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Music: The Period-Inspired
Wonder Years Soundtrack
By Patrick Birk
The Wonder Years has returned to ABC, paying homage to the original 1988 coming-of-age narrative, while also carving its own path. Set in 1968, the show follows 12-year-old Dean Williams (Elisha Williams) and his family’s experiences as a Black middle-class family in Montgomery, Alabama. An adult version of Dean, voiced by Don Cheadle, provides a narration of his friendships, love interests and growing pains alongside the struggles of growing up Black at that time.
Composers Roahn Hylton (Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up, Free Meek) and Jacob Yoffee (Kevin Hart: Don’t F**k This Up, Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) bring the spirit of the time to life with a period-inspired soundtrack steeped in the R&B roots of the era. The pair — who work side by side at their LA-based Th3rdstream Studios — kindly chatted with me to share insight into their creative process.
Which artists, record labels and producers served as primary influences on this soundtrack?
Roahn Hylton: We did an amalgamation of a few. Bill Withers is a huge inspiration sonically, because of the way that he used acoustic groove. The original series used a lot of acoustic guitar and other timeless instruments, and in some of our first calls with [EP/director] Fred Savage and [showrunner/writer] Saladin Patterson, there was this idea that we wanted to be close to that emotional feeling of the original, while paying homage to the soul of what we wanted to create.
We did a lot of research. There’s Aretha Franklin and there’s Marvin Gaye, but I gravitated to the Bill Withers sound. And Jacob’s long experience in film music really helped smooth out the R&B tracks into a great film score.
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