Green Mile Soundtrack CD

Original score by Thomas Newman.
Personnel: Thomas Newman (piano); Billie Holiday (vocals); Sid Page (violin); Jon Clarke (oboe); Michael Fisher (vibraphone, marimba).
Audio Mixers: Dennis Sands; Thomas Newman.
Recording information: Fox Newman Scoring Stage; Signet Soundelux Studios; TODD-AO Scoring Stage.
Film composer Thomas Newman (son of film composer Alfred Newman and cousin of film composer Randy Newman), who wrote the score for The Shawshank Redemption, reunites with its director Frank Darabont for another period prison film based on another novel by Stephen King. Newman's 32 music cues on this soundtrack album range from lush, sensitive orchestral passages to acoustic guitar, banjo, and Jew's harp segments evocative of the film's interwar Southern setting. Interspersed are period recordings including an excerpt from the 1935 film Top Hat in which Fred Astaire sings "Cheek to Cheek." For the most part, Newman's music is restrained, though it is often ominous and when necessary (e.g., "The Bad Death of Eduard Delacroix") is highly dramatic. Like his cousin, Newman knows his way around the Deep South, and like his father he is steeped in the use of symphonic music to punctuate cinematic action. ~ William Ruhlmann
Although the movie (from a Stephen King novel) is set in the '30s, THE GREEN MILE's score by Thomas Newman (son of Alfred, cousin of Randy) is thoroughly contemporary, and postmodern to the max in its mix of styles and sounds. Newman is equally at home with a full orchestra, a rock band, or samples; his score switches on a dime from full-bore Copland-esque Marlboro Country Americana to bluesy acoustic slide guitar. The only real concessions to the period here are Fred Astaire singing "Cheek to Cheek" (from TOP HAT), along with songs by Billie Holiday ("I Can't Give You Anything But Love"), Guy Lombardo ("Charmaine"), and unjustly forgotten '30s pop star crooner Gene Austin ("Did You Ever See a Dream Walking?").