DeLalla's Soundtrack for a Trailer for a Novel

December 9, 2017
Here's an art project for your Friday. A novelist, a filmmaker, and a guitarist/composer collaborate on a trailer for a novel. The last of those happens to be my pal Michael DeLalla. Read Michael's notes below, then watch the five minute clip and tell me you don't want to see more or read the novel. I love when creative disciplines merge and make some new thing happen - the spark of pure creativity and artistry molding itself into some new and visceral work. Enjoy. PS - come see Michael and I weave some of those kinds of moments of story and song together here in western Loudoun Saturday January 6th. I promise you won't be disappointed :).

"Sometimes, a project’s creative process takes on a life of its own. For me, this one began with a phone call from author James Anderson about a year ago, asking me to write some music for a trailer for his latest novel Lullaby Road, due in January 2018. He sent me the book; I read it in one sitting.

As I read it, the music virtually wrote itself. The rich, powerful characters all needed their own ‘idee fixe’ or musical representation. From protagonist Ben Jones--his idee fixe, sung by the inimitable Creole music legend Terrance Simien, is actually my arrangement of Leonard Cohen’s “Coming Back to You” (Used by Permission, SONY/ATV Music Publishing and the Estate of Leonard Cohen)—to an abandoned child who lands literally in his lap, to the 3 mysterious Indigenous women of Los Ojos Negros, to the sweeping Utah desert itself.

I hope the music and beautiful film work of director Kent Youngblood inspire you to seek out this thoroughly satisfying book. Congratulations, James—I’m excited for the book’s arrival next month.

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