Anyone who has followed Quentin Tarantino‘s film career as a writer-director know that he is as much about music selection as he is about searing profanity-laced monologues. Can anyone hear “Stuck in the Middle With You” by Stealers Wheel without thinking of Michael Madsen‘s Mr. Blonde as he cuts the ear off of a cop who’s tied up in a chair in “Resevoir Dogs”? Or who among us can’t help but to flashback to the sight of John Travolta‘s Vincent Vega and Uma Thurman‘s Mia Wallace dancing if they hear Chuck Berry’s “You Never Can Tell.”
As usual, Tarantino’s latest opus, the just-opened “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood,” has several memorable music-related scenes. Leonardo DiCaprio and Brad Pitt, together for the first time ever on the big screen while acting as a kind of middle-age male dynamite, is an event to celebrate in and of itself. But it is the background music that sparks the emotional cues heard on the soundtrack.
— 🎷 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙇𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙖𝙮 (@MarkLindsay) July 25, 2019
Lindsay is also celebrating the 48th year anniversary this week of his Raiders chart-topper, “Indian Reservation.”
Today’s the day. Sure would never have figured that 48 years later I’d be remembering this great achievement and also celebrating on the eve of some of my music being used in the hottest movie of the year #OnceUponATimeInHollywood #goodthingbaby https://t.co/GPNoJvjdjR
— 🎷 𝙈𝙖𝙧𝙠 𝙇𝙞𝙣𝙙𝙨𝙖𝙮 (@MarkLindsay) July 24, 2019
Why did Tarantino stage such a raid on the pop group’s catalog — far more than any other musicians from the ’60s era?
Paul Revere & the Raiders had a tie to someone intimately involved with Charles Manson and his cult members. That would be music producer, Terry Melcher — the son of actress Doris Day — who considered signing Manson as a singer/songwriter. He was the one who leased the Benedict Canyon home on 10050 Cielo Court in 1966, where Tate and four others would end up being murdered.
Through Dennis Wilson, the drummer for the Beach Boys, Melcher met Manson when Wilson dropped him off at the house. Lindsay stayed with Melcher and his then-girlfriend, Candice Bergen, for a while in soon-to-be infamous abode. Later, the owner of the home rented it to director Roman Polanski and his wife, Tate. And then fate stepped in.
As Tarantino’s music supervisor Mary Ramos told “Variety,” “With Paul Revere & the Raiders, you know Terry Melcher and his connection to the Manson family, and he was the producer of Paul Revere & the Raiders. So there’s a healthy amount of them in the movie.”
Lindsay, who continues to tour and peform live, clearly thinks such exposure in a Quentin Tarantino movie is a”Good Thing.”And he is getting his “Kicks,” too.
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