Austin used to be the film capital of the world. Back in the 70's and early 80's, there was a film, a good film, showing on every corner. I'm taking back my town, so sit back down and shut back up.
The Wrecking Crew
Get link
Facebook
Twitter
Pinterest
Email
Other Apps
-
Last night's entry in my music documentary travels was The Wrecking Crew a 2015 film directed by Danny Tedesco. It took Danny a long time to finish this work of love for his father Tommy and the other Wrecking Crew band members who played on so many popular albums, mostly unacknowledged in the credits and financially. Besides being yet another comment on the smarmy side of the music business, the film is a well put together tribute to those sessions players who created those albums so many of us grew up with. What I took away was just like the work these people did whose love for the music overrode the injustices of low pay and no credit - the music in the film transcends. You can't help but be inspired by the end result...the songs. The documentary pays tribute to the studio musicians that made up the Wrecking Crew - listed here in Wikipedia. Tedesco, Carol Kay, Hal Blaine, Earl Palmer, Barney Kessel, Larry Knechtel (later in the band Bread,) Plas Johnson, Mike Melvoin, Don Randi, Al Casey, Al DeLory, Billy
Strange, Howard Roberts, Jerry Cole, Louie Shelton, Mike Deasy, Bill
Pitman, Lyle Ritz, Chuck Berghofer, Joe Osborn, Ray Pohlman, Jim Gordon,
Chuck Findley, Ollie Mitchell, Lew McCreary, Jay Migliori, Jim Horn,
Steve Douglas, Allan Beutler, Roy Caton, and Jackie Kelso. Yeah...and how about 16 year-old Leon Russell ... or Glen Campbell. Jack Nitzsche. There is so much rich information and you get to know the players.
I loved how the editing was done ... for instance, a song would play. A familiar song and then you might hear Carol Kay adding the bass line that made it the classic it became. I can see why Danny Tedesco took so long to get it right. It's really hard to secure the rights to music and believe me, I know. I've shed blood over simple quotes for my books and my own films. It's very complicated and sometimes you have to write and write and write to dozens of people who have publishing rights and other types of licensing. It's enough to make you want to throw in the towel, but you keep at it. It took Tedesco years to get The Wrecking Crew released, but he did it. And his dad. Tommy would be right proud. Highlights include Brian Wilson, Cher, Glen Campbell, Peter Tork and Mickey Dolenz, Nancy Sinatra and other favorites.
Watch on Hulu, Prime, YouTube, Apple, Google Play.
Last night, I had a really great dream. It was still bad out there and Trump was still our evil president trying to kill us all. But, Steve McQueen was still alive. I had written a short story about a cowboy from Wyoming, a modern day cowboy, who runs for president. And wins! He turns out to be the kind of American this country needed. He saw the bad side of racism and oil creeps hurting the Native American nations. He'd seen it all, like cowboys do in real good cowboy movies. They're always on the outside looking in at the bad things civilization does. Anyway, Steve loved this story. I was in San Francisco in the dream and Steve told me to run and get him his favorite treats, those striped peanut butter bars and those Jolly Rancher Watermelon candies. I went over to Market Street and Castro nearby where we were meeting and couldn't find those striped bars anywhere. I wound up at this Asian market and had to get him this weird jello stuff that was watermelon flavored an
I finally got up the strength or whatever to watch Marianne and Leonard, Words of Love knowing it would do me in for a couple of days after. And, I was right. 'So Long, Marianne' is and has always been my favorite Leonard Cohen song. And, I could never tell you why. It just hit all the right notes. The perfect score for lovers who've lost at love. I love the man. I spent a whole year of my life lying on a friend's couch and drinking tequila while listening to Leonard. That's when I first heard the song and would play it over and over on lonely long Sundays. And, I couldn't tell you why, but it resonated with something deep inside that was doomed to be doomed. I was only seventeen. What's important about the film is the filmmaker, Nick Broomfield's own relationship with Marianne Ihlen. Broomfield has made over 30 films including some of my favorites, Aileen: Life and Death of a Serial Killer and Kurt and Courtney. He goes deep where many fear to trea
I'm dropping the "The" from The Zone of Interest , my only humble suggestion. Jonathan Glazer's film is about a real family living on the grounds of Auschwitz - we all know about it - Auschwitz concentration camp was a complex of over 40 concentration and extermination camps operated by Nazi Germany in occupied Poland during World War II and the Holocaust. Glazer's work takes a look at Rudolf Höss, his wife Hedwig and their children living a fairy tale type of life with the big dark shadow of Auschwitz always looming in the backdrop. The film is difficult to watch and was difficult to make. The director's choice to wire cameras hidden amidst plants and staged scenery creates a documentary feel to the piece and it works. In fact, the camera takes on it's own persona, something I'm mesmerized with in filmmaking. As when something magical happens and the 'film goddess' takes command as she will do. There is definitely another dimension added t
Comments
Post a Comment