20 years ago this month, two sweaty, skanky, Southern-fried flicks showed up in multiplexes: the quasi-musical hip-hop dramedy Hustle & Flow and the hicksploitation horror show The Devil\u2019s Rejects. Although they have nothing in common narrative-wise, they represent a pair of low-down, low-budget (both were shot on 16mm) visions of the South, in part defined by soundtracks saluting regional music past and present. Each movie assembles a playlist full of Southern not-so-gentlemen, often dropping odes to dangerous, dedicated desperadoes that serve as the motivational music for these films\u2019 lowlife protagonists.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let\u2019s start off with Hustle & Flow, where Terrence Howard gives a star-making, Oscar-nominated performance as DJay, a weed-selling Memphis pimp with a struggling stable (his future Empire<\/a> co-star Taraji P. Henson is his pregnant bottom gal) and a dream to become a superstar rapper, like hometown legend Skinny Black (Ludacris). Beating Sean Baker\u2019s Tangerine<\/a> by a decade, writer-director Craig Brewer\u2019s sophomore feature made waves at Sundance for portraying minority sex workers in a sympathetic, comical light. Paramount and MTV Films, who released the film, foolishly marketed it as another harrowing hood drama, even though there are laugh-inducing moments like DJay comforting one of his girls\u2019 crying child by telling him, \u201cThe bitch gotta go take a shower, mayne!\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n But outside of Howard\u2019s performance, the movie\u2019s biggest claim to fame comes from its music. Memphis rap crew Three 6 Mafia took home the Best Original Song Oscar for the catchy \u201cIt\u2019s Hard Out Here For A Pimp,\u201d only the second hip-hop track to win an Academy Award, and one of the three songs DJay records in the film. (The other two were written by Al Kapone, another MC from Memphis.)<\/p>\n<\/p>\n Terrence Howard, actor, can’t “fake it” to kiss a man on screen<\/a>Judge orders Empire star Terrence Howard to pay nearly $1 million in back taxes<\/a><\/p>\n Of course, DJay\u2019s tunes mainly consist of him spitting about his life as a hustla. He does, however, get encouraged by his producers (Anthony Anderson, DJ Qualls) to come up with the radio-friendly club-tearer \u201cWhoop That Trick,\u201d which was actually co-produced by Atlanta crunk godfather Lil\u2019 Jon. (DJay\u2019s less-palatable alternative titles were \u201cBeat That Bitch\u201d and \u201cStomp That Ho.\u201d) The song ended up becoming a Memphis staple, giving their basketball team\u2019s fans their chant<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n While Memphis musician Scott Bomar provides the bluesy score, the soundtrack also drops plenty of the Southern hip-hop that DJay and other characters listen to on the regular. Since the album was released on Atlanta rap king T.I.\u2019s Grand Hustle imprint, there are a lot of ATL-based performers: Lil Scrappy, P$C, Boyz n da Hood, Trillville. But we also have rappers from Baton Rouge (Lil\u2019 Boosie, Webbie), Houston (Mike Jones), Miami (Trina), and other parts of the Dirty South. When E-40 brings the Bay Area to one track, it\u2019s an outlier.<\/p>\n But while the album (which was certified Gold and topped Billboard\u2019s Soundtracks chart) sticks with rap, the movie gives flowers to other Black music legends, especially those who\u2019ve done studio time in Tennessee. Stax Records icon Isaac Hayes plays the bar owner who hips DJay to Skinny\u2019s upcoming July 4th get-together. Jackson-born soul man Luther Ingram gets radio airplay when \u201c(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don\u2019t Want To Be Right\u201d plays during a car scene where DJay tries to motivate his frustrated top girl (Taryn Manning). And, to show the quiet euphoria DJay experiences after he\u2019s successfully given his demo to Skinny, Brewer has the angelic \u201cJesus Is Waiting,\u201d from Hi Records star Al Green, playing on the jukebox.<\/p>\n Because it\u2019s deeply Southern in its own way, The Devil\u2019s Rejects, rocker-filmmaker Rob Zombie\u2019s vicious, vulgar, violent grindhouse tribute\/sequel to his 2003 debut House Of 1000 Corpses<\/a>, also shows Black music legends some love. We once again follow the Firefly clan, an insufferable, deranged family of natural-born killers\u2014anchored by foul-mouthed clown Captain Spaulding (exploitation vet Sid Haig)\u2014as they go on a killing spree after fleeing another killing spree. The film begins with a lurid photo montage set to Texas gospel blues man Blind Willie Johnson\u2019s \u201cDark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.\u201d Later, a motel TV shows another blues singer, Mississippi-born Otis Rush, singing the Willie Dixon-penned \u201cI Can\u2019t Quit You Baby.\u201d<\/p>\n But, with the movie set in the dusty, treacherous parts of Texas, circa 1978, the soundtrack mostly consists of the jamming country rock that came out of that era. Things kick off on a rocking, rambling note with the outlaw anthem \u201cMidnight Rider,\u201d from the Florida-born, Georgia-based Allman Brothers Band. It plays during the opening credits, as psycho Firefly siblings Otis (Bill Moseley) and Baby (Sheri Moon Zombie, the director\u2019s wife) go on the lam after the cops, led by vengeful Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe), raid their home.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019ve got to run to keep from hiding,\u201d Gregg Allman sings as Otis and Baby duck out via a secret tunnel, next to all the caged, poor souls they leave behind.<\/p>\n A friend of mine once referred to The Devil\u2019s Rejects soundtrack as \u201cK-Tel\u2019s Shitkicker Classics,\u201d with its lineup of \u201970s American (and British) artists playing classic tunes that appealed to both stoners and rednecks alike: Allman Bros., Three Dog Night, Joe Walsh (and the band he formerly fronted, James Gang). Some of the selections are used as ironic road-trip music, nostalgic ditties played before some awful, bloody shit pops off.\u00a0<\/p>\n Oklahoma-bred Elvin Bishop\u2019s guitar-heavy ballad \u201cFooled Around And Fell In Love\u201d plays on the van radio before Otis sadistically murders touring country duo Banjo and Sullivan (Lew Temple, Geoffrey Lewis). Temple, Zombie, and Austin alt-country singer Jesse Dayton actually ended up releasing an album<\/a> of long-lost music from the pair. English glam rocker David Essex\u2019s funky bop \u201cRock On\u201d sets the tone as the Fireflys hide out at a brothel run by Spaulding\u2019s pimp pal (Dawn Of The Dead\u2018s Ken Foree), who ultimately sells them out to Wydell. And, of course, there\u2019s the big finish, where Spaulding and the siblings, bruised and bloodied, have a standoff with a barricade full of cops on an empty highway\u2014all set to the immortal \u201cFree Bird,\u201d from Southern rock gods Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ronnie Van Zant sings \u201cLord knows I can\u2019t change,\u201d right as the Fireflys\u2014American psychos \u2019til the end\u2014literally drive straight into some hellfire.<\/p>\n But if the soundtrack has a star, it\u2019s English singer-songwriter Terry Reid. A veteran vocalist-guitarist who turned down Jimmy Page\u2019s offer to be the original frontman for Led Zeppelin, Reid has three songs from his Graham Nash-produced 1976 album Seed Of Memory in the film. (The title track plays over the soaring closing credits<\/a>.) When the fam are ambushed by Wydell and two hired guns (Danny Trejo and ex-wrestler Diamond Dallas Page) at the brothel, Reid\u2019s somber \u201cTo Be Treated Rite\u201d covers the brutal, late-night chaos.\u00a0<\/p>\n In a 2005 newspaper<\/a> article<\/a> on Reid\u2019s post-Rejects resurgence\u2014a Reid compilation titled Super Lungs was also out at this time\u2014Zombie said Reid\u2019s elegiac folk-rock numbers were surprisingly what he needed for his bloodbath. \u201cOnce I started listening to that record, I thought \u2018This is perfect!’\u201d said Zombie. \u201cI wanted basically every song I remember being played on the radio in \u201978, and songs that fit that vibe. I needed something that was quiet and kind of depressing, but not corny, and Terry\u2019s songs were just great.\u201d<\/p>\n Even though Hustle & Flow is surprisingly uplifting (there\u2019s a lot of charm in that pimp\u2019s world) and The Devil\u2019s Rejects is shockingly unsettling (there\u2019s a lot of rot in those redneck woods), they do make quite the pulpy, exploitative double feature\u2014a lurid, R-rated, sinfully Deep South twin bill, with proudly Southern soundtracks that are just as dirty, dangerous, and desperate as the characters who listen to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"20 years ago this month, two sweaty, skanky, Southern-fried flicks showed up in multiplexes: the quasi-musical hip-hop dramedy…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":29630,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[52],"tags":[88,206],"class_list":["post-29629","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-movies","tag-entertainment","tag-movies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29629","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=29629"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/29629\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29630"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=29629"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=29629"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=29629"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}