Easy Rider: Original Motion Picture Soundtrack
This one goes back to when I bought that entire record collection from an estate sale for a buck. There were some real winners with rough covers in that collection.
Now, the movie Easy Rider might possibly be one of the greatest counterculture movies of all time, you’ve got Dennis Hopper, Jack Nicholson, Peter Fonda and Karen Black in it, you have a fantastic soundtrack – but it’s one of those movies that you really have to watch twice, once for the experience and again for the story.
The album opens with Steppenwolf performing “The Pusher” – and it’s a true acid rock, psychedelic song not only in the theme, which tells the difference between a ‘dealer‘ and a ‘pusher‘ – it’s done real well, with lots heavy guitar riffs. The song ends with the sound of a motorcycle revving before going into Steppenwolf’s most known song, “Born to Be Wild” – and if you haven’t heard it before, which I don’t know who hasn’t, but if you haven’t it’s got one of the thickest basslines, and a guitar that roars and vocally, it’s pleasing. We continue with the song “The Weight” – which in my opinion is the greatest song, of all time, it’s a beautiful country rock song by the Band, originally performed by Levon Helm and Rick Danko on vocals, the version on the album is done by another band called Smith. I can say, as much as I love this song, this version just doesn’t hold up to the Band’s original version. We continue with “I Wasn’t Born to Follow” by the Byrds, and all the guitar effects in this song is absolutely unbelievable, it truly is a classic song. It was also co-written by Carole King. We end the A-Side with “If You Want to Be a Bird” by the Holy Modal Rounders, and to me it comes off more like a novelty song, and not really up my alley, but hey, it fits with the theme of the movie.
“Don’t Bogart Me” by the Fraternity of Man comes next, and it is a song about smoking weed. It does give off some Zappa vibes, which is kind of understandable since they do a cover of a Zappa song on one of their albums, and one of their members, Elliot Ingber, joined from Zappa’s Mothers of Invention. The Jimi Hendrix Experience follows up with “If Six Was Nine” and it’s a psychedelic blues rock song portraying the conflicts of the hippie counterculture of the sixties, and with all Hendrix songs, you know that it’s filled with some of the greatest riffs in rock music, and it’s almost like a jam session. Absolutely fantastic. Even some little flues and stuff near the end of the song. We continue with The Electric Prunes and their song, “Kyrie Eleison” and it comes off a bit almost like a chant like song, with electrified music. At least a first it comes off like that, then we start getting some heavy riffs, before we fade back to the eerie chant-y type vocals. The album continues with Roger McGuinn of the Byrds performing a cover of Bob Dylan’s “It’s Alright Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” and Bob Dylan in the 60’s was a poetic force of nature, this song on it’s own proves that, Roger McGuinn’s rapid fire delivery of it, accompanied by the acoustic guitar makes for a fantastic cover. We get a sound excerpt of the ending of the film as we go into Roger McGuinn singing “Ballad of Easy Rider” – now I’ve never heard this version in it’s entirety, but I have heard Fairport Convention’s cover of it, so tonight I’m listening to it. It’s a nice song, relaxing and makes for a great way to close out the album.
Catalog Number:
MS 2026
Credits:
None listed.
Released:
1970
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