Tuesday, November 13, 2007
It's Official: The Wire Soundtrack Arrives on Nonesuch January 8th, 2008
This is big big news that I've known was coming for a while now, and it was torture keeping it under wraps. I'd been in contact with Blake Leyh since earlier this year, and a couple months ago he told me they'd made a deal to release a soundtrack. I've written a lot about The Wire's use of music by Baltimore artists before, so this is a big deal to me. Check out the full announcements from Blake and Nonesuch Records below, with details on who will be on the soundtrack (including Mullyman, Ogun, Diablo, Tyree Colion and Rod Lee) [EDIT: Blake says in the comments that Bossman is also included on the CD]:
Greetings, Wire Fans...
After years of anticipation, The Wire Soundtrack will finally be released on January 8th, 2008, on Nonesuch Records. We are currently in the very final stages of production of the record, and I can say without reservation that the project is everything I always hoped it would be. It turns out David Bither and Bob Hurwitz at Nonesuch are huge Wire fans, and they have given us incredible support and creative
freedom to do the record the right way. It includes many of the show's most important musical signatures, including several versions of Way Down In The Hole, all of the season-end montage songs, a great selection of Baltimore club and hip-hop, The Pogues, Stelios Kazantzidis, a selection of dialog scenes from the show, and the theme music "The Fall" which I composed and so many have asked for over the years. It also includes a gigantic deluxe booklet stuffed with photographs, and liner notes by David Simon, George Pelecanos and Jeff Chang.
I will post more details and a full track list in the near future on my blog, The Ten Thousand Things. Until then there's a bit more info at the Nonesuch blog here:
http://journal.nonesuch.com/journal/2007/11/nonesuch-to-rel.html
I wanted to send this out directly, as so many people have asked me for information about the music over the last few years. And in case you were wondering, Season 5 is finished and continues the tradition we have all come to expect from The Wire; the season premiere will be Sunday January 6th.
Here's looking forward to January!
Cheers,
Blake Leyh
Music Supervisor, The Wire
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
blake@blakeleyh.com
www.blakeleyh.com
www.tenthousand.org
And here is the announcement on the Nonesuch site:
Nonesuch to Release Music from Five Years of "The Wire"
Nonesuch is pleased to announce the January 8, 2008, release of the first soundtrack from the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award–winning HBO series The Wire. That's two days after the series kicks off its fifth season. It also marks the first time music from the David Simon–created show has ever been collected and released as an album.
The Wire: " ... and all the pieces matter" will include several versions of the show’s opening theme song—Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole”—as performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, and DoMaJe, a group of Baltimore teenagers. To listen to DoMaJe's take on the song, click here.
The disc will also feature a number of tracks from the Baltimore club and hip-hop scene that have never appeared on a major label release, including Rod Lee’s “Dance My Pain Away,” Tyree Colion’s “Projects,” Diablo’s “Jail Flick,” Mullyman’s “The Life, the Hood, the Streetz,” and “What You Know About Baltimore?” by Ogun featuring Phathead.
Other songs include “Oh My God” by Michael Franti, “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Paul Weller, “The Body of an American” by The Pogues, “I Feel Alright” by Steve Earle (who also has an acting role on the series), Solomon Burke’s “Fast Train,” and the show’s closing theme, “The Fall,” composed by The Wire music supervisor Blake Leyh.
Some of the most memorable dialog from the program’s five years will also be included on the record. The CD booklet will feature essays by the author and series writer George Pelecanos and the noted hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang.
Over the course of four seasons, The Wire has developed a portrait of Baltimore through the themes of education, the war on drugs, the decline of the working class, and the role of political leadership in addressing urban problems. The Wire will use its fifth and final season to examine mass media’s impact on the city.
Slate has had this to say about the series:
... surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America ... No other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature.
The first three seasons of The Wire are currently available on DVD; the fourth season will be available beginning December 4, 2007—a month before the fifth and final season’s premiere on HBO. You can pre-order Season Four now at the Shop at HBO.com.
For more information on the series, visit HBO.com.
Greetings, Wire Fans...
After years of anticipation, The Wire Soundtrack will finally be released on January 8th, 2008, on Nonesuch Records. We are currently in the very final stages of production of the record, and I can say without reservation that the project is everything I always hoped it would be. It turns out David Bither and Bob Hurwitz at Nonesuch are huge Wire fans, and they have given us incredible support and creative
freedom to do the record the right way. It includes many of the show's most important musical signatures, including several versions of Way Down In The Hole, all of the season-end montage songs, a great selection of Baltimore club and hip-hop, The Pogues, Stelios Kazantzidis, a selection of dialog scenes from the show, and the theme music "The Fall" which I composed and so many have asked for over the years. It also includes a gigantic deluxe booklet stuffed with photographs, and liner notes by David Simon, George Pelecanos and Jeff Chang.
I will post more details and a full track list in the near future on my blog, The Ten Thousand Things. Until then there's a bit more info at the Nonesuch blog here:
http://journal.nonesuch.com/journal/2007/11/nonesuch-to-rel.html
I wanted to send this out directly, as so many people have asked me for information about the music over the last few years. And in case you were wondering, Season 5 is finished and continues the tradition we have all come to expect from The Wire; the season premiere will be Sunday January 6th.
Here's looking forward to January!
Cheers,
Blake Leyh
Music Supervisor, The Wire
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
blake@blakeleyh.com
www.blakeleyh.com
www.tenthousand.org
And here is the announcement on the Nonesuch site:
Nonesuch to Release Music from Five Years of "The Wire"
Nonesuch is pleased to announce the January 8, 2008, release of the first soundtrack from the critically acclaimed, Peabody Award–winning HBO series The Wire. That's two days after the series kicks off its fifth season. It also marks the first time music from the David Simon–created show has ever been collected and released as an album.
The Wire: " ... and all the pieces matter" will include several versions of the show’s opening theme song—Tom Waits’s “Way Down in the Hole”—as performed by The Blind Boys of Alabama, The Neville Brothers, and DoMaJe, a group of Baltimore teenagers. To listen to DoMaJe's take on the song, click here.
The disc will also feature a number of tracks from the Baltimore club and hip-hop scene that have never appeared on a major label release, including Rod Lee’s “Dance My Pain Away,” Tyree Colion’s “Projects,” Diablo’s “Jail Flick,” Mullyman’s “The Life, the Hood, the Streetz,” and “What You Know About Baltimore?” by Ogun featuring Phathead.
Other songs include “Oh My God” by Michael Franti, “I Walk on Gilded Splinters” by Paul Weller, “The Body of an American” by The Pogues, “I Feel Alright” by Steve Earle (who also has an acting role on the series), Solomon Burke’s “Fast Train,” and the show’s closing theme, “The Fall,” composed by The Wire music supervisor Blake Leyh.
Some of the most memorable dialog from the program’s five years will also be included on the record. The CD booklet will feature essays by the author and series writer George Pelecanos and the noted hip-hop journalist Jeff Chang.
Over the course of four seasons, The Wire has developed a portrait of Baltimore through the themes of education, the war on drugs, the decline of the working class, and the role of political leadership in addressing urban problems. The Wire will use its fifth and final season to examine mass media’s impact on the city.
Slate has had this to say about the series:
... surely the best TV show ever broadcast in America ... No other program has ever done anything remotely like what this one does, namely to portray the social, political, and economic life of an American city with the scope, observational precision, and moral vision of great literature.
The first three seasons of The Wire are currently available on DVD; the fourth season will be available beginning December 4, 2007—a month before the fifth and final season’s premiere on HBO. You can pre-order Season Four now at the Shop at HBO.com.
For more information on the series, visit HBO.com.
Labels: Baltimore club, Bossman, Darkroom Productions, Diablo, Mullyman, Ogun, Rod Lee, The Wire, Tyree Colion
Comments:
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Also Bossman! Bossman is part of this thing too... I don't know why he's not listed in the Nonesuch post.
--Blake
--Blake
# posted by 
: 9:22 AM
: 9:22 AM
G.E.M.'s single from the wire's 4th season "when you see us" will also be featured on the sound track! Also check for "THA OOH AHH song" featured on this season of the wire!!!
www.myspace.com/getemma
Also G.E.M. is up for a baltimore grammy. Send an email to CASTITNOW@GMAIL.COM "With G.E.M. for best group" in the message!!
CAST IT NOW!!
www.myspace.com/getemma
Also G.E.M. is up for a baltimore grammy. Send an email to CASTITNOW@GMAIL.COM "With G.E.M. for best group" in the message!!
CAST IT NOW!!
Hi...
I'm french, and i'm a fan of the wire...
I just wanna to tell that this show just had ONE effect on me : I didn't feel to live in France, I spend all the time in your city, in Baltimore... just behind me sreen
Bye !
Post a Comment
I'm french, and i'm a fan of the wire...
I just wanna to tell that this show just had ONE effect on me : I didn't feel to live in France, I spend all the time in your city, in Baltimore... just behind me sreen
Bye !
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