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Joe Strummer - Walker (soundtrack) (1987)

Track listing:
  1. Filibustero 4:01
  2. Omotepe 3:47
  3. Sandstorm 1:56
  4. Machete 3:02
  5. Viperland 2:40
  6. Nica Libre 3:10
  7. Latin Romance 3:54
  8. The Unknown Immortal 2:24
  9. Musket Waltz 2:32
  10. The Brooding Side of Madness 3:03
  11. Tennesse Rain 2:54
  12. Smash Everything 3:20
  13. Tropic of No Return 3:09

Notes

While the film was something of a hodgepodge of ideas, the soundtrack music was a remarkable collection of influences, with everything from razor-edged rock to near-ambient elements creeping in. Bears well with repeated playing just as an album.

On a separate corporate note, can anyone explain to me what Virgin/EMI are doing with the WALKER soundtrack CD by Joe Strummer?

More than a year ago I started emailing them asking what the situation was regarding the rights to same. My suspicion is that Virgin ­ who brought the album out on vinyl, CD and tape back in 1987 ­ had a license to the soundtrack, and that the license had expired.

Given that WALKER is Joe’s greatest solo work (yes, I like the Mescaleros and the Latino Rockabilly War as well, and even his Jonesless Clash album CUT THE CRAP!, but WALKER is one of the best film soundtrack albums ever written ­ David Byrne was kind enough to enquire why it didn’t get an Oscar nomination when he received his academy award the same year) I reckon that there’s no other explanation for its being out of print for the last ten years.

After Joe died, Virgin/EMI got back to me, emailing that “Virgin controls the perpetual worldwide rights in the WALKER soundtrack by virtue of Virgin Records America’s license agreement with Universal.” They told me they weren’t interested in licensing it to another label, since they were going to reissue it themselves.

Great, I thought. Because obviously EMI can do a much bigger release than Exterminating Angel Records can, and Joe’s widow and daughters would receive a better royalty as a result.

A nice fellow at Virgin/EMI in London, Jason Day, asked me if I would write some liner notes for the re-release. I did, and put him in touch with Lynn Davis, who has some great photographs of Joe looking blissful in the Nicaraguan jungle, shirtless, with a long beard.

It was going to be a great re-release. And then they cancelled it. I asked Jason why they’d changed their minds. He didn’t know, and re-directed me to their legal department, to whom I offered some money for a ten-year license for the rights, so the I could bring it out myself. They didn’t get back to me.

Mysterious. I’ll tell you what I suspect. I think that Virgin/EMI have found out there’s a break in the chain of title. I think that Universal didn’t own the music rights to WALKER in perpetuity, but only a license, which has since expired. I think that corporate embarrassment and secretiveness are keeping a lid on this, and depriving Joe’s family of revenue, and his fans of music, as a result.

I’ve emailed these speculations (and they are only speculations) to Jason, asking if he or someone else at Virgin/EMI would comment, or get back to me, or reply to my offer.

But I’ve had no reply.

Chris Salowicz, biographer of Strummer, are you out there? What do you reckon? And what do Joe’s lawyers in the States or his agents in England think of this?

I hope it is just corporate inefficiency/secrecy/embarrassment that’s preventing Joe’s great solo work ­ a soundtrack as good as Dylan’s for PAT GARRETT & BILLY THE KID or Jerry Fielding’s for THE WILD BUNCH ­ from being released again. Because the alternative explanation would be that ­ if Universal really still control the rights ­ they’re deliberately trying to suppress the WALKER soundtrack.

And why would a studio do that?