CBS's Matlock stars Emmy- and Oscar-winner Kathy Bates as Madeline “Matty” Matlock, a retired lawyer who saw success in her younger years, and has now rejoined the workforce in a covert effort to look into the death of her daughter. The show also stars Skye P. Marshall as senior attorney Olympia, as well as her ex-husband, Julian (Jason Ritter), who is the son of the head of the law firm. Younger associates Billy (David Del Rio) and Sarah (Leah Lewis) find themselves learning from Matty's tactics.
Matlock premiered on CBS back in September, and streams on Paramount+. Zach Robinson (pictured) is the composer for the series and says he always feels privileged to write music for a living.
"I’m incredibly grateful to be a part of the Matlock team," says Robinson. "This is my second collaboration with our creator and showrunner Jennie Snyder Urman, and I’m honored she trusts me with bringing the music of her Matlock to life."
Robinson never watched the original series, starring Andy Griffith, but was quite familiar with its theme song.
"Jennie knew from the first pages of her pilot script the sound of our new Matlock was going to be different from the original," he shares. "We were going to have a new theme for our main character, Matty, and it was going to be the driving force of the score. Composing music for
Cobra Kai and
Your Friendly Neighborhood Spider-man, I’m no stranger to famous IP, so I completely understand the importance of immediately setting out to create your own identity. Especially with our
Matlock — this show is never quite what it seems."
The score’s theme was written very early in the process, even before the pilot had been shot.
"It’s pretty crazy, but my first idea was my last idea," the composer reveals. "Jennie and the team immediately fell in love with the new melody I composed, which was intended to be our main Matty theme. You’ll hear it everywhere in the show. Getting that approved quickly was fantastic, and I’m still amazed at how modular a theme it is. It can easily switch from mystery, to sorrow, to excitement, to pensive."
For Matlock's music, Robinson's inspiration comes from reading the script and any early cuts that he might be able to view.
"You can write all the music you want, but you’ll never know how it works tonally unless you start writing to picture," he explains. "I actually composed Matty’s theme within a short musical suite I based off a couple of pages of the pilot script. It was pretty incredible that once they shot those pages and put the cut together, we dropped the suite into the edit and it worked extremely well for not having been written to the picture. Of course we needed to tailor the music to the scene exactly, but I think we were all surprised at how well the music worked almost immediately."
Matlock has a few defining instruments to its sound. Robinson uses a lot of vibraphone, which gives a little bit of the retro flavor to the score.
"I use a hammered dulcimer often as a layer for Matty’s melody that provides a bit of fun and mystery," he adds. "Other than that, there’s a lot of piano, drums, guitar, orchestral strings and solo flutes."
The fact that the show was a new take on the IP represented one of the biggest challenges for Robinson to overcome, as he had to develop a musical vocabulary for the characters, the scenery and the story.
"The pilot and Episode 102 were the most challenging for sure," he recalls. "The genius of Jennie’s writing, and why I think Matlock is such a unique show, is how the tone walks the most delicate line between its drama and sharp comedy. Musically, that is one of the most difficult tones to crack. How do we keep it fun and light while simultaneously conveying the tension and mystery of Matty’s grand scheme?"
Snyder Urman will spend a lot of time working with music to help decipher the tone of a scene, he shares, so the early cuts go through quite a bit of trial and error.
"I remember the scene in Episode 102, where Olympia and Julian call somewhat of a truce, and their connection, which you thought was fraught, starts to mend," he shares. "That was challenging. It had to be sweet and charming without being soapy or melodramatic. There are also a few extended sequences in the series where Matty is carrying out a plan that has a lot of peaks and valleys, so to speak. Like little bursts of musical energy followed by tension. The dynamics of scoring this show are what make it really fun though."