Buysoundtrax has announced two new upcoming CDs presenting the scores for films made in the late 1970s.

AVALANCHE was one of the last of the 70s run of disaster movies that saw such blockbuster hits as Oscar winners The Poseidon Adventure, Earthquake and The Towering Inferno (as well as less successful films like The Swarm and Beyond the Poseidon Adventure). Avalanche was a Roger Corman production directed by TV veteran Corey Allen (whose resume encompassed everything from an acting role in Rebel Without a Cause to directing duties on the Star Trek: The Next Generation pilot), starring Rock Hudson, Mia Farrow and Robert Forster. The film's score was composed by William Kraft, who is best known for his concert work but his other film credits include Ralph Bakshi's Fire and Ice. The original soundtrack LP was released by Delos, and the Buysoundtrax CD, limited to 1000 units, features the LP tracks followed by a half-dozen bonus cues.

Their other new CD is the first ever release of the soundtrack to the comedy HARDLY WORKING, one of the last director-star vehicles for the legendary Jerry Lewis, with a score by Emmy winner Morton Stevens (Hawaii Five-O, Masada, Police Woman). This CD, limited to 1000 units, features Stevens' complete score as well as source cues.

Number 66

By now the word here and elsewhere has spread about the fantastic new TRIBUTE FILM CLASSICS recording of Bernard Herrmann’s THE BATTLE OF NERETVA / THE NAKED AND THE DEAD. It’s hard to imagine a much better recording both in terms of sonic recording quality and pitch perfect to the spirit execution by both orchestra and conductor, The Moscow Symphony Orchestra and William Stromberg respectively. I feel it has set a new benchmark for re-recordings of film scores for it's outstanding presentation of a score that was not particularly well served in its OST release.

Much praise has been lavished upon Bill Stromberg and John Morgan for this outstanding recording and for which they are both totally deserving of, but they are only two of the members of the team responsible for the artistic quality of the TRIBUTE recordings, the third being Anna Bonn Stromberg. I feel it’s way past time that Anna gets the recognition she deserves for these nothing short of spectacular recordings. She is an integral and equal part of the TRI(for three)BUTE team.

Lee Holdridge scored the 2010 documentary WINSTON CHURCHILL: WALKING WITH DESTINY for director Richard Trank, who won an Oscar for producing the documentary The Long Way Home, also scored by Holdridge. The Intrada Signature Edition CD features 77 minutes of Holdridge's score, with the composer conducting the Slovak National Symphony Orchestra.

Bource's Artist score also won the Critics Choice award, while most of you probably already know that Vertigo star Kim Novak spoke out publicly decrying the use of a cue from Bernard Herrmann's Vertigo score in The Artist, putting an ad in Variety which compared the film's use of Herrmann's music to "A RAPE." Now, Herrmann himself did not like to hear others re-use his music (so it would be interesting to know what he would have thought of the reworking of his scores for Cape Fear and Psycho in those films' remakes), but I'd like to think even he wouldn't have gone that far.  But you never know. 

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Since 2003, when Michael Kamen was taken from us at far too young an age, fans of the composer have bemoaned the fact that, unlike other popular film composers of the last few decades, there have been surprisingly few releases of his expanded or previously unreleased scores. Last year saw a near-instant sell-out of La-La Land's expanded and remastered version of one of Kamen's finest and most popular scores, Die Hard, and this month is practically a Kamen Christmas In January, with three new CDs of previously unreleased Kamen music.

This week Intrada announced two of these, featuring action scores from 1989 that have never been commercially released. ROAD HOUSE was a modern day Western transposing the tropes of the gunfighter genre to the story of a modern-day "cooler" (a head bar-bouncer) who tries to clean up a Missouri dive only to find himself in increasingly deep trouble. The director was Rowdy Herrington, whose other credits include Jack's Back, Striking Distance, and the underrated Bobby Jones: Stroke of Genius, and the film's star was Patrick Swayze, fresh off the success of Dirty Dancing. The film was produced by Joel Silver, and though it wasn't a franchise-spawning smash like several other Silver productions of the era (such as 48 Hrs., Lethal Weapon, Predator and Die Hard), it arguably has the biggest cult following of all his films (yes, even bigger than Action Jackson). The original soundtrack CD featured only the film's songs, including those performed on screen by the late Jeff Healey, who has a prominent role in the film. The Intrada CD, which can be pre-ordered now and is expected to begin shipping late next week, features nearly all of the music recorded for the film by Kamen -- a pair of cues from the final version of the film are unfortunately lost, but the CD features much music not included in the film including Kamen's original versions of the climactic cues, recorded for a small ensemble. The liner notes are by me.

Coming this week from Intrada is another Kamen action score from 1989, RENEGADES, which reteamed Young Guns co-stars Keifer Sutherland and Lou Diamond Phillips in a thriller from director Jack Sholder, fresh off the sci-fi cult hit The Hidden. This is the first soundtrack release of any kind for the film, and the Intrada CD features 77 minutes of Kamen music.

Kamen was working on the animated feature BACK TO GAYA (aka Boo, Zino & the Snurks) at the time of his death, and the score was completed by his frequent collaborators Steve McLaughlin and Christopher Brooks, who also incoporated previously unused Kamen music composed for other films. MovieScore Media presents the first release of Kamen's Back to Gaya score in a 1000-unit limited edition next week, with a portion of the proceeds going to Mr. Holland's Opus Foundation, which was founded by Kamen to support music education.