McBride’s bio on this site:
http://www.hillbilly-music.com/artists/story/index.php?id=14349
“Honcho, I just hope for your sake this house is on fire”
I'm still trying to find it, but I've got an old 45 pressing of the title theme simply entitled; "HUD" and for the life of me I can't remember the performer's name.
The record came from WIBC radio in Indianapolis when my dad worked there in the early 1960s, he used to bring home all the rotated-out music and all the b-list stuff for my mom to look through.
I want to say it was recorded on the Chancellor label like a lot of other movie "themes" that made their way through the station, I found one tonight for the movie "Black Zoo" and am still digging to try to find that copy of "Hud"
I can remember a bit of the lyrics, it starts out with:
"They tell the story how when Hud was born,
the Fates got together in the early morn'.
The Fates got together--and they made a man unable to love,
they made a lonely man.
Hud, Hud Bannon..."
It goes on like that for a few stanzas.
If and when I find the record I'll update and make the recording available if anyone is interested.
EDIT:
I just remembered the second stanza, funny how this stuff hits you:
"His legs were the iron from a railroad tie,
his eyes were the thunderbolts from out of the sky.
Each arm was an anvil--that could pound all day.
And when it came to his heart, well the Fates just looked away.
Hud, Hud Bannon..."
12-17-09 EDIT
Mystery solved, I finally found the 45, the single was pressed under the Philips label and it was performed by Darrell McCall.
Once I found the record a quick search on Google answered everything else.
Thank goodness for the internet.