Cornbread, Earl and Me

by Richie UnterbergerThe Blackbyrds provided the soundtrack for the 1975 blaxploitation film Cornbread, Earl and Me, which featured the movie debut of Larry Fishburne. Composed entirely by Donald Byrd, it's serviceable, routine soul-jazz background film music, varying between funk/jazz/rock vamps (such as the Sly Stone-styled instrumental workout "The One-Eye Two-Step"), snazzy jazzy bits for action scenes, and sentimental orchestrated interludes. There are also occasional vocal numbers in a pedestrian mid-'70s soul/jazz/rock mode, such as the "Cornbread" theme. It's an incidental addition to the Blackbyrds catalog. In 2001, it was paired on a single-CD reissue on Prestige with another blaxploitation soundtrack, Charles Earland's The Dynamite Brothers.