![]() That film helped make Bill Haley and His Comets’ "Rock Around the Clock" a monster hit. And the previous year's The Graduate included a handful of Simon & Garfunkel songs to spotlight the protagonist's alienation.Įasy Rider instead used contemporary rock songs – many already hits – as its soundtrack, a technique pioneered in 1955’s Blackboard Jungle. Hollywood soundtracks until then were usually an instrumental background score or a collection of songs written specifically for a film. ![]() One of the groundbreaking aspects of Easy Rider is its music. Along the way they meet hippies, rednecks and George Hanson (played by Jack Nicholson), a hard-drinking lawyer who joins them. ![]() With the money hidden in the gas tank of Wyatt’s bike, the pair travel from Los Angeles to New Orleans to celebrate Mardi Gras, then head to Florida to retire. With it, the rock soundtrack album came of age and gave the music industry an additional income stream: synchronization.Īnd these days, that's what it's all about, man.The film follows Wyatt, aka "Captain America," (played by Fonda) and his friend Billy (Hopper), who just made a major drug sale. Easy Rider was everywhere.Įasy Rider was a profit-making movie that hit 60s counterculture with a shock of recognition. The songs were sequenced in the same order as they appeared in the film. The film's huge success led to its soundtrack being released. It grossed over 19 million dollars.Īccording to Fonda, those numbers led the film's distributors (Columbia) to “stop shaking their heads in non-comprehension and start nodding their heads in non-comprehension”. The film was made on a budget of under a half a million non-studio dollars, most of which came from Peter Fonda's Diners Club credit card. ![]() They'd been hired to write an original score for the film, but when they saw the rough cut, which included the tracks chosen by Fonda and Hopper, they decided they couldn't beat it.Įasy Rider was the fourth highest-grossing American movie of 1969 and was the beginning of a power shift from the Hollywood old guard to a group of new independent producers. It started in the edit suite, almost by accident – Fonda and Hopper used music they'd heard on the radio, and from their own record collections to make watching hours of bike footage more interesting.Įnter Crosby, Stills and Nash. It featured tracks from popular acts including The Band, Jimi Hendrix, Steppenwolf, The Byrds, Roger McGuinn, and the Electric Prunes, as well as giving one-hit-wonder status to a couple of bands who'd never have broken through without their inclusion in the movie.īut how did the Easy Rider soundtrack come together? Hollywood soundtracks up until then had featured scores, often orchestral, written specifically for films. Young people had also never heard the music they loved – rock music – featured in a film soundtrack. Trevor Reekie tells the story of Easy Rider and its soundtrackīack in 1969, it was very rare to see accurate portrayals of young people in film.Įasy Rider's director Dennis Hopper said at the time, "At every love-in across the country young people were smoking grass and dropping acid, while back home audiences were watching Doris Day and Rock Hudson."
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