Buy it... if you're interested in hearing a derivative, but enjoyable Lee Holdridge Western score for a large scale mini-series and, more intriguingly, a electronically creative alternative for a low-budget film.

Avoid it... if you're tired of Western scores that take a piece or two (or many) from Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith classics.

Buffalo Girls/Gunfighter's Moon: (Lee Holdridge) Among one of the more well known television mini-series of composer Lee Holdridge's career is Buffalo Girls, a 1995 Western production of immense size by CBS Entertainment for debut on its network. Larry McMurtry's novel was brought to life by an all-star cast including Anjelica Huston, Melanie Griffith, Reba McEntire, Gabriel Byrne, and Western perennials Sam Elliott and Jack Palance, and along with considerable money spent on its technical aspects, Buffalo Girls received countless Emmy and Golden Globe nominations. The story takes place in the waning days of the Wild West, as lead lady and mule skinner Calamity Jane crosses the path of Bill Hickok and travels to London as part of Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show to reclaim her daughter. Numerous subplots abound, and all are given the kind of lengthy treatment that only a mini-series can provide. Without a doubt, CBS knew the potential of the series come time for awards, and before the film was even shown on the network, they pressed a promotional album of Lee Holdridge's score. With an abundance of energy and enthusiasm, Holdridge provides a score highly derivative of old Western cliches (especially borrowing a bit here and there from Elmer Bernstein and Jerry Goldsmith), but like John Debney (another modern master of adapting temp tracks and imitation music), Holdridge does an exemplary job of breathing new life into the older ideas. He doesn't attempt to tackle every character and location with unique ideas, although he does lose the Western styles for a more faux-classically inclined cue or two in London. His instrumentation does most of the work, with a harmonica and acoustic guitar that expand greatly on the short performances of those elements heard in The Giant of Thunder Mountain. Some comedy is thrown in, with a honky tonk cue that is masterfully overtaken by an orchestral crescendo in "Buffalo Girls Finale." A notable use of a woodwind (perhaps synthesized?) in "Sad Migration" echoes an eerie wolf call.