Music from "August: Osage County" (at the Phoenix thru Mar. 11)

http://soundcloud.com/tim-brickley/music-from-august-osage-county

   Here's a medley of themes and cues written for (and currently in-use) for the Phoenix Theatre production of the Tracy Letts play, "August: Osage County". It was an honor to be inspired by the talented and committed cast and crew (headed by director Bryan Fonseca), and by this dark majesty of a play.        
   Composition/production touchstones included: Bryan's initial concept of desiring music along the lines of Ry Cooder's soundtrack to "Paris, Texas" (which led me to my first slide guitar playing in ages - with apologies to said Mr. Cooder), the stage note at the beginning of the play which indicates a Wurlitzer electric piano in the Weston family living room (the most darkly-atmospheric of all electric piano sounds, don't you think?) and my friend Pete Gable's haunting, single-stop accordion playing, which reminded us both of a wheezy pump organ in an abandoned Oklahoma church......