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Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere CD release:
ODE TO BILLY JOE
Composed and Conducted by Michel Legrand
“Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
In 1967, Billie Joe jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was one of the hottest topics of that summer, all over the world. The fact that it all had to do with a surprise number one hit song shows the power of great storytelling. Everyone was conjecturing what it was that was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge and why Billie Joe had killed himself. It became part of popular culture almost instantly. The song garnered eight Grammy nominations, winning three for Gentry and one for arranger Jimmie Haskell.
Nine years later, Warner Bros. decided to turn the song into a feature film and hired author Herman Raucher (Summer of ’42) to do so. Max Baer, Jr. directed and produced the film – he was, at the time, best known for playing Jethro Bodine on the hit TV series The Beverly Hillbillies. Young actors Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor were cast in the leads, along with Joan Hotchkiss, James Best (giving a sensitive and wonderful performance), and others. Raucher changed the spelling of Billie to Billy and his screenplay fleshed out the events of the song, and gave the audience the reason for Billy Joe’s jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
The film was a box-office hit. Roger Ebert’s review said, “What’s good about the film is that it doesn’t just exploit the materials of the Gentry song. It goes to some lengths to give us a touching, convincing portrait of its people.” Much of that sensitive, touching romantic tragedy can be attributed to the wonderful score by Michel Legrand. Legrand had already scored another hit Warner Bros. film written by Herman Raucher, Summer of ’42, providing that film with an incandescent score and getting an Oscar for it. For Ode to Billy Joe, he wrote a score of great beauty, basically variations on a theme, and one of his most beautiful themes at that. Legrand was and is one of the great film melodists of all time and his music is instantly identifiable and unique to him. While it’s a short score, it does exactly what it needs to do in the film.
Ode to Billy Joe was released on LP by Warner Bros. Records. This is its first CD release. In addition to Legrand’s score cues, the album also contained the classic Gentry song as well as some country-flavored source cues. It has been mastered from the original album masters.
Ode to Billy Joe is limited to 1000 copies only and is priced at $19.98, plus shipping.
CDs will ship by the third week of June, but we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
ATTENTION INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTORS: FOR THIS RELEASE – IF YOU WANT TO OPT-OUT OF RECEIVING IT YOU WILL NEED TO SEND US AN E-MAIL OPTING OUT PRIOR TO THE DATE IT SHIPS – SEND TO kritzerland@gmail.com. IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE IT, YOU DON”T NEED TO DO ANYTHING. IF YOU ARE NOT AN INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTOR, ORDER AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD. THANK YOU.
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Wow! FAN-FREAKING-TASTIC! If I do say myself.
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Kritzerland is proud to present a world premiere CD release:
ODE TO BILLY JOE
Composed and Conducted by Michel Legrand
“Billie Joe McAllister jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge”
In 1967, Billie Joe jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge was one of the hottest topics of that summer, all over the world. The fact that it all had to do with a surprise number one hit song shows the power of great storytelling. Everyone was conjecturing what it was that was thrown off the Tallahatchie Bridge and why Billie Joe had killed himself. It became part of popular culture almost instantly. The song garnered eight Grammy nominations, winning three for Gentry and one for arranger Jimmie Haskell.
Nine years later, Warner Bros. decided to turn the song into a feature film and hired author Herman Raucher (Summer of ’42) to do so. Max Baer, Jr. directed and produced the film – he was, at the time, best known for playing Jethro Bodine on the hit TV series The Beverly Hillbillies. Young actors Robby Benson and Glynnis O’Connor were cast in the leads, along with Joan Hotchkiss, James Best (giving a sensitive and wonderful performance), and others. Raucher changed the spelling of Billie to Billy and his screenplay fleshed out the events of the song, and gave the audience the reason for Billy Joe’s jumping off the Tallahatchie Bridge.
The film was a box-office hit. Roger Ebert’s review said, “What’s good about the film is that it doesn’t just exploit the materials of the Gentry song. It goes to some lengths to give us a touching, convincing portrait of its people.” Much of that sensitive, touching romantic tragedy can be attributed to the wonderful score by Michel Legrand. Legrand had already scored another hit Warner Bros. film written by Herman Raucher, Summer of ’42, providing that film with an incandescent score and getting an Oscar for it. For Ode to Billy Joe, he wrote a score of great beauty, basically variations on a theme, and one of his most beautiful themes at that. Legrand was and is one of the great film melodists of all time and his music is instantly identifiable and unique to him. While it’s a short score, it does exactly what it needs to do in the film.
Ode to Billy Joe was released on LP by Warner Bros. Records. This is its first CD release. In addition to Legrand’s score cues, the album also contained the classic Gentry song as well as some country-flavored source cues. It has been mastered from the original album masters.
Ode to Billy Joe is limited to 1000 copies only and is priced at $19.98, plus shipping.
CDs will ship by the third week of June, but we’ve actually been averaging three to five weeks early in terms of shipping ahead of the official ship date. To place an order, see the cover, or hear audio samples, just visit www.kritzerland.com.
ATTENTION INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTORS: FOR THIS RELEASE – IF YOU WANT TO OPT-OUT OF RECEIVING IT YOU WILL NEED TO SEND US AN E-MAIL OPTING OUT PRIOR TO THE DATE IT SHIPS – SEND TO kritzerland@gmail.com. IF YOU WISH TO RECEIVE IT, YOU DON”T NEED TO DO ANYTHING. IF YOU ARE NOT AN INDIEGOGO CONTRIBUTOR, ORDER AS YOU NORMALLY WOULD. THANK YOU.
There's a Mancini connection to this. He heard Gentry's demo and thought the quality of it was good enough to release. Jimmy Haskell added strings and out it went. Mancini owns the publishing on the song under his Northridge Music publishing company.
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Samples are gorgeous. I am glad I can add this towards the end of my Indiegogo releases. Do you send an e-mail out or include a note when someone gets their final Indiegogo CD to confirm that you consider that their last? I've gotten the emails about number remaining and want to be clear when I receive the last one.
Yes, I think that's the plan.
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Although I'm a big fan of Legrand, this is one score I had never heard. So of course I ordered it, and can't wait to hear it in full. The sound samples were beautiful!
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Wow. The samples have blown me away. Gorgeous. Sounds like a Legrand masterpiece. Way to go Bruce, congrats for getting this out there.
It's short but it's stunning and boy does it work beautifully in the film itself. And I have to say, the Bobbie Gentry song is brilliant in and of itself and the Jimmie Haskell string additions are genius - and I LOVE the instrumental of it they did for the film.
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hows the numbers doing on this? close to selling out. Just wondering?
Moving right along 
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Classic Legrand......Thank you Bruce !
Wonder what happened to that fine young actor Robby Benson, does anyone remember a seventies TV movie called 'Death be not Proud' ?
Robby's around and alive and well. You can find him on Facebook
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