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’s 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’ lowlife protagonists.
Let’s 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 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’s Tangerine by a decade, writer-director Craig Brewer’s 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’ crying child by telling him, “The bitch gotta go take a shower, mayne!”
But outside of Howard’s performance, the movie’s biggest claim to fame comes from its music. Memphis rap crew Three 6 Mafia took home the Best Original Song Oscar for the catchy “It’s Hard Out Here For A Pimp,” 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.)
Of course, DJay’s 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 “Whoop That Trick,” which was actually co-produced by Atlanta crunk godfather Lil’ Jon. (DJay’s less-palatable alternative titles were “Beat That Bitch” and “Stomp That Ho.”) The song ended up becoming a Memphis staple, giving their basketball team’s fans their chant.
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.’s 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’ 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’s an outlier.
But while the album (which was certified Gold and topped Billboard’s Soundtracks chart) sticks with rap, the movie gives flowers to other Black music legends, especially those who’ve done studio time in Tennessee. Stax Records icon Isaac Hayes plays the bar owner who hips DJay to Skinny’s upcoming July 4th get-together. Jackson-born soul man Luther Ingram gets radio airplay when “(If Loving You Is Wrong) I Don’t Want To Be Right” 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’s successfully given his demo to Skinny, Brewer has the angelic “Jesus Is Waiting,” from Hi Records star Al Green, playing on the jukebox.
Because it’s deeply Southern in its own way, The Devil’s Rejects, rocker-filmmaker Rob Zombie’s vicious, vulgar, violent grindhouse tribute/sequel to his 2003 debut House Of 1000 Corpses, also shows Black music legends some love. We once again follow the Firefly clan, an insufferable, deranged family of natural-born killers—anchored by foul-mouthed clown Captain Spaulding (exploitation vet Sid Haig)—as 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’s “Dark Was The Night, Cold Was The Ground.” Later, a motel TV shows another blues singer, Mississippi-born Otis Rush, singing the Willie Dixon-penned “I Can’t Quit You Baby.”
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 “Midnight Rider,” 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’s wife) go on the lam after the cops, led by vengeful Sheriff Wydell (William Forsythe), raid their home.
“I’ve got to run to keep from hiding,” Gregg Allman sings as Otis and Baby duck out via a secret tunnel, next to all the caged, poor souls they leave behind.
A friend of mine once referred to The Devil’s Rejects soundtrack as “K-Tel’s Shitkicker Classics,” with its lineup of ’70s 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.
Oklahoma-bred Elvin Bishop’s guitar-heavy ballad “Fooled Around And Fell In Love” 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 of long-lost music from the pair. English glam rocker David Essex’s funky bop “Rock On” sets the tone as the Fireflys hide out at a brothel run by Spaulding’s pimp pal (Dawn Of The Dead‘s Ken Foree), who ultimately sells them out to Wydell. And, of course, there’s the big finish, where Spaulding and the siblings, bruised and bloodied, have a standoff with a barricade full of cops on an empty highway—all set to the immortal “Free Bird,” from Southern rock gods Lynyrd Skynyrd. Ronnie Van Zant sings “Lord knows I can’t change,” right as the Fireflys—American psychos ’til the end—literally drive straight into some hellfire.
But if the soundtrack has a star, it’s English singer-songwriter Terry Reid. A veteran vocalist-guitarist who turned down Jimmy Page’s 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.) When the fam are ambushed by Wydell and two hired guns (Danny Trejo and ex-wrestler Diamond Dallas Page) at the brothel, Reid’s somber “To Be Treated Rite” covers the brutal, late-night chaos.
In a 2005 newspaperarticle on Reid’s post-Rejects resurgence—a Reid compilation titled Super Lungs was also out at this time—Zombie said Reid’s elegiac folk-rock numbers were surprisingly what he needed for his bloodbath. “Once I started listening to that record, I thought ‘This is perfect!'” said Zombie. “I wanted basically every song I remember being played on the radio in ’78, and songs that fit that vibe. I needed something that was quiet and kind of depressing, but not corny, and Terry’s songs were just great.”
Even though Hustle & Flow is surprisingly uplifting (there’s a lot of charm in that pimp’s world) and The Devil’s Rejects is shockingly unsettling (there’s a lot of rot in those redneck woods), they do make quite the pulpy, exploitative double feature—a 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.
