A while back, I ran across someone writing about the soundtrack to Nicolas Roeg's Performance, saying that, upon revisiting it, he was reminded what a great soundtrack it was. My vinyl copy long gone (again, into the DJ ether), it prompted me to repurchase it, and I gotta say, he was right. Some of you are probably aware of the Mick Jagger cut on it, "Memo From Turner," but the quality of the whole thing is more a testament to Jack Nitzsche's conception, production and the talent he amassed.
Nevermind the vocals (Jagger, Merry Clayton, Buffy Sainte-Marie, the Last Poets, and a young Randy Newman), the backing band included Ry Cooder, Lowell George, Gene Clark and Russ Titleman, among others. The instrumentation included everything from soup to nuts: sitar, dulcimer, Cooder bottleneck, and some Moog (that's an early synthesizer, for you young lawn dwellers). I could only find "Memo From Turner," from that soundtrack, so to round things out, here's "The Last Race," a Nitzsche original that old farts might remember from 1965 film, The Village of the Giants, and you youngsters will recognize as a song from Quentin Tarantino's Death Proof. Nitzsche didn't do just soundtracks, he was everywhere, as writer, producer and conduit of talent. To really appreciate Nitzsche, you ought to check out the excellent profile at The Hound Blog. Though the mp3 links have expired, read it. You will be blown away at how many things have Nitzschtink on them. These two are just a molecule on the tip of the iceberg.
~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~
Mick Jagger - Memo From Turner mp3 at Giant PantherJack Nitzsche - The Last Race mp3 at MarkMizzles.WhyPrime
Jack Nitzsche - Excellent profile at The Hound
Jack Nitzsche - Exhaustive discography at Spectropop
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