[SACD-R][OF] Bob Dylan - Pat Garrett And Billy The Kid (Limited edition) - 1973/2019 (Country rock, folk rock, soundtrack)

Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is the 12th studio album and first soundtrack album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on July 13, 1973 by Columbia Records for the Sam Peckinpah film, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Dylan himself appeared in the film as the character “Alias”. The soundtrack consists primarily of instrumental music and was inspired by the movie itself, and included “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door”, which became a trans-Atlantic Top 20 hit. Certified gold by RIAA, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid reached No. 16 US and No. 29 UK.
All Music Review
This album was unusual on several counts. For starters, it was a soundtrack (for Sam Peckinpah’s movie of the same title), a first venture of its kind for Bob Dylan. For another, it was Dylan’s first new LP in three years — he hadn’t been heard from in any form other than the single “George Jackson,” his appearance at the Bangladesh benefit concert in 1971, in all of that time. Finally, it came out at an odd moment of juxtaposition in pop culture history, appearing in July 1973 on the same date as the release of Paul McCartney’s own first prominent venture into film music, on the Live and Let Die soundtrack (the Beatles bassist had previously scored The Family Way, a British project overlooked amid the frenzy of the Beatles’ success). Interestingly, each effort reunited the artist with a significant musician/collaborator from his respective past: McCartney with producer George Martin and Dylan with guitarist Bruce Langhorne, who’d played with him on his early albums up to Bringing It All Back Home, before being supplanted by Mike Bloomfield, et al. But that was where the similarities between the two projects ended — apart from the title song, Live and Let Die was Martin’s project rather than McCartney’s, whereas Dylan was all over Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid as a composer, musician, etc. Additionally, whereas McCartney’s work was a piece of pure pop-oriented rock in connection with a crowd-pleasing action-fantasy film, Dylan’s work comprised an entire LP, and the resulting album was a beautifully simple, sometimes rough-at-the-edges and sometimes gently refined piece of country- and folk-influenced rock, devised to underscore a very serious historical film by one of the movies’ great directorial stylists. It was also as strong as any of his recent albums, featuring not just Langhorne but also such luminaries as Booker T. Jones, Roger McGuinn, and Byron Berline. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” was the obvious hit off the album, and helped drive the sales, but “Billy 1,” “Billy 4,” and “Billy 7” were good songs, too — had any of them shown up on bootlegs, they’d have kept the Dylan semiologists and hagiographers busy for years working over them. The instrumentals surrounding them were also worth hearing as manifestations of Dylan’s music-making; “Bunkhouse Theme” was downright gorgeous. It was the first time since New Morning, in 1970, that Dylan had released more than five minutes of new music at once, and it was a gift to fans as well as to Peckinpah — little did anyone realize at the time that it heralded a period of new recording and a national tour (with the Band), along with a brief label switch, and Dylan’s greatest period of sustained musical visibility since 1966. This record also proved that Dylan could shoehorn his music within the requirements of a movie score without compromising its content or quality, something that only the Beatles, unique among rock artists, had really managed to do up to that time, and that was in their own movie, A Hard Day’s Night. “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” may have been the biggest hit to come out of a Western in at least 21 years, since Dimitri Tiomkin and Ned Washington had given “High Noon” to Tex Ritter to sing in Fred Zinnemann’s High Noon in 1952 (and Katy Jurado was in both movies), and he’d also outdone Ritter on two counts, writing the music — a full score, to boot — and getting a cameo appearance in the film. The album was later kind of overlooked and neglected in the wake of the tour that followed and the imposing musical attributes of, say, Blood on the Tracks and Desire, but heard on its own terms it holds up 30-plus years later.
ELUSIVE:
Bob Dylan's Iconic Soundtrack for Sam Peckinpah's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid Western Film Teems with Personalities, Moods, and Feelings: Includes Original Version of "Knockin' on Heaven's Door"
Unprecedented Sound, Separation, Texture, and Tonality
On the surface, Bob Dylan's Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid serves as a potent soundtrack to Sam Peckinpah's western of the same name. Dating from 1973, the Grammy-nominated set continued a rustic current Dylan explored on prior efforts such as Nashville Skyline and John Wesley Harding. It also demonstrated the singer could successfully lend his talents to a film and produce music that not only illuminated the mood, personalities, and actions on screen but exist and thrive independent of them. Yet Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid is much more, and most importantly, finally receives its just sonic due more than four decades after its initial release.
Mastered from the original master tapes on Mobile Fidelity's world-renowned mastering system, and strictly limited to 2,500 numbered copies, this hybrid SACD features reference-level instrumental separation and full-bodied tones that allow the songs to blossom amidst soundstages whose dimensions are limited only by the breadth of your stereo system. The flinty, raw acoustic edge of Dylan and Bruce Langhorne's guitars come into immediate relief. Booker T. Jones' relaxed albeit taut bass, Jolly Roger's down-home banjo, Russ Kunkel's textured bongos, and the crucial string accompaniments similarly flourish.
Indeed, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid remains both distinctive and intriguing for the cast Dylan assembled for its creation – and their collective performances. Echoing Ry Cooder's adventurous, epoch-defying journeys that would soon follow, the 10-track album effortlessly breathes with country, folk, blues, and old-time pop flavors. A-list collaborators, including drummer Jim Keltner, fiddler Byron Berline, and Byrd legend Roger McGuinn, assist Dylan in making instrumental portraits such as the pensive "Catalina Theme (Working for the Law") and the spry "Turkey Chase" teem with detail, character, and a definite sense of place. Heard anew on Mobile Fidelity's exquisite remaster on SACD, they take on deeper meaning and convey elevated levels of enjoyment.
Of course, the other main reason why Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid remains one of Dylan's most famous works: "Knockin' on Heaven's Door." Transcending the mere status of song, the Bard's simple albeit poignant tune was ostensibly about Sheriff Colin Baker's death in Peckinpah's film yet has gone on to become nothing short of an anthem – a symbolic hymn whose expressiveness encompasses resilience, sorrow, forgiveness, readiness, and more. Covered by dozens of artists and, most famously, by Guns N' Roses, who turned it into a live staple recognized by new generations of fans, the classic is here in its original form, never sounding more significant than it does now.
Dylan's series of three "Billy" numbers, the record's other vocal tracks, also hold up to any other fare in the vocalist's rich catalog. There's not a misstep here or vacant feeling on this expertly executed album, which, for Dylanologists and historians, also represented the icon's first original material in three years – and a prelude to his reunion with the Band and, ultimately, 1975's bracing Blood on the Tracks. In every regard, Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid reigns as a towering statement.