Movie Music Monday – The Color of Money

Born today in 1925, the legendary Paul Newman. He was in so many great movies. One of my favorites was the 1961 film The Hustler. Newman played “Fast Eddie” Felson who is a small time pool hustler who challenges Minnesota Fats played by Jackie Gleason. He would reprise that role again 25 years later in The Color of Money.

In the sequel, “Fast Eddie” isn’t as fast as he used to be. He has given up the game and is now a liquor salesman. He comes across a guy who is a skillful pool player and approaches him and his girlfriend and tells them they’d be pretty good at hustling. The trio then head out for six weeks of travel and hustling.

The soundtrack of the film is filled with great music from Willie Dixon, Robert Palmer, BB King, Don Henley, Robbie Robertson, Mark Knopfler and Eric Clapton. It has a very bluesy feel to it which fits the feel of the film. One of my favorite tracks is It’s In the Way That You Use It by Clapton.

(From Songfacts.com) Clapton wrote this with Robbie Robertson, whose work with The Band in the ’60s encouraged Clapton to get away from the long, heavy solos he was playing with Cream. Robertson was in charge of the music for The Color Of Money, but because he was not finished with his first solo album, his record company would not let him sing on any of the songs. He got around it by contributing instrumental songs to the soundtrack.

Billboard magazine called the tune a “neatly executed rocker [that] strongly recalls his mid-’70s.”

Here is the song, with some clips from the film featuring birthday boy, Paul Newman: