The Passion of the Christ Album
Universal South Records announced today their plans to release Songs Inspired By “The Passion of the Christ” on April 6th, 2004. The CD was compiled by Lian Lunson with input from director Mel Gibson and is intended to serve as a companion piece to the ground-breaking film. The CD includes music from Leon Russell, Leonard Cohen, Dolores O’Riordan (of Cranberries fame), Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, Ricky Skaggs, Holly Williams (performing a song by her grandfather, Hank Williams Sr.) and Elvis Presley, among others. The project also contains a song written and performed by Jessi Colter and Shooter Jennings (the late Waylon Jennings’s widow and son) specifically for this film.
Directed and produced by Mel Gibson, The Passion of the Christ was released to theaters nationwide on Wednesday, February 25th. In its first week of release, it became the first film of 2004 to cross the $100 million mark, grossing $117.5 in box office receipts in its first five days of release.
Over the last few months, Gibson worked with his close friend, documentary filmmaker and music video director Lian Lunson (Leon Russell, U2, Willie Nelson, Dwight Yoakam) to put together an album that they felt would honor the emotional voyage experienced by watching the film. Gibson felt that the songs should compliment the message in the film and inspire spiritual reflection, but not in an obvious way. The CD takes the listener on a journey, often a dark and reflective one.
The album is being mastered now so that advance copies can be serviced to the press around the middle of March.
