THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI Soundtrack Highpoint is Amy Annelle's BUCKSKIN STALLION BLUES Comeback

THREE BILLBOARDS OUTSIDE EBBING, MISSOURI is a darkly comedic drama from Oscarwinning director Martin McDonagh. In the film, Mildred Hayes -- played by Oscar winner Frances McDormand - frustrated by the lack of results in police investigation of her daughter's murder, commissions roadside billboards directed at the local chief of police William Willoughby, played by Woody Harrelson. Just hitting theaters now, Three Billboard Outside Ebbing, Missouri is already being critically acclaimed by the New York Times, Washington Post and the New Yorker among other outlets.

Its final scene and closing credits feature a striking, austere reading of the late Townes Van Zandt's "Buckskin Stallion Blues" performed by prolific song writer and interpreter, Amy Annelle, sure to haunt movie-goers' imaginations long after they rise from their seats, file out of the theater and make their way home. You can stream the song here!

Annelle originally recorded "Buckskin Stallion Blues" in 2010 for a Townes Van Zandt tribute called More Townes Van Zandt by the Great Unknown and later included the song on a collection of covers called The Great Unveiling. It's also available on the film soundtrack album released by Varèse Sarabande.

"I am a great admirer of Townes Van Zandt and his music," Annelle states. "I chose to sing that song because I feel at home in it, and I could sing it while I was in pain myself and it helped me sing around the pain. Townes' genius was in simply but profoundly inhabiting worlds of tenderness, love, loss, desperation, escape and loneliness, and how they can exist simultaneously, and all those things are present in this one song. That it could be used in such a moving way at the end of the film, that somehow Townes' song, my rendering of it, and Martin McDonagh's storyline all came together in this way, it's just such a long shot that it happened, but I'm really happy that it did."

Amy, a resident of Montopolis, TX, cut the track in Austin with producer Brian Beattie at his Wonder Chamber studio. It's a deceptively simple recording. Annelle sings and fingerpicks an old acoustic guitar; later, Beattie would add upright bass and a little percussion; she asked Paul Brainard, an old touring partner from Portland, OR to overdub dobro and lap steel guitar at his home studio. Finally, Brian and Amy mixed the track and sent it off to England.

It's still a mystery to her how the film's music supervisor Karen Elliott came across "Buckskin Stallion Blues." "I got an email out of the blue last fall," Amy recalls, "saying they would like to use my version of the song in an independent film. I had no idea who the actors would be or what the storyline was until later. It was sort of a mystery how they found my music, since I had been unable to work for a few years due to illness, and did not have anyone working on my behalf."

The illness Annelle refers to was endometriosis, which causes debilitating abdominal pain, fatigue and other symptoms. Amy's illness had gone undiagnosed and untreated despite worsening symptoms, and had advanced to Stage IV when it was finally diagnosed in 2010.

Prior to that, Amy had been working steadily for years, crafting "richly textured, exotic song-worlds that often bear little resemblance to standard voice-and-guitar folk songs" (Billboard). Over the course of twelve albums and countless miles logged on the road, she has cultivated a rarefied voice and a repertoire that "blooms with open-hearted, lustful vulnerability and a harrowing naturalistic solitude" (Crawdaddy).

Surgeries and ongoing treatments, in part funded by Sweet Relief and MusiCares, has allowed some improvement in her health, although there is no cure for endometriosis. Annelle is in the midst of preparing for a few live performances and writing material for a new album, with pre-production slated for early 2018. In addition to her own work, Amy has sung with Daniel Johnston, Bill Callahan, Jolie Holland, Michael Hurley and Jandek.

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