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Nighthawks - Keith Emerson


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Taking a break from Red Dead Redemption 2 tonight ( an astounding video game highly recommended), I was just cycling through endless crap on Netflix when I came to a movie category...going through these, I came across Nighthawks starring Stallone, Billy Dee Williams and Rutger Hauer. Movie was from 1981 and I remember it vaguely from my teen years. In a fit of nostalgia and "wonder what this movie is like now in HD and seeing from older eyes" I turned it on.

 

Immediately the score comes in and I'm thinking...ok, 1981 so I kind of expected maybe a synth soundtrack...nope, it reminds me of a 70s soundtrack but--what's that, where'd that chord come from? That progression didn't go where I thought it would! And while some of the instruments sound "real", those horns sound like synth horns? What in the heck?

 

Not only did it sound odd, but it sounded familiar.

 

Then it pops up: "Music by Keith Emerson" and it all made sense. I'm only 20 minutes into the movie as it's paused right now and it's a fascinating blend of waka-chacka-70s and prog.

 

I had no idea Keith Emerson even did a film soundtrack!

 

[video:youtube]

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He did several soundtracks as I recall, Always loved this one, and it's my brother's favourite Emerson work, alongside Honky, which I mention only because he was NOT an ELP fan.

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My wife and I watched this a few weeks ago! As I recall, Emo actually sang on the 'I"m a Man' track.

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My wife and I watched this a few weeks ago! As I recall, Emo actually sang on the 'I"m a Man' track.

Yep! I didn't think it was bad at all, but it was an example Emerson gave for why he didn't sing on stage. (Like a lot of us, he disliked his own singing voice.)

 

I believe he also did music for an animated Iron Man series.

 

One more fuzzy memory: Emerson, Lake, and Powell started out as a scoring project that never took off.

-Tom Williams

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Yes, the movie was better than I expected. Sometimes you have nolstagia for something, you watch it and...you wish you had left those good memories alone! The Last Starfighter comes to mind, I amped it up for my kids and we watched it and...oi....not talking the early CGI effects so much, they get a pass. Everything else! I'm afraid to watch Ladyhawke again for that reason, I used to love that movie.

 

The Emerson music that soundtrack immediately reminded me of was ELPowell more than ELPalmer, which isn't surprising given when it was made. And that makes sense also with what Tom Williams mentioned.

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I know Keith was a Korg sponsor at the time.

So he used the Korg PS-3300 and 3100 models for synth stuff.

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Taking a break from Red Dead Redemption 2 tonight ( an astounding video game highly recommended), I was just cycling through endless crap on Netflix when I came to a movie category...going through these, I came across Nighthawks starring Stallone, Billy Dee Williams and Rutger Hauer. Movie was from 1981 and I remember it vaguely from my teen years. In a fit of nostalgia and "wonder what this movie is like now in HD and seeing from older eyes" I turned it on.

 

Immediately the score comes in and I'm thinking...ok, 1981 so I kind of expected maybe a synth soundtrack...nope, it reminds me of a 70s soundtrack but--what's that, where'd that chord come from? That progression didn't go where I thought it would! And while some of the instruments sound "real", those horns sound like synth horns? What in the heck?

 

Not only did it sound odd, but it sounded familiar.

 

Then it pops up: "Music by Keith Emerson" and it all made sense. I'm only 20 minutes into the movie as it's paused right now and it's a fascinating blend of waka-chacka-70s and prog.

 

I had no idea Keith Emerson even did a film soundtrack!

 

[video:youtube]

The chord voicings in those synth horns/brass are decidedly Emerson. Did Keith ever sing on any ELP album? Something is telling me the answer is 'yes,' perhaps on one of the Works offerings?

"We don't stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing."

- George Bernard Shaw

 

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Not only did he do the soundtrack for Nighthawks, but he also sang lead in the club scene version of 'I"m a Man', at least for the original movie. It may have gotten cut out and replaced for television.

 

edit: oops, I see you linked the actual video, that's what I get for replying to the forum on my iPhone.

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Keith Emerson vs. Chicago

 

Neither won.

 

I'm sure they assigned him the task of rearranging I'm A Man, rather than it being something he chose. As much as I love Emerson, I can't say that I get much out of that tune. He got paid and it put food on the table, I'm sure, but I can't help but wonder what he thought of that project after the passage of, say, twenty years.

 

Grey

I'm not interested in someone's ability to program. I'm interested in their ability to compose and play.

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I don't know, I think Keith was referring more to Stevie Winwood's original version for the Spencer Davis Group than Chicago's later adaptation.

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Actually, it turns out that Emerson's cover was inspired mostly by the 1978 disco version by Marzio Vincenzi (lead and background vocalist originally from Bologna, Italy) and Mauro Malavasi (who later went on to co-found Change, a Chic-influenced group whose original lead vocalist was none other than Luther Vandross, giving them the hit songs "Searching" and "The Glow of Love"), under the project/band name Macho.

Eugenio Upright, 60th Anniversary P-Bass, USA Geddy Lee J-Bass, Yamaha BBP35, D'angelico SS Bari, EXL1,

Select Strat, 70th Anniversary Esquire, LP 57, Eastman T486, T64, Ibanez PM2, Hammond XK4, Moog Voyager

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