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The Dukes of Hazzard
is the feature film based on a 80's popular - but silly - TV show. In the film
(a Southern action-comedy) cousins Bo (Johnny
Knoxville) and Luke Duke (Seann William Scott) and their car "General
Lee" (an orange 1969 Dodge Charger), assisted by Cousin Daisy (Jessica
Simpson) and Uncle Jesse (Willie Nelson), fight the schemes of the
authorities of Hazzard County - Boss Hogg (Burt Reynolds) and Sheriff
Coltrane (M.C. Gainey). The movie has some fun moments and relies basically in
grosse jokes, car chases and - wow - Jessica Simpson's "artistic attributes".
The available soundtrack album is a song compilation that mixes a lot of
Southern Rock from 70's, 80's and contemporary artists and bands. Of course
we got Uncle Jesse himself, Willie Nelson, plus The Allman Brothers Band,
Stevie Ray Vaughan And Double Trouble, Lynyrd Skynyrd, and the list goes on.
Last but not least, Jessica Simpson sings a "countrified" version
of "These Boots Are Made for Walkin." A very talented girl,
indeed... sadly the album omits completely the score composed by Nathan
Barr, that was edited partially on a limited CD only for the composer's
promotional use.
Barr is an eclectic instrumentalist and composer that began his career in
film music mentored by the Academy-Award winning composer Hans
Zimmer. Since the mid-90's, Barr scored dozens of films including From
Dusk Til Dawn 3, Club Dread and Cabin Fever, as well as
several TV series. For The Dukes of Hazzard, Barr created an
instrumental score that reflects the Southern scenario, the light tone of
the plot and, of course, the fast action delivered by the car chases that we
see at the screen. Barr describes his music as "Allman Brothers meets
AC/DC meets ZZ Top", and he in fact employs the legendary ZZ Top's
guitarist Billy Gibbons, to give to the music an authentic classic rock
feel.
The score can be defined as guitar-oriented, with a solid support provided
by keyboards, harmonica, a more than competent rhythm section and, of
course, fiddle - the instrument that introduces the score in the emblematic
"Welcome to Hazzard". At some moments it reminded me some classics
road movie soundtracks like Vanishing Point, with its
heavy-guitar-rock sense well balanced with country sensibilyties. Despite
the rock backbone, the score incorporates some jazz and blues elements,
carried by its excelent performers. On this Promo CD the music is
distributed mostly in short tracks - two, three minutes in lengh at maximum.
The lenghtier album track is "Atlanta Chase", one of the two bonus
tracks that were not used in the film - The Chases you never Heard.
For me, The Dukes of Hazzard's score is much better than the film
that serves. It's not especially original but features several joyous, fun
and exciting pieces like "The General Lee". It's a shame that it
was not released commercially on CD. If there's another single element of
this production that can matches Nathan Barr's music is the gorgeous look of
Jessica Simpson - and this is the best compliment I can make to the
composer's work. I'm sure that at least you, boys, will understand what I
mean (shorts!). Kudos to Mr. Barr.
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