Singer-songwriter Sam Amidon had just three weeks to make the two stars sound like seasoned balladeers. He recalls their charged harmonies in the little shed at the bottom of his garden
I was brought into The History of Sound as the music adviser, my main job being singing coach for the cast, especially Paul Mescal and Josh O’Connor.
My parents were folk educators. I grew up in New England, singing and playing all kinds of different folk including Appalachian fiddle tunes, as well as songs from the British Isles. My parents’ favourites were legendary Yorkshire singing family the Watersons. I now live in London and it was amazing how close History of Sound’s musical world matched my own. Ben Shattuck – who wrote the original short stories and the screenplay – made a playlist of all these different types of music so everybody could get a sense of the film’s world.
It’s set around the first world war, so I pointed the actors at recordings of the era, such as Almeda Riddle, an amazing ballad-singer from the Ozarks who had this idea of “getting behind the song”. Paul is from Ireland and had an immediate connection to folk music. Josh was familiar with traditional music and had done some singing in musical theatre and choirs – but within just three weeks, they had to look as if they’d been singing their entire lives. Their vocals in the film are sung live on camera, in the moment. When I saw the finished film, I understood how crucial this was to the organic development of the scenes.
