Submitted for Your Consideration

Born Free

Every month Film Score Monthly releases another limited edtion soundtrack. The latest one (as I write this) is the long absent Born Free. Considering that Barry won two Oscars for this--one for Best Score and the other for Best Song, and the fact that the song became the anthem for the American civil rights movement and the signature song for two male vocalists (Matt Monro and Andy Williams)--it is amazing this soundtrack is only just now available on CD in its original form. Prior to this, the only CD versions were the Eric Talgorn rerecording and various and sundry bootlegs.

The Chase

This one (and Dances With Wolves below) really is new. The Chase is from 1966 when Barry was white-hot as a film scoring machine, yet at that time he was still very rooted in the swinging London scene. At that time he was most noted for his scores to the Bond movies, the Ipcress File, The Knack, and Zulu--all very British movies. So it was quite a change of pace for him to score a Brando movie set in Texas.

This rerelease has two additional tracks not found on the original release:

1. Main Title (alternate)
2. The Chase

I haven't heard either of these tracks yet so I cannot say whether either of these are the "single" version of the title theme that shows up on compilations.

Dances with Wolves

This one (and The Chase above) really is new. Sony rereleased this in conjunction with Barry's 70^th birthday. This is now the 3^rd edition of the soundtrack to have extra music. Epic's first edition had 18 tracks. The Gold Masterdisc edition added three more, and now Sony Legacy adds:

Two other tracks have been expanded from their original versions:

Peter Buffet's Fire Dance never appeared on the original release, though it did on the Gold Masterdisc. I haven't heard Sony's rerelease yet, but I believe that the rest of the new music is unique to this release.

The Appointment

The people at Film Score Monthly keep raising the bar--this is exactly the kind of album that would never see the light of day if it were left to the big labels to produce--you have to love movie music to want to serve this niche market.

The Appointment is released here as a curiosity--it includes the original, rejected score by Michel LeGrand, John Barry & Don Walker's approved theatrical score, and Stu Philips subsequent television score.

This release is available now from Film Score Monthly.

White Buffalo

I never saw the movie, never heard the music, so I can't comment much on it, except that I've never seen such a demonic buffalo as the one on that album cover.

This release is available now. You will probably have to go through the soundtrack specialist mail-order houses to get it.