Jimmie Haskell scored the 1971 movie Zachariah but the film
and its soundtrack album also feature music from James Gang, Elvin
Jones and others. It's the 898th
Soundtrack of the Week.
The first track is Haskell's main title theme, a lovely piece featuring flute
and electric guitar that's a bit pastoral, a bit melancholy, airy and dreamy. The energy
picks up when the rhythm section and strings come in. Then we get James Gang's contribution, "Laguna Salada", an instrumental
number that appears only on this record and subsequent compilations. It's the classic
line-up with Joe Walsh on guitar and it's typically awesome. The drummer is the MVP here. Country Joe and The Fish come next with "We're the Crackers", a great rock vocal number
with piano and electric guitar contributing a lot to the sound and feel. There's some
dialogue first that's probably from the movie. There's definitely characters talking
from the film after the track. Jimmie Haskell's arrangement of the "William Tell Overture" starts out straight but
then drums come in and give it a backbeat. After that comes a second song from Country Joe and The Fish. "All I Need" is
a sunny and funny acoustic number about dreams of getting rich. "Ballad of Job Cain" is thick with multiple violins and bluegrass singing about the
title character. These layers of fiddles are really cool. And then, hooray! James Gang are back with "Country Fever". There's a great drum intro,
then the bass comes in with a heavy riff, soon joined by guitar, and this time we get
to hear Joe sing too. It's awesome. Flip the record now and you get three Haskell cues in a row. "The Lonely Ride" begins as the main title did, with flute and electric guitar. Soon strings
and rhythm section join them for mellow, swaying music. "Camino/Used Horse Salesman" has a bit of dialogue from the movie before launching
into a tough rock instrumental that uses horns effectively and has some great electric
guitar playing too. At the end it unexpectedly swerves into a Dixieland jazz
bit that's presumably source music since you hear characters from the movie
talking during it. "Camino Waltz" is a pretty waltz piece with piano and strings and
something like glockenspiel in there too. It's nice. Then we have a piece called "Gravedigger" by The New York Rock
Ensemble. I guess it's kind of rock-classical fusion, rock rhythm
section with oboe and piano. Eventually a singer joins in. It's pretty good and I bet it works
great in the movie. The last band to join the party is White Lightnin' with a song called "Shy Ann".
This is a straight bluegrass number, just banjo and fiddle. The last two tracks are Jimmie Haskell again, with "Matthew", which starts with characters
screaming in the movie before getting into a very atmospheric, dreamy place with eerie
strings and reverby/tremolo electric guitar as well as some other electric sounds and
a trumpet feature, and then a reprise of "Zachariah".

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