THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK (1980)

This is the first post in what I plan to be a blog tracing my life through the movie and TV soundtrack albums which I collected through the years.  One primary inspiration for me is found in the 2000 movie HIGH FIDELITY (based on the great book by Nick Hornby) in which the main character, Rob, decides to re-organize his massive record collection in autobiographical order. Instead of alphabetical by artist, for instance, his records would be in the order in which he purchased them or they were gifted, so he could trace what album led to what and how he got to where he was as a music fan and collector.  While my music genre of choice, film music, is different, I still thought it was be an interesting and enlightening effort to try this myself as a blog, charting where I began, what I discovered along the way, comments on the music and movie and a personal snapshot of my life at that time.

My own soundtrack collection stands at roughly 1200 albums, so with luck I shouldn’t run out of titles, but perhaps the personal snapshots will be exhausted by then!  At times the movies themselves will not be well-known, but not always deservedly so.  In addition, the term “soundtrack” for many people translates to songs heard in the film, which can be true, but for me it equates to the underscore, the music composed and performed specifically to sequences.  Collecting and learning about music for the movies has been one constant passion of mine for the majority of my life.

All of this would need to begin with 1980's STAR WARS: THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK.  Like most kids at that time, I was obsessed with the universe presented in the original STAR WARS (1977) and by the time 1980 rolled around and I was seven years old, it pretty much dominated my waking life.  Surprisingly, I never owned the 2-LP soundtrack album to STAR WARS, but thankfully my mom was insightful enough to purchase the double album for the sequel for me.  We lived in Midland, TX then and shopped at the local Woolworth's.  I can still recall the small display of records near the check-out counters and exit.  I can still see the album cover among those on display, all wrapped in cellophane with large, round red stickers on the front listing the price.  Darth Vader's visage set against a background of deep space transfixed my gaze.  I am almost positive I dragged mom over to the stand, hopefully I asked politely.

That double LP set was played endlessly in the years that followed, its grooves soon worn down like speed bumps on the town’s busiest street.  It was a stellar presentation to boot, with multiple full-color glossy photos from the film, plus captions, character profiles, track-by-track descriptions, all capped off by an informative interview with composer John Williams himself.  Questions ranged from the use of percussion and piano on the amazing album track “The Battle on the Snow” to how many minutes of music were needed for the entire film.

From a very young age, I had already been fascinated with classical music and this score really furthered my interest in what an orchestra could accomplish, whether for film, TV or the concert stage.  THE EMPIRE STRIKES BACK became one of the templates for what I gravitated to in movie music.  Even though in the ensuing years I discovered and enjoyed a whole variety of musical styles, including electronic, this remained my gold standard for a grand, orchestral score, one full of melody, invention, energy and emotion.

The music on those black platters became the soundtrack for the adventures my two sisters and me imagined.  Using a portable cassette desk, we would record ourselves, creating our own custom radio programs, all of which proved hilarious, not surprisingly, when listened to years later.  Due to my family relocating quite a bit during the 70's and 80's, my sisters and I became each others best friends.  In 1980 we called Midland, TX home, but this time period included moving to three different houses.  Prior to Midland, the family had lived in Oklahoma City, OK for a year, where I was born, and Jacksonville, FL, where my older sister entered the world.  My younger sister represents the Lone Star state, as she was born during those years we resided in Midland.

With our homes, schools and towns changing for us often in those days, it was inevitable that we would form a close bond, not just as siblings, but as three kids who liked the same things, loved being together and really trusted one another.  Fights were relatively infrequent, there was only the difficult choice between playing "big people STAR WARS" or "little people STAR WARS"... in other words, the three of us as the characters or haul out the action figures? 

I think this score also has the distinction for me of being the one most often purchased, when media formats shifted.  The LP, which I still own, eventually gathered scratches.  I made many copies on home-made cassette for frequent listens, then around 1988 I finally grabbed an official copy of the soundtrack on long-play cassette.  Following this was a 1993 CD box set containing all three original trilogy scores, each with more music included on disc than what was on the initial album releases.  Lastly, there was the complete, every-note-heard-in-the-move-and-then-some 2-CD set from Sony, coinciding with the 1997 theatrical re-release of the film.

In addition, there was a stellar re-recording of highlights from the score, performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra, conducted by Charles Gerhardt and featuring some arrangements unique to its version, such as a concert-ready version of “The Asteroid Field” and Han & Leia’s theme. Listen below for Gerhardt's version of "The Battle In The Snow". This was another essential purchase, a nice companion piece to the official soundtrack from the film. For me, THE EMPIRE STRIKES is a score that has stood the test of time and been a musical constant since 1980, across four states, nine cities and many homes. It's not only a varied and expressive score and a highlight of composer John Williams's career, but it's my touchstone as the first step into the weird, wonderful world of music for the movies.