Sinners composer Ludwig Göransson has discussed the lengths he went to in order to put the film's score together, revealing he scoured the globe to get hold of three 1932 Dobro resonator guitars for the job.
The Ryan Coogler-directed film is set in that same year of 1932, deep in the Mississippi Delta, and, naturally, the region’s deep-rooted connection with the blues plays a crucial role in the story.
Buddy Guy also stars in the film and features on its soundtrack. He recently said the role helps him fulfill the wishes of fellow blues legends Muddy Waters and B.B. King, who told him to “keep the blues alive” before they passed.
For his own role on Sinners, Göransson worked closely with blues producer Lawrence "Boo" Mitchell, recording at his Tennessee-based Royal Studios. In fact, it was Mitchell who introduced Guy and Christone "Kingfish" Ingram into the project to ensure the blues was authentically portrayed. The Dobros proved the jewel in the soundtrack's crown.
“I was able to find three of them in the world. One in London, one in Nashville, and one in LA,” Göransson says of his Dobro treasure hunt. “Playing it with a slide [lets] you use the guitar almost like a voice, where you can slide in between the notes – almost like you're singing. So it creates this beautiful note and gives you a lot of variety on how you can play.”
The guitars play a huge role on screen and is the protagonist’s weapon of choice (in multiple ways). Having typically gone big on synths and strings on previous soundtracks – such as Tenet, Oppenheimer, and the Mandalorian – Göransson says penning this paritcular score saw him dive deeper into his first instrument of choice.
“My dad is a guitar teacher, so when I was about six or seven years old he started giving me lessons,” he says. “Then when I was eight or nine I heard [Metallica’s] Enter Sandman for the first time and that's when I got really passionate about music. It was kind of my own thing; my dad was into the blues and I was into heavy metal, [even though] at that age I didn't even understand that like all music, even heavy metal, comes from the blues.
“It's something that I think came out in this score, and it's a very personal score,” the Swedish composer extends. “It starts mostly acoustically. I wrote almost the entire score on this guitar, and then as the story develops, it transitions into heavy metal, orchestra, strings, and big drums. So the guitar tones transitioned from acoustic to electric.”
Göransson exhibits a sizable trick bag of playing styles across the film’s score, from slide guitar to fingerpicking and thunderous heavy metal, with one scene in particular acting as a showcase for the origin of the blues, and how its influence has been felt in so many different styles since.
“In the middle of the movie, there's this beautiful, surreal music montage,” he explains. “When I read it on the script, I got goosebumps because it's a beautiful, out-of-body experience; it goes into all these different music genres. And you know, [the protagonist] goes into his past African music and he goes into the future with a DJ, a blues funk guitarist. And this all takes place in the 1930s in a surreal kind of dreamy state.”
Göransson also recruited multi-instrumentalist Raphael Saadiq, who's written for Earth, Wind & Fire, Joss Stone, and Whitney Houston, among others, to help write the song for that particular scene. It turned out to be the perfect union.
“It was a dream of mine to work with him, and he had this idea of this blues song his whole life,” he says. “It was the perfect moment how the stars aligned. The way that music performance came together was really a work of so many different departments working together for two months to [get the shot].”
Meanwhile, Guy, who had previously spoken to Guitar World about the possibility of retiring from touring, appears to have gotten a second wind as a result of his involvement with the film. He now wants to get back out on the road.
“B.B. King was in a wheelchair for maybe four or five years before he died,” he has said, “and I’m not on crutches yet.
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