Water for Elephants (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)

Album Review

Appropriately nostalgic and sepia-toned, the soundtrack for the big screen adaptation of author Sara Gruen's circus-themed, Great Depression romance Water for Elephants features the work of Grammy-winning composer James Newton Howard. Peppered with Depression-era nuggets like Bessie Smith's bawdy “Need a Little Sugar in My Bowl,” Jasper Taylor & His State Street Boys' “Stomp Time Blues,” and Ruth Etting's “Button Up Your Overcoat,” Water for Elephants, much like the film and novel themselves, dutifully evoke a bygone era. Largely orchestral with flourishes of mandolin and guitar, jazz, cabaret, and vaudeville blues, Howard’s lovely and lucid score draws from the realms of fantasy, magical realism, and historical fiction while maintaining a concrete sense of place.