Track Listing

Disc 1:

1. (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock - Bill Haley
2. Sixteen Candles - The Crests
3. Runaway - Del Shannon
4. Why Do Fools Fall in Love? - Frankie Lymon & the Teenagers
5. That'll Be the Day - Buddy Holly
6. Fannie Mae - Buster Brown
7. At the Hop - Flash Cadillac, Continental Kids, Flash Cadillac
8. She's So Fine - Flash Cadillac, Continental Kids, Flash Cadillac
9. Stroll - The Diamonds
10. See You in September - The Tempos
11. Surfin' Safari - The Beach Boys
12. (He's) The Great Imposter - The Fleetwoods, The Fleetwoods
13. Almost Grown - Chuck Berry
14. Smoke Gets in Your Eyes - The Platters
15. Little Darlin' - The Diamonds
16. Peppermint Twist - Joey Dee & the Starliters
17. Barbara Ann - The Regents
18. Book of Love - The Monotones
19. Maybe Baby - Buddy Holly
20. Ya Ya - Lee Dorsey
21. Great Pretender - The Platters

Disc 2:

1. Party Doll - Buddy Knox
2. Ain't That a Shame - Fats Domino
3. Johnny B. Goode - Chuck Berry
4. I Only Have Eyes for You - The Flamingos
5. Get a Job - Silhouette, The Silhouettes
6. To the Aisle - The Five Satins
7. Do You Wanna Dance - Bobby Freeman
8. Party Doll - Jimmy Bowen, Buddy Know, Buddy Knox
9. Come Go with Me - The Del Vikings
10. You're Sixteen - Johnny Burnette
11. Love Potion No. 9 - The Clovers
12. Since I Don't Have You - Skyline, The Skyliners
13. Chantilly Lace - The Big Bopper
14. Teen Angel - Mark Dinning
15. Crying in the Chapel - Sonny Til & the Orioles
16. Thousand Miles Away - The Heartbeats
17. Heart and Soul - The Cleftones
18. Green Onions - Booker T. & the MG's
19. Only You (And You Alone) - The Platters
20. Goodnight, Sweetheart, Goodnight - The Spaniels
21. All Summer Long - The Beach Boys

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1274 in Music
• Released on: 1993-06-22
• Number of discs: 2
• Format: Soundtrack
• Original language: English

Amazon.com
For those of us who grew up in the '70s, this drive-in compilation of '50s and '60s rock and doo-wop, complete with Wolfman Jack introductions, was our introduction to this music. There are 41 jukebox hits here, and every one of them is a classic of its time (although two tracks--"At the Hop" and "She's so Fine" are covers by the revival band Flash Cadillac & the Continental Kids). In his 1973 movie, director George Lucas used the music (and the presence of mysterious deejay Wolfman) as the AM-radio soundtrack to one night in suburban California, 1962. The idea was to capture and sustain an end-of-summer, end-of-innocence mood that's in the air throughout the picture-- not as a shortcut to establishing a period (as in Robert Zemeckis'Forrest Gump). There's an awful lot of spontaneous energy in these tunes--from Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, to the Platters and the Clovers and the Del-Vikings, to the Crests and the Beach Boys--and also just a hint of melancholy that goes down very nicely with a burger, shake, and fries. --Jim Emerson

Customer Reviews

Music of an Entire Era
I loved the movie and I love the soundtrack. It's amazing to hear so many great songs and bands of the past all together at once.
The soundtrack truly embodies an entire era of music, the mood and feel of which anyone who listens can feel. You are drawn into it by listening and just plain feel good during it, the songs are some of the most remembered and loved of all time.
This movie started or at least kept alive that trend of letting music be another character and being a significant part of the story. George Lucas, i and I'm sure everyone else believe, accomplished his goal. To make a movie that dealt with, among other things, coming of age; and to let music be a huge part of that story. You wouldn't have American Graffiti without all of these great songs of the olden days. They made that movie great.

Classic rock of '50s, early '60s shine in this album!
Of all the categories of music available on compact discs (or cassettes), one of my favorites has always been the movie soundtrack. Not only does a good soundtrack album helps listeners remember favorite scenes from the movies, but it also may inspire them to explore musical styles they would have otherwise never listened to.

Just as John Williams Romantic-era stylings of his Star Wars scores opened my ears and mind to classical music at the age of 14, the songs of various artists featured in the soundtrack for 1973's George Lucas nostalgia-laced American Graffiti opened my heart and soul to the early rock 'n' roll and doo-wop of the late 1950s and early '60s. Having been born in 1963 into a household where only my older sister listened to such artists as The Beatles, Tom Jones and Englebert Humperdinck, it was only in the days of "Happy Days" (a TV sitcom that was inspired by the success of Lucas' first real successful movie) that I got a taste of early rock 'n' roll songs in the vein of "(We're Gonna) Rock Around The Clock," the song that kicks off this 2-CD, 41-song album.

The songs presented here were not only chosen by director George Lucas because they fit the time period (no song here was released after 1962), but also because the songs themselves were like a Greek chorus commenting on the on-screen doings of Steve, Laurie, Curt, John, Carol, Debbie and Toad. If the mood is upbeat, then songs like "Rock Around The Clock" are featured. For more emotionally charged sequences (Steve and Laurie's heart-rending argument at the school dance, for instance), The Platters' famous cover of Kerns' "Smoke Gets In Your Eyes" and "Only You" are perfect accompaniment.

From that first track by Bill Haley and the Comets (such a whimsical and punny band name) to the surfin' crowd-pleasing Beach Boys' "All Summer Long," the original soundtrack album of American Graffiti will not only have listeners who saw the movie remembering the film's various characters and situations, it will also evoke the seemingly more innocent era of that pre-Cuban Missile Crisis summer of '62, with its cruising teenagers, drive-in diners with roller skating waitresses and the optimism of the Kennedy years.

This is a fun soundtrack album to listen to. If you're old enough to remember the era, it will be a personal musical portal to the past. If you're like me, born after 1962 and more familiar with Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen, Usher, and Britney Spears, give it a listen. It may open your heart and soul to older, yet still wonderful styles of early rock 'n' roll.

Classic
This is a fantastic soundtrack. The oldies are fading away from every day radio. Now is the time to buy CD's like this to keep that era alive.