DavidHoffner.com/dukes

In 2000, I was hired as the composer for a CBS Movie of the Week.
Titled "Hazzard in Hollywood", it was a reunion movie of the popular
"Dukes of Hazzard" TV show. All of the original actors were involved
(John Schneider, Tom Wopat, Catherine Bach, etc.) with the notable
exception of Denver Pyle, who had recently passed away.

As is often the case, they were behind schedule and I was asked
to compose, record and mix over 40 minutes of music, all in about
3 weeks. The producers wanted the country/bluegrass sound of the
original show, but updated with new musical elements. I had a blast,
writing music with hip-hop and rap beats, but topped with fiddle, banjo,
and steel guitar melodies. For the first time in years I did most of my
composing on the guitar and banjo, instead of at the keyboard.

The tight schedule required that the music be recorded in three days
and mixed on the fourth. We decided to record the entire score with
just four musicians, myself included. I pre-programmed all of the
drum, percussion, and bass tracks, and played the other keyboard
parts on the sessions. Super session-player Mark Casstevens played
banjo, steel and gut-string guitars, fretted dobro, harmonicas (including
bass harmonica), and jaw-harp. Sam Bush (of New Grass Revival fame)
played fiddles, mandolin, and mando-bro, (an electric slide mandolin).
And session veteran Sonny Garrish handled the dobro and steel guitar
parts. Warner Bros. President and friend Jim Ed Norman was the
producer of the score and with such a great group of guys, the
sessions were the most fun I've had in years.

The film's producer and writer, Bob Clark, flew in from Hollywood for
the sessions, along with the music editor and a legal assistant. Bob,
having grown up in North Carolina, was thrilled to be back in the South
and to be in the studio with a group of southern boys. As a writer, he's
fascinated with the southern tradition of story-telling, and so the
sessions became a story-and-joke-fest. We all took turns spinning our
favorite stories from the road, with an emphasis on the great catalog of stories about bluegrass legend Bill Monroe and Grand
Ole Opry star Grandpa Jones. We decided that there is a book waiting to be written about the two of them, but getting
permissions and sorting out fact from legend could take decades.

Amazingly, we made our deadline, the show aired in April, 2000 to good ratings, and the "Dukes of Hazzard" skidded, swerved
and jumped their '69 Dodge Charger across our TV screens one more time.