Dead Man Walking [Original Soundtrack + DVD]

Performer: Original Soundtrack
Distributor: Sony Music Distribution (

Notes: MUSIC FROM AND INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE DEAD MAN WALKING contains 12 songs, all written and recorded exclusively for this album. A portion of the royalties from the sales of this album are being donated to Murder Victims Families For Reconciliation, Inc. and Hope House, Inc. Producers include: Bruce Springsteen, Chuck Plotkin, Ry Cooder, Mitchell Froom, Suzanne Vega. Engineers include: Toby Scott, Allen Sides, Tchad Blake. Includes liner notes by Tim Robbins. Bruce Springsteen's "Dead Man Walkin'" was nominated for a 1997 Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance. The tenth anniversary edition of the "soundtrack," a bit of a misnomer since only four of the album's tracks were used in the film, for Dead Man Walking is as poignant and arresting as it was in 1996. The film by Tim Robbins that starred Susan Sarandon and Sean Penn was a powerful meditation on the death penalty. Robbins showed the film to a number of musicians and asked them to contribute music; the most unusual pairing was between the late Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan and Eddie Vedder. This edition comes with an added bonus, not only does the original album have a bonus track -- a studio version of Vedder's "Dead Man" -- there is a DVD added as a second disc in the package. Not in Our Name, the Dead Man Walking Concert took place on March 29, 1998. This show included performances by Steve Earle and Lyle Lovett (separate and together), Ani Difranco, Eddie Vedder, Jeff Ament, Rahat Fateh Ali Khan, Dildar Hussain, John Densmore (the Doors) and David Robbins. The show itself is deeply moving, and is hosted by Tim Robbins and Sister Helen Prejean, whose autobiographical book Dead Man Walking the film was based on. This edition, with the added concert puts the music from the soundtrack into a new, and different context. The liner book is filled with notes and photos, letters from Robbins, Prejean, Densmore, DiFranco, and most importantly perhaps, by Susan McMahon from Active Music who produced the concert as a benefit for Prejean's work and MVFR -- Murder Victims' Families for Reconciliation -- who educate and oppose the death penalty. Her comments on the societal costs and capital punishment don't read like a sermon, but as a complex tragedy on both sides of the fence. Highly recommended. ~ Thom Jurek Although it is not strictly a soundtrack -- only four songs on the album were featured in the Tim Robbins film -- Dead Man Walking is nevertheless a fascinating listen. Robbins played a rough cut of his film to a number of musicians, asking them to contribute a song if they were intrigued by the story of a condemned prisoner on death row. Nearly every musician he approached contributed a song, and they are collected on Dead Man Walking. The star power of the album is impressive -- Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Eddie Vedder, Lyle Lovett, Patti Smith, Suzanne Vega, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Steve Earle all are featured on the record -- but names alone wouldn't make Dead Man Walking a musical success. Fortunately, most of the musicians contribute first-rate material, such as Springsteen's spare, haunting title track, Waits' gallows humor, and the bizarrely appropriate teaming of Vedder and Nusrat Fateh Ali Kahn. Not only is the album an unusually constructed soundtrack, it is an unusually effective one, boasting almost no dead weight. It's one of those rare soundtracks that is as compelling as the film itself. ~ Stephen Thomas Erlewine Not quite a soundtrack, MUSIC FROM AND INSPIRED BY THE MOTION PICTURE DEAD MAN WALKING is the result of director Tim Robbins sending a rough cut of the film to his favorite singer-songwriters and asking them to respond in song. Not all the songs were used in the movie, but on disc they form a separate and equally powerful meditation on the same basic subjects: sin, redemption and the thoughts that run through a man's head as he awaits execution. The performers may be the most awesome group of Dylan disciples ever collected in one place--Bruce Springsteen, Johnny Cash, Patti Smith, Tom Waits and Pearl Jam's Eddie Vedder (who does two mystical duets with Pakistani singer Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan) among them--and the sum is something like Springsteen's NEBRASKA re-seen through a chimera of eyes. The music is nearly as stark, but much more varied--plainspoken folk from Springsteen and Lyle Lovett, defiantly sassy blues from Waits and Michelle Shocked, spiritual, droning tones from Smith, Vedder and Khan. And while hopelessness and resignation flow through all of the songs, there is a gospel undercurrent as well--a suggestion that while love may not conquer all, it may somehow still survive even after all is conquered.

Rolling Stone (1/25/96, p.69) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...12 original songs...that explore the emotional, spiritual and moral tug of war surrounding the plight of a death-row inmate and his victim's families..." Q (3/96, p.94) - 4 Stars (out of 5) - "...this is a coherent piece of work, immersed in the story and themes of the movie, and engrossing from first to last..." Alternative Press (5/96, p.75) - "...a soundtrack that actually dares to have some relevance to the movie it's singing about..." Option (3-4/96, p.99) - "...an elegant, richly textured soundscape that moves far beyond pop narcissism to inhabit a spiritual place all its own..." Musician (4/96, p.92) - "Though it's packaged like any other star-heavy soundtrack collection, this one is really a...meditation on justice, prison and the death penalty..." NME (Magazine) (1/27/96, p.44) - 8 (out of 10) - "...The real coup was getting Eddie Vedder together with Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan....It's a great exercise in self-respect, as Nusrat lets his voice rip along the scales, but still leaves Eddie the space to trail his melancholy tones..."

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