Marshall Crenshaw Song is Title Track of "Walk Hard" Movie and Soundtrack

LOS ANGELES, Calif. - When the producers of the forthcoming movie Walk Hard needed a strong title track for the film about a fictional hard-living '50s rock 'n' roll singer, they turned to one of the most acclaimed real singer/songwriters around -- Marshall Crenshaw. The film's star, John C. Reilly, performs the song in the movie, which will open December 21 in most U.S. markets.

Walk Hard, a parody of the biopic genre, features Reilly as a fictional musician named Dewey Cox, and Jenna Fischer as his backup singer and wife, Darlene. The story follows Dewey as he eventually gets caught up in the fame of rock 'n' roll: he sleeps with 411 women, marries three times, has 22 kids, 14 step kids, and gets addicted to -- and kicks -- every drug known to man. Jake Kasdan directed the movie, and Kasdan and Judd Apatow were co-writers.

The Walk Hard soundtrack CD, due to hit the streets on December 4 on Columbia Records, leads off with Crenshaw's title tune and includes compositions by such writers as Dan Bern, Charlie Wadhams, Michael Andrews and Mike Viola. Soundtrack producers were Manish Raval and Tom Wolfe. According to Crenshaw, “I got such a kick out of the script that the song pretty much wrote itself."