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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 021: COUNTRY MUSIC (Episode 01) (2019)

 

Tell a lie long enough and it begins to smell like the truth. Tell it even longer and it becomes part of history. Throughout "Country Music," the omnibus genre documentary from Ken Burns and Dayton Duncan, there are moments of tension between the stories Nashville likes to tell about itself - some true, some less so - and the way things actually were. 

And while from a distance, this doggedly thorough eight-part, 16-hour series, hews to the genre's party line, viewed up close it reveals the ruptures laid out in plain sight. Anxiety about race has been a country music constant for decades. In positioning country music as, essentially, the music of the white rural working class, Nashville streamlined - make that steamrollered - the genre's roots, and the ways it has always been engaged in wide-ranging cultural dialogue. 

But right at the beginning of "Country Music" is an acknowledgment that slave songs formed part of early country's raw material. And then a reminder that the banjo has its roots in West African stringed gourd instruments. The series covers how A.P. Carter, a founder of the Carter Family, traveled with Lesley Riddle, a black man, to find and write down songs throughout Appalachia. And it explores how Hank Williams's mentor was Rufus Payne, a black blues musician. 

It goes on and on, tracing an inconvenient history for a genre that has generally been inhospitable to black performers, regardless of the successes of Charley Pride, Darius Rucker or DeFord Bailey, the first black performer on the Grand Ole Opry. Over and again, "Country Music" lays bare what is too often overlooked: that country music never evolved in isolation. 

Each episode of this documentary tackles a different time period, from the first Fiddlin' John Carson recordings in the 1920s up through the pop ascent of Garth Brooks in the 1990s. Burns has used this multi-episode approach on other American institutions and turning-point historical events: "The Civil War," "The Vietnam War" and "Jazz." These are subjects that merit rigor and also patience - hence the films' length. But country music, especially, demands an approach that blends reverence and skepticism, because so often its story is one in which those in control try to squelch counternarratives while never breaking a warm smile. 

"Country Music" rolls its eyes at the tension between the genre imagining itself as an unvarnished platform for America's rural storytelling and being an extremely marketable racket where people from all parts of the country, from all class levels, do a bit of cosplay. Minnie Pearl, from "Hee Haw," came from a wealthy family and lived in a stately home next to the governor's mansion. Nudie Cohn, the tailor whose vividly embroidered suits became country superstar must-haves in the 1960s and beyond, was born Nuta Kotlyarenko in Kiev, and worked out of a shop in Hollywood. 

The only constant in this film is Nashville's repeated efforts to fend off new ideas like a body rejecting an organ transplant. Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Charley Pride, Hank Williams Jr. - they're all genre icons who first met resistance because of their desire to make music different from the norm of their day, then ended up establishing new norms. 

Those moments pockmark an otherwise straightforward and oft-told story about country music's birth and growth : The 1927 Bristol Sessions, in which Ralph Peer first recorded the Carter Family, Jimmie Rodgers and several others; the rapid climb and accelerated demise of Hank Williams; the feminist potency of Loretta Lynn and Dolly Parton; the roller coaster life of Johnny Cash; the importance of bluegrass, countrypolitan, outlaw country, Sourthern rock and pop country. 

It's a taut narrative, and by design incomplete - 16 hours is enough time to tell a long story, but not always a deep one. But given that this history is being painted with broad strokes, it's especially crucial that attention is drawn to the inventions and elisions that hover over each era of the music. 

Throughout the film are reminders that in Nashville, institutional memory is almost comically short. Concern about the Olivia Newton-John invasion of country music in the mid-1970s discussed in the film felt eerily reminiscent of the anxiety induced by the almost yearlong run at the top of the Billboard hot country songs chart by the pop singer Bebe Rexha, for her collaboration with Florida Georgia Line. The current battle for women performers to be heard and promoted is echoed around once per decade in the documentary. And time and again, those who appear to be rebels - Waylon Jennings, Haggard, Buck Owens - are in fact the ones most interested in the genre's traditions, agitating against a company town that specializes in smoothing out rough edges. 

"Country Music" moves with the signature even-keel tempo of other Burns documentaries, which makes the handful of disruptive moments - some lighthearted, some sad - all the more striking: Mel Tillis describing the Pennsylvania Turnpike in the 1960s by wisecracking, "You could churn butter on that damn thing"; anything that comes out of the mouth of the journalist and gadfly Hazel Smith, who, when she was the office manager for the Hillbilly Central studio where Jennings and others recorded, coined the phrase "outlaw music". 

At one poignant moment, Dwight Yoakam attempts to sing Haggard's "Holding Things Together," about a father raising his children after his wife has left him. Yoakam makes it through the first line, then gathers himself for a full 12 seconds before managing to get out the next one. 

The raw pulse of songs like that - blissfully, there is ample music in this documentary - is grounding, a nod to the triumph of a genre that often steps on its own foot on the path to clarity. But rather than simply celebrate those creative peaks, "Country Music" makes it plain that the story of the genre is merely a pocket version of the story of the American musical experiment writ large: Everyone trying on poses and costumes, borrowing wildly at every turn, pointing fingers at others trying similar things, and, as soon as things become complacent, agitating for something new. 

But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy... 

The Pre-Show: 

   

Once we get to see the "Country Music" film our curious musical minds, will no doubt, be hungry for more. Through the mentioned film, we realise how important the Appalachian region is for the bona fide primal sounds of country music as a whole. So I decided to add a few extra documentaries which help us understand, at least to a certain extent, the people and the music that originated in those far-off mountains. To that we add, something which we have lost for a while and which entertained us before the main feature, a cartoon. This time Bugs Bunny, paying homage to the image that the press used to portray back in the day, of the Apalachian people aka hillbillies. And finally, taking into account that we are about to celebrate Halloween, our last documentary for this week gives us a direct picture of stills belonging to four decades, from the fifties through to the 80s. 

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The Main Feature: 

Title: Country Music: Episode 01 - The Rub 

Director: Ken Burns 

Cast: Documentary 

Release Date: 2019 

Country: United States Of America 

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On Your Way Out: 

By now, being this our 21st movie, I'm sure you already know the procedure before you leave the theatre. Grab what is useful and make sure it helps you enjoy, respect and love the subject matter in hand. Plus it's always good to learn something, or at least relearn something that our busy day to day life has skipped its memory. 

Cheers Shade.

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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 020: JEFF LYNNE'S ELO - WEMBLEY OR BUST (2017)

 

A giant spaceship, pyrotechnics, lasers and big screen visuals all add to the experience of a concert setlist strong on melody and close attention to musical detail. Lynne, now 69 but looking essentially unchanged since ELO's 70s heyday with his curly hair, beard and aviator sunglasses, leeds his 12-piece band through a gentle opening with "Standin' In The Rain" before upping the ante with the clavinet-powered "Evil Woman". 

From thereon in, it is a full two hours of hits plucked from an extensive catalogue that includes nods to Lynne's earliest work with Roy Wood - the propulsive "Do Ya" (originally written for The Move) and "10538 Overture" (from the 1971 album: The Electric Light Orchestra)  - a well received "Handle With Care", from the singer and guitarist's time with The Traveling Wilburys, the 80s supergroup that gathered the talents of Roy Orbison, Bob Dylan, George Harrison and Tom Petty, and as Jeff himself states: "perhaps one you might not expect," "Xanadu", a UK chart-topper first recorded by Olivia Newton-John. 

Violinist Rosie Langley and cellists Amy Langley and Jess Cox come into their own in the string-laden "Livin' Thing" while backing vocalist Melanie Lewis-McDonald demonstrates her impressive soprano range during "Rockaria"! 

"When I Was A Boy," from the ELO album: Alone In The Universe, shows how Lynne's enduring fascination with Beatles-like hooks remains intact to this day. "Last Train To London" also highlights his late 70s appetite for the basslines and rhythms of disco. 

After an introduction to the band by musical director Mike Stevens, long-time associate of Take That, the stadium becomes illuminated by mobile phone lights during the ballad "Can't Get It Out Of My Head". 

The standout moment visually comes during "Twilight", with lasers dancing on the stadium roof while footage of spaceships floating through a futuristic cityscape plays on giant video screens high above the band and keyboard player Marcus Bryne croons into a vocoder. 

"Ma-Ma-Ma Belle reveals Lynne's rockier side, its guitar licks seemingly inspired by Keith Richards and Marc Bolan, before we are back in crowd-pleasing disco territory with "Shine A Little Love". 

"Wild West Hero" is inevitably accompanied by images of vast open American landscapes before the scintillating sequence of "Sweet Talkin' Woman," "Telephone Line," "Turn To Stone" and "Don't Bring Me Down" provide a potent reminder of what a master craftsman Lynne is when it comes to creating memorable hooks and layered harmonies. 

Fittingly the night culminates with a mass singalong to "Mr Blue Sky," a superior pop/classical crossover that could brighten any day. 

If the encore "Roll Over Beethoven" allows Lynne and lead guitarist Milton McDonald to indulge their inner Chuck Berry then they've undoubtedly earned it. 

But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy... 

The Pre-Show: 

  

Before we join our generation (loved to see that the people dancing in the aisles of Wembley Stadium - were in their 50s-60s) singing and hopping along to those wonderful tunes of days gone by but forever young in our hearts, let's get to know the man. Four are the documentaries / videos that will highlight and shed some light (being that Mr Lynne is a very secluded man) on Jeff and his music. 

The most important one, which could no doubt have figured in The Main Feature (so we could say there's two for the price of one) is: Mr Blue Sky (The Story of Jeff Lynne And ELO). Don't miss it! You'll understand the man. And if you're a Beatle fan, you've got to see it! You won't regret it. 

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The Main Feature: 

Title: Jeff Lynne's ELO - Wembley Or Bust 

Director: Paul Dugdale 

Cast: Jeff Lynne and ELO 

Release Date: 2017 

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On Your Way Out: 

One of the major pleasures of "attending" this concert is how "alive" one ends after so much fun (dancing, singing - I practically remembered all the words!!). I'm sure you've gone through the same process. Ok, before you go, and hoping you've had a great time this evening, please feel free to grab some goodies on your way out. 

Cheers, Shade. 

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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 019: DESPERATE MAN BLUES (2003)

 

Today's feature is a documentary on the life and record collecting passion that Mr. Joe Bussard has carried out throughout his entire life. Joe, after many years of dedication to his one sole passion: music, has passed away. Eighty six years of pure energy and love through a common passion: Music! It was his first and last love. It would have been a great pleasure to meet the man, though personally I do not agree with many of his observations concerning music (especially those dedicated to Elvis, The Beatles or rock and roll). Even though I have never met him, I must admit that I do admire his passion, his drive, his enthusiasm, his craziness, his love and most of all his loyalty when it comes to the topic of music. A certain type of music and a certain period and performers of it. But music anyhow. Rest in peace, brother-in-arms. 

It's tough not to like record collector Joe Bussard, subject of the film "Desperate Man Blues". Minutes into "Desperate Man Blues" we're treated to the bubbly and idiosyncratic personality of Joe Bussard. On the opening cut he's found smoking what is to be an omnipresent cigar and grooving to a prewar vinyl. Aficionados of air guitar will be as entranced with Joe as record collectors and old time music enthusiasts. Within minutes, the audience is treated not only to air guitar, but air clarinet, air fiddle, air trombone and even (this may be the only recorded case, which would suit Bussard fine to be sure) air Weissenborn. All this while dancing contagiously. 

Joe began collecting 70 years ago throughout his native Maryland, Virginia and West Virginia. A few side trips into Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina are certainties. Just like that barracks buddy your grandfather was acquainted with in the Great War who kept his copies of The Fantastic Four intact, Bussard had the vision to see treasure in another man's rubbish. He relates tales of collecting at a time when pre-Depression 78s were viewed as throw-away items. In the 1950s the original owners saw little value in what are now priceless records in Joe's collection. 

A case in point. While hunting records in the Piedmont he came across an African-American man who had sold Paramount Records from his home. The humble tin roof shack didn't have electricity. Simply a gold mine, including a copy of Charlie Patton's "32 Blues", which we're treated to as video guests in Joe's basement. 

This is only a pebble on the mountain that is his collection. While doing his once-a-decade interview with The Frederick Post, he plays an ultra-rare mint copy of Robert Johnson's "Crossroad Blues" on Vocalion. "Rock musician's will pay anything for it, and they've got the money," states Joe. One feels Bussard isn't selling. Only minutes before, he's quoted as saying that "Rock is the cancer of music," and referring to a 1933 side as "around the end of jazz." Though his enthusiasm for true American roots music is infectious, he does come off as a trifle monolithic. 

A phone tip leads to the collection of a gentleman some distance from Joe's home. He happily travels out there while admitting that it could either be a mine or shaft. Shaft it seems to be. The records aren't nearly vintage enough, and few among us wouldn't feel sympathy for the elderly men whom Bussard invites outside to listen to some "real music." 

So is the dichotomy of "Desperate Man Blues." Though one would be hard-pressed to find a person more moved by classic American music than the film's protagonist, a rye straw elitism creeps in, making the whole issue a bit unseemly. Naturally, a serious collector "and Bussard is as serious as they come" will tend to fall victim to a Manichean standard. We're talking about a fellow who has a Scotch reel-to-reel of his own recording of Clarence Ashley singing at home. Impugning his taste would make a fool out of the accuser. He sees Jimmie Rodgers as the greatest voice in American music and Uncle Dave Macon its greatest all-around entertainer. Hard to argue. 

Joe Bussard's massive collection is his pride and joy, but he seems to share it freely through his radio program and a very inviting Southern hospitality to visitors. Who among us would hurl accusations of elitism at such a man, who is instrumental in preserving our greatest gift to humanity? As the spectacular stills and performance footage collected for the film would attest, he certainly has a point. This point would be welcome on a nationally syndicated radio program, in addition to his local one. Given the broad appeal that "Desperate Man Blues (named after the A.P. Carter side "John Hardy Was A Desperate Little Man") seems to aim for, we might all come to the realization that we've been listening to crap all along. 

Joe Bussard was asked: What's your definition of hell? 

"Hell, would be at a place where there's every beautiful record ever made, in mint condition. The finest playback system in the world and NO needles! (.... long pause....): "That would be hell!"

But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy... 

The Pre-Show: 

              

Our offerings today complement our main feature directly. There are five documentaries and live shows. The documentaries (three in total) add extra information and video footage on Joe Bussard and his record collecting experience. The final two video documentaries are live performances of Son House. if you've never seen this man in action, you're in for a treat! 

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The Main Feature: 

Title: Desperate Man Blues 

Director: Edward Gillan 

Cast: Joe Bussard 

Release Date: 9th October 2003 

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On Your Way Out: 

Now that was an interesting evening, right there. I feel like jumping in a car and start record hunting. Problem is, I live on "the wrong side" of the world if my intention is obtaining those valuable pieces of treasure in my neighbour's backyard. I'll find other types of records, I assure you, but of a different type of folklore - believe me! Hope today's presents will be to your liking. It is there for you to dive into and learn more about the subject matter in the main feature. 

Cheers, Shade. 

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SATURDAY NIGHT AT THE MOVIES 018: HONEYSUCKLE ROSE (1980)

 

"Honeysuckle Rose" isn't about Willie Nelson, even though the review of the album in "The New Rolling Stone Album Guide" says Nelson "expertly played himself": he actually plays a less famous country singer named Buck Bonham, but you can understand the confusion, since the songs he sings (all recorded live) are the same ones Nelson was doing in concert, with the same backing band, and the soundtrack overlaps with the track listing of the 1978 album "Willie And Family Live". The crowds sound the same, too. 

"Honeysuckle Rose" is like another 1980 Warner Brothers movie, "One Trick Pony", in which Paul Simon pretends to be a stuck-in-limbo singer-songwriter, Jonah Levin, who makes the rounds of small clubs with Simon's real-life band, but Simon's self-written screenplay and score presents an alternate artistic life for Levin. He doesn't sing "The Boxer." Bonham sings "Blue Eyes Cryin' In The Rain," "Whiskey River," and "Bloody Mary Morning." As a document of where Nelson and his band were at the end of the '70s, "Honeysuckle Rose" is as lively and varied as you'd want, with the bonus of performances by Hank Cochran, Johnny Gimble and Emmylou Harris. There are also vocal contributions by Dyan Cannon and Amy Irving, Nelson's co-stars in the film. 

To the extent that "Honeysuckle Rose" has a plot, it's borrowed liberally from the 1939 film "Intermezzo," in which married violinist Leslie Howard falls for his young pianist, Ingrid Bergman. So substitute Willie for Leslie, Kris Kristofferson songs (Nelson duets with each of his ladies on a Kris tune) for Edvard Greig's Concerto in A minor, throw in Slim Pickens, and buy into the notion that Willie, beard, braids, bandana and all, is this magnetic romantic hero, caught between Cannon's blouse-bursting bombshell and Irving's dewy hero-worshipping ingénue. The arc of the movie is predictable, but director Jerry Schatzberg takes a leisurely approach, doesn't demand much of Nelson-as-actor (he doesn't need to: unlike Paul Simon, Willie doesn't seem at all anxious on screen; it's just another gig), and allows the music to pick up the dramatic slack. 

Each of the four sides of the "Honeysuckle Rose" original double-LP soundtrack is like a separate act of the film. With the Oscar-nominated song "On The Road Again" (it, as well as Dolly Parton's "9 to 5," lost to the title theme from "Fame"), the movie and the album bring us into Bonham's world, to the tour bus, the hours between gigs, the moments on stage. It's what film critic Robin Wood, writing about director Howard Hawks, called "the lure of irresponsibility": the all-male troupe, just out there doin' their job, unencumbered and untangled. "Like a band of gypsies we go down the highway," Willie sings. "Insistin' that the world keep turnin' our way." Even though he has Dylan Cannon (who'd have been a perfect Hawksian woman) waitin' at home, and a kid, he just can't wait to get on the road again. "Pick Up The Tempo," he sings, and Johnny Gimble plays "Fiddlin' Around," and Jody Payne takes lead vocal on "Working Man Blues." That's what they are: men at work. 

On side two, Buck/Willie plays the audience favorites "Whiskey River," "Bloody Mary Morning" (both from Nelson's pre-breakout period on Atlantic Records), and Nelson and Cannon sing their couples-song, Kristofferson's "Loving You Was Easier." Side three commences with Amy Irving's siren song, "If You Want Me To Love You I Will"; she and Willie do their Kris number "You Show Me Yours And I'll Show You Mine"; and Nelson sings his beautiful "Angel Flying Too Close to the Ground." You know where this is heading: there's a big concert at the end, the inevitable showdown between the rivals for Buck's favors (on the LP cover, there's an illustration of the two women sizing each other up, while the guy stares off into the distance, and his bandmates wait patiently by the bus until this whole kerfuffle passes). Cannon sings "Two Sides To Every Story," and the penultimate song is Willie, alone on guitar, singing Leon Russell's "A Song For You": happy ending, with a gospel "Uncloudy Day" climactic kicker. 

Willie Nelson in 1980 was well on the way to becoming an American Institution, a figure like Bing Crosby, Ray Charles, or Louis Armstrong. With "Stardust," his 1978 album of standards, he'd earned a licence to take his music anywhere, to show that he owed as much to Django Reinhardt and Hoagy Carmichael as to Harlan Howard and Hank Williams. He used his clout to collaborate on albums with Leon Russell and Ray Price; to do a whole album of Kristofferson songs, a Christmas album ("Pretty Paper"), a gospel album ("Family Bible"), and a breezy "Stardust" sequel ("Somewhere Over The Rainbow"), all between 1979 and 1981, with "Honeysuckle Rose" smack in the middle. In the midst of all this, he made his movie debut in Sydney Pollack's "The Electric Horseman" (1979), and his songs in that film - including a hit version of the Allman Brothers Band's "Midnight Rider" - made up one side of the soundtrack album. 

"Honeysuckle Rose," the album, was a huge success (#1 country), and the film did okay, but about six weeks before it opened in theaters, another country-music movie, "Urban Cowboy," came out and offered a different angle. What "Honeysuckle Rose" feels like is a summing-up, a last hurrah for the Outlaw Country movement that shook up the Nashville establishment in the '70s, when Willie and Waylon Jennings and the boys took over. As the 80s began, John Travolta put on a cowboy hat, Debra Winger straddled a mechanical bull. Outlaws? What Outlaws? Welcome Anne Murray, Kenny Rogers, Johnny Lee, and Mickey Gilley. And Willie? He just kept rollin' down the highway. And rollin', and rollin'... 

But before we get to the main feature, let's enjoy... 

The Pre-Show: 

               

Last week's offering was exclusively occupied by Mamie Van Doren (not going to play any obvious jokes here). Today the Pre-Show will be shared by our two main characters, which in reality are one: "Trigger" (Willie Nelson's guitar and long time friend), plus Willie Nelson himself. There are ten "mini-documentaries" in total, four dedicated to the figure of not just a guitar but the familiar sound that we can immediately identify as being "Willie's sound". The other six, somehow, help us peek into this man's soul, through interviews, question answering and his silences, which speak volumes. 

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The Main Feature: 

Title: Honeysuckle Rose 

Director: Jerry Schatzberg 

Cast: Willie Nelson / Dyan Cannon / Amy Irving / Slim Pickens 

Release Date: 18th July 1980 

Country: United States Of America 

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On Your Way Out: 

Hoping the evening has been to your liking, what's left is for you to open your "farewell presents", with the knowing that there'll be, at least something of interest, to any Willie Nelson fan or country music enthusiast in general. 

Cheers, Shade. 

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