An interesting pattern among many Revisionist Westerns is the singer/songwriter or rock musician score. It seems to have started in the 70s but continues to this day. Here's a list, along with some background:

The earliest example I can think of is the harmonica heavy score to Little Big Man by John Hammond, son of the legendary producer of the same name, and an acclaimed blues musician in his own right. He's also notable for introducing Bob Dylan to The Band.

The next is McCabe & Mrs. Miller although Leonard Cohen didn't write music specifically for the film. Robert Altman used 3 songs from The Songs of Leonard Cohen as temp tracks but fell in love with them and kept them. There is no other score outside of diegetic music

That same year, 2 of the 3 songs used in the film were also used in Rainer Werner Fassbinder's Beware of a Holy Whore.

That same year Peter Fonda's The Hired Hand had a strange, atmospheric score by folk icon (and inspiration for Mr. Tambourine Man) Bruce Langhorne.

Probably the most famous of these scores is Bob Dylan's for Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid. So much so, that it's probably more famous than the film itself, thanks to Knockin' on Heaven's Door, one of Dylan's most popular compositions

Originally Dylan worked on the score with Wild Bunch composer Jerry Fielding, but Fielding was not happy with Dylan's unorthodox approach to scoring, with the rock drums on Knockin' on Heaven's Door being his breaking point. He left the project...

Dylan also acted in the film, to mixed results. Singer/songwriter Kris Kristofferson fared a bit better as Billy the Kid, he also wrote a song for the film that wasn't used. Musicians Donnie Fritts and Rita Coolidge also appeared...

For insight into Dylan's unorthodox way of working, here's a 1973 article from Rolling Stone Magazine. It's well worth the read: https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-news/dylan-meets-the-durango-kid-kristofferson-and-dylan-in-mexico-242768/

Bootlegs of Dylan recording the score have circulated under the title Pecos Blues. In it, you can hear Dylan talk about how Jerry Fielding is going to shit when he hears what he's doing, along with many songs that never made it into the film:

One of those songs was the unfinished Rock Me Mama. It was later turned into Wagon Wheel by Old Crow Medicine Show and became a hit for Darius Rucker. Along with Knockin' its popularity eclipsed the film and became a standard amongst annoying guys with acoustic guitars at parties

The Spaghetti Westerns soon got into the act. The first of which is Lucio Fulci's 4 of the Apocalypse which had a score written by composers Fabio Frizzi, Franco Bixio & Vince Tempera but with Greenfield & Cook & the Benjamin Franklin Group singing over it. Whoever they were.

The following year Enzo Castellari would try to emulate the scores to McCabe and Pat Garrett for Keoma by ruining a good DeAngelis Bros score with Sybil & Guy caterwauling over it. It makes potentially powerful scenes laughable, especially when Guy seems to be channeling a seal.

Listen at your own risk:

The following year Sergio Martino made his Keoma knockoff Mannaja and enlisted the DeAngelis Bros, this time with some guy named Dandylion singing over it. The vocals are still silly, but much more tolerable than Sybil & Guy's efforts

The next notable example is Joe Strummer's score for Alex Cox's obnoxious satire Walker. Like Pat Garrett, this film had a screenplay by Rudy Wurlitzer.

Speaking of Wurlitzer, next up is Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man with a score by Neil Young. Roger Ebert said it "sounds like nothing so much as a man repeatedly dropping his guitar" but I think that's a bit harsh. It's actually pretty good, if a bit repetitive

Next up is John Hillcoat's Australian Western The Proposition with a score by Nick Cave & Warren Ellis. Cave also wrote the screenplay.

A few years later Cave & Ellis would score The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford for fellow Australian Andrew Dominik. Dominik said that Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid was an influence. Nick Cave cameos as a barroom singer:

Not quite a Western but definitely Western adjacent is PTA's There Will Be Blood, with a score by Radiohead's Jonny Greenwood:

Slow West was written and directed by Scottish musician John MacLean and he tapped Australian singer/songwriter Jed Kurzel to do the score:

Outlaws and Angels is one of the worst Westerns I've ever seen but its score by Arcade Fire/Bon Iver collaborator Colin Stetson is okay:

The Zellner Bros enlisted indie band The Octopus Project for their comedy Western Damsel:

Oh yeah, I almost forgot Jimmy Hayward's comic book Western Jonah Hex with a score by Marco Beltrami and Mastodon!

Those are all of the ones I can think of at the moment. Let me know if I've missed any. It makes me wonder what it is about Revisionist Westerns that makes singer/songwriters want to score them, or what makes directors eschew using traditional scores. Any ideas?

If someone were to carve a Mt. Rushmore of singer/songwriters Leonard Cohen, Bob Dylan and Neil Young would definitely be on it, and someone wouldn't be crazy to include Nick Cave on there too. It's fascinating to me that they've all scored Revisionist Westerns.

My God, I can't believe I forgot Ry Cooder's excellent score to Walter Hill's The Long Riders!

Or the efforts of David Mansfield, who, along with T-Bone Burnett was part of Dylan's band during the Rolling Thunder Revue (Dylan is coming up a lot on here!). He started scoring films with Michael Cimino's Heaven's Gate and played a small part:

Mansfield also scored The Ballad of Little Jo which was directed by his wife Maggie Greenwald Mansfield:

Mansfield later scored Walter Hill's made for TV Western Broken Trail: