The Horse Whisperer

by

Various Artists

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This stunning collection of songs is not a soundtrack score (that is available separately) but it does include songs that were used in the movie, together with other songs of a similar type.

The album is book-ended by two cowboy classics - Dwight Yoakam singing Cattle call and George Strait singing Red river valley. Both of these men are well suited to these songs and their covers are among the best I've heard. There are new recordings of three other oldies here - Big Ball's in Cowtown (Don Walser), Cowboy love song (Don Edwards) and Whispering pines (Iris DeMent). All of these are brilliant, especially Whispering pines. It is a pity that Iris only seems to record songs for multi-artist projects these days - a new album of her own would be much appreciated.

The other songs were all new at the time. Of these, the standout is A soft place to fall, by Allison Moorer. Allison is the sister of Shelby Lynne and her contribution to the soundtrack marked her recording debut. It gave her vital exposure. The song appeared on her first full-length album. Allison, like Shelby, has her own ideas about what sort of material she wants to record, so while her first three albums have been of an extremely high quality, she has not emerged as the major star that record company executives were hoping she would become.

Emmylou Harris, Gillian Welch, Lucinda Williams, Steve Earle, The Flatlanders and The Mavericks all put in great performances on their songs, some of which are not available on any of their own albums.

This is an excellent album which helped to re-awaken interest in western music, deservedly so.