Customer Reviews

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(10)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you have seen the film Directed by Sam Peckinpah, or if you love Dylan, or even if you just love Westerns and the thematic musical scores from them, this album is for you. You can relive the chase as Pat Garrett hounds Billy the Kid from start to finish across the old west.

There are 10 tracks, music by Bob Dylan, accompanied by Booker T on Bass, Carl Fortina on Harmonium, and Russ Kunkle on Tambourine among other various artists, that capture the story. Four variations of Billy's theme, one recoreded in Mexico City with Terry Paul, tell his story.There is some great foot stompin music "Turkey Chase" and it also includes "Knockin on Heaven's Door", the sad lament of knowing the end is near.For a complete list, see buyer's info.

All the sound is distinctive and clear. It's a great album to pass the time with at home or in the car. also If you have not seen this film and you are a western or Dylan fan you might want to check it out also. Dylan has a supporting role as "Alias", Billy's friend, and he is quite good.

relax and enjoy.....Laurie

also recommended:

The Greatest Western Themes

The reknown southwestern writer, C.L. Sonnichsen, opens his book, "Tulerosa", with the venable paragraph: "The Tulerosa country is a parched desert where everything, from cactus to cowman, carries a weapon of some sort, and the only creatures who sleep with both eyes closed are dead."

The Dylan soundtrack album, "Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid", embodies the soul of this region of New Mexico where both men from the title lived, and died. I don't know if Bob Dylan ever came here to do any type of research, to absorb the essence of our people, but even if not, he captured it in the music played in this album. Billy was many things to many people. Essentially, he was a bright, loyal young man who loved the "gente" of New Mexico. My maternal ancestors scratched out an existance in the Pecos River valley of Puerta de Luna near Ft. Sumner where Billy was slain by Pat Garrett. Dylan's music became a regular play item in my cassette deck as I trudged the back roads of this area in my Jeep CJ in the 70's and 80's. It became popular, too, with many other hispanics who have listened to it. I don't know how many copies were made at request of "viejos" who also detected the spirit of that time period.

If you are looking for Dylan who has tapped into yet another reservoir of the human quintessence, listen to this album...listen to the melody and the words.

This is the soundtrack to a terrific movie, Sam Peckinpah's last western. The film starred Kris Kristoferson, Jason Robards, James Coburn, Rita Coolidge, Slim Pickens, Jack Elam and Bob Dylan, who in my opinion as the outlaw Alias stole the show. There are only three vocals on this LP, but they are good ones, though you can get "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" on about a zillion compilation albums done over the years. The other two vocals are different versions of the outlaw narrative, "Billy", a super cowboy song that ya just gotta love. The instrumental stuff isn't bad either, but I have to say I took the two versions of "Billy" and put `em with "Blood on the Tracks" on my iPod.

Bob Dylan gathered together a cracker jack group of musicians to record this excellent soundtrack, a romantic and mythic ode to a west that could only have existed in a collaboration between two artists walking the desperate line between sentimentality and mourning.

Sam Peckinpah when making the deeply flawed but often beautiful companion film, tottered on the abyss. The film may have marked his falling off the precipice, but Bob Dylan's brilliant fusing of folk, country and western and rock provided a sonic union rarely found in soundtracks. This album serves as a funeral dirge not only for the mythic Billy The Kid, but for Sam Peckinpah also. In fact, Dylan's score makes the film work far better that it perhaps deserves to.

Granted, like the film it echoes, this album does often sound redundant. But when it hits as it does with the brilliant opening theme "Billy" (Wes Anderson resurrects it most magnificently in "Royal Tennenbaums") and of course the classic "Knocking On Heaven's Door". Dylan even pulls off a comical Kris Kristofferson impersonation in one cut. Much of this album contains arguably some of Dlyan's finest instrumental and acoustic work. The sheer sound of the music evokes strong images of southwestern sunsets and small rivers rolling lazily by sandy dunes. It evokes images of time passing and figures holding passionately to the ephemeral. To quote the film:

"It feels like times have changed"

"Times maybe. . . but not me."

Like Ry Cooder's equally excellent score for "The Long Riders", Dylan transcended time and space and created a great album that made a film work.

Odd how many of the collection-fillers purchased recently have been from the mid-1970's. One thing about really good music is that it is not tied tightly to a particular time. My vinyl record (remember those?) is one big scratch at this point, so it was time for a CD.

Peckinpah's film is infamous in its own way for showing up at different theaters in different versions - quite literally edited with different scenes in different places. Now this has settled to a director's cut (103 minutes with everything in the order Sam Peckinpah wanted), a chopped and sanitzed version for broadcast, and the random versions still floating around of alternative cuttings. So it was left to Bob Dylan, along with Byron Berline and Sundance, to provide a consistent and thematic assurance to the audiences of varying versions. In Berline's "Turkey Run", the music tells you the gang is racing around on horses, chasing wild turkeys. In the hit "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" one knows there is a noble death impending; on the screen this understated scene is amplified mightily in emotional impact by Dylan's song. Even the recurrent simple guitar riffs are pleasant.

This is also one of the great rush-hour albums. Pop it on during that horrendous hour-long commute on the 405, and spend the time on a dusty ranch in the Old West; the gritty and realistic old West as portrayed in the film. Good schtuff!

I had this on LP when I was a kid in the 70s.
Hearing it on CD makes it even better.
Acoustic ballads, blue grass and some great Dylan lyrics

A must get

Great album to throw in and get taken into the old west, acoustic guitars with simple dusty boots and gun slingin' singin'. If you have ever driven' through AZ. or CO. and felt like becoming a cowboy (cowgirl) then this album will be a favorite for that person inside you. If your looking for a Dylan album for your collection, get Blonde on Blonde.

Growing up my Dad would play this one over and over on his 8-track tape. He eventually taped it onto a cassette and scratchy as it sounded would play it until he drove my mom or his secretary nutty. They finally destroyed the cassette. I'm buying the CD for his birthday. He'll be thrilled, they won't. Who cares! It will make him happy. I sometimes wonder if only a diehard Dylan fan knows this recording. It is an incredible album! Wonder if Dad will let me borrow it?

Most people see Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid as nothing more than a really long super-maxi-single for "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" with several unnecessary re-mixes of the B-Side, "Billy". While it's hard to argue that there are any other songs on this album (or any other album by Dylan or not) as good as "Knockin'", if you're only interested in Bob for his words you're going to miss a whole lot here. It is easily Bob's most instrumental heavy album (and since it's really a soundtrack, that's too be expected). Most people can't even really tell these songlets apart. Which means they miss all the fun goofy humor in the banjo-laden "Turkey Chase" (my second favorite song on the album). And of the songs that do have words, you get three different vocal versions of "Billy" (numbered 1, 4 and 7 for some reason) as well as another instrumental. Sure, all three offer up pretty close to identical lyrics - all which are little more than dumbed-down Cliff's Notes versions of the plot of the movie. Musically they do each convey a subtly different mood. Okay, "Billy" is not a particularly great song, but despite its reputation as an all-time classic, "Knockin' On Heaven's Door" actually is. And regardless of Eric Clapton or Axl Rose's attempts to steal this song, the Pat Garrett & Billy The Kid version remains the definitive one. Sure, this album is a lost great classic, but it's certainly worth more than just that one song.

I'm not giving five stars because that means flawless but is a real fine piece of work. Contrary to these Amazon reviews, I've read many others from different sources that completely dumped on this album. Why? True, it doesn't have the power, emotion, and lyrics (besides Knockin on heaven's door) that made Dylan famous, but I always find myself listening to it because it's just so easy to take in. I love it. It shows Dylan's instrumental and musical talent (not just poetry). It's flaw are some not so great instrumentals (turkey chase, Catina Theme), and not being his classic power. Don't turn away from this album, though! Gems: Main Title Theme (Billy), Knockin on Heaven's Door, Final Theme, Billy 7, River Theme