Go and see my documentary Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts at the Nashville Film Festival tomorrow (Tuesday) at 3.30pm.
I’m not saying that the trailer for the new Star Wars movie is playing before my doco, but I’m not not saying that.
My latest video featurette for Newcastle’s finest, singer/songwriter Morgan Evans. It encompasses his whirlwind weekend at the CMC Rocks the Hunter 2013 music festival where he was guested upon by Kasey Chambers, took him a prize from the CMC Music Award and hung with his peers and his heroes.
I shot this on my Canon 60D and cut it my MacBook pro, using Premiere CS6.
Had a lovely time chatting with Juli Thanki for the country/Americana oriented web magazine Engine 145, of which I am a loyal reader.
I also reveal a story about Jim’s past that got cut from the film.
Good choice of breakout quote.
There’s a fun joke my friends and I sometimes do and it’s one you can do too. The butt of the joke is the nicest one in your group; trust me, you know who that person is. They’ll also never know it’s happened, because what you do is wait until they’ve just left the party, or the bar, or the car…
Everyone should calm the hell down.
Source: mattkirshen
Like the utterings of Sir Humphrey and his fellow civil servants in Yes Minister, press releases and reviews related to movies can often be a hive of language that is indecipherable to the layman.
So to prevent unwitting movie-goers falling into traps and parting with their hard-earned cash ill-advisedly, here is a brief glossary of some confusing terms:
CHARACTER STUDY
This is a deceptive one. You might read this term in a review and think ‘That sounds grand. I enjoy strong characters’.
The key is in the word ‘study’. You see, in a good film, you don’t study characters. You engage with them, because you identify with their flaws and objectives and hope and fear for them. In a ‘character study’, no matter how interesting the characters, they will not do much of anything throughout the film. It is doubtful they will change in any meaningful way. So all you can do is sit back and study this character existing and wish the screenwriter had bothered to come up with a compelling story to put them into.
SLICE OF LIFE DRAMA
Like a ‘character study’, but with lots of grey in the production design and costuming.
MUMBLECORE
Character study, but with no money for lights or a tripod.
NOT A PLOT-DRIVEN FILM
No story. See ‘character study’.
TONE POEM
Run! Get out of the cinema while you still can!
This is even worse than a character study. This even removes any interesting characterisation from the mix and leaves you a series of pretty shots, often filmed between 6 and 7pm. Actors may be involved, but their contribution is usually limited to wistful stares. If they are lucky, they will be assigned snippets of meandering pretentious dialogue to deliver. All this may be allegedly in service of some greater thematic idea, but good luck working out what it is without a psychic link to the director’s brain.
GRITTY REBOOT
The director thinks he’s Christopher Nolan. He isn’t.
DOCUMENTARY STYLE ACTION SEQUENCES
The director thinks he’s Paul Greengrass. He isn’t and has just given the audience motion sickness.
DOESN’T BOW TO THE MTV/YOUTUBE GENERATION’S TINY ATTENTION SPAN
The film is three and a half hours long. There’s a good chance it has more than one ending.
As anyone with a Facebook account will be well aware, it was warm in Sydney today. In fact, it was very warm. When I left the office this evening, opening the door was like having someone point a gigantic hairdryer at my face.
Naturally this brings to mind Too Darn Hot, Cole Porter’s classic tune about not being able to have sex with your girl or boyfriend because, frankly, who has the fucking energy? It feels like the end of that Danny Boyle movie about a spaceship flying into the sun.
Like all Cole Porter songs, Too Darn Hot is awesome. It’s also the best song from the stage show it was composed for, Kiss Me Kate. Unlike the second best song from that show - Always True To You In My Fashion - it has pretty much zip to do with the storyline or character development.
When Kiss Me Kate premiered in 1948, Broadway musicals were still one of the main sources of pop hits, with their lyrics being nonspecific enough to work outside the context of the show. This is a practice that fell away in later years, and is the main reason why Epiphany from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street never hit number one. Lyrics like ‘Sweeney’s waiting. I want you bleeders.’ are kind of show specific and would seem out of place on a Donna Summer album.
Although thought of as a woman’s number, Too Darn Hot was originally performed in the show by a man, specifically Lorenzo Fuller. The fact that it was given gender reassignment and handed off to Ann Miller as a showcase for her legs in the 1953 film shows how inessential it was to the substance of the story.
It’s a pretty sensational performance, peppy and winning with a killer tap dancing sequence, marred only by the hilarious hep cat interjections from the piano player.
But a smokier, more sensual reading of the song was to come three years later. I think of Ella Fitzgerald as being in a grudge match with Joni Mitchell, Nina Simone and Bonnie Raitt for the title of greatest female vocalist to step behind a microphone. Her best work was done on series of concept albums she cut for Verve records between 1956 and 1964, each focusing on the work of a single composer. To quote Frank Rich - “Here was a black woman popularizing urban songs often written by immigrant Jews to a national audience of predominantly white Christians.”
Her version of Too Darn Hot comes from the first of those albums,The Cole Porter Songbook, released in 1956. With a brassy, punchy arrangement by Buddy Bregman, a saucy instrumental break and the languid tempo, this recording actually feels like a sticky, humid evening in New York. In simple terms, it’s plain hotter than any other version of the song. Fitzgerald’s exquisite phrasing draws out the saucy, underplayed sexual frustration of the verses, soars in the bridge, before coming back down to the swamp for the next verse.
Interestingly, this version retains the original lyric for the bridge. When adapting Kiss Me Kate for the screen, MGM balked at this line:
According to the Kinsey Report
Ev’ry average man you know
Much prefers his love-y dove-y to court
When the temperature is low
While either the meaning of the song in general went over their head or they had no problem with a number about it being literally too hot to fuck, it was determined that the reference to ‘the Kinsey Report’ be changed to ‘the latest report’, a much less interesting line. Dr. Alfred Kinsey’s game changing book Sexual Behavior in the Human Male had been released in 1948 and revolutionized people’s attitudes and level of ignorance around the realities of sexual orientations and proclivities. So even thought it was five years later, the allusion was deemed to frighten the horses and removed for the film.
Another recording which retains the original line is one by Sammy Davis Junior (whose body of work is surely due for some kind of critical reappraisal). SDJ’s may not be as sexy as Ella Fitzgerald’s version, but it might be the coolest. Recorded in the early 60s during his time at Frank Sinatra’s Reprise label, it boasts a stinging lead guitar part which gradually yields to the whomping stings from the the orchestra.
The arrangement builds from the guitar intro, through the different instruments shooting off solo licks between the vocals in the verses, to a full orchestral pomp in the bridge, pulling back again in the outro to the tight electric guitar and rhythm section that opened the track.
Of course, like any selection from the Great American Songbook, Too Darn Hot has been covered countless times by innumerable artists, from Mel Torme to Petula Clark.
The less said about Erasure’s version the better. It appears on a 1990 charity album called Red Hot + Blue, which featured many contemporary artists coming together to address the shocking lack of drum machines and synthesizers on previous recordings of Cole Porter songs. Only Tom Waits, KD Lang and David Byrne come out unscathed.
Porter’s songs are timeless. Aside from some minor quirks of phrase (and all of You’re The Top) dating, they remain as romantic/devastating/cheeky as they were when they first emerged from his pen. Some even become more relevant. Because with the way global warming is going, we will have more and more reason to say ‘It’s too darn hot.’
Apparently, 2012 was the Year of the Dragon. While I agree their spot on the Long Way to the Top Tour was great, this is probably overstating things a bit.
For me, this was largely the year of the Lauderdale. The documentary project which was initiated almost exactly two years ago wrapped up production and had its first public airings. But that wasn’t all we got up to over the past 366. Here’s how things shook out:
JANUARY
- I followed CMC Oz Artist of the Year Jasmine Rae around the Tamworth Country Music Festival. Filming her. CMC Oz Artist of the Year Jasmine Rae had a busy Tamworth Country Music Festival and I was there, capturing the action for another episode of JR: On The Road. From the red carpet of the Golden Guitar awards to Jasmine’s fan lunch to the ABC Radio studio to the CMC house to backstage at Jasmine’s headlining show at the Blazes auditorium. Watch it here.
FEBRUARY
- With their arrival iminent, the airwaves were saturated with our television commercial for the Dierks Bentley / Lee Kernaghan Australian concert tour. Check it out here.
- After weeks of colluding with my newly acquired producer Chris Kamen, we launched our IndieGoGo campaign to raise funding to complete the feature length version of the documentary film Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts, chronicling the life and career of Americana icon Jim Lauderdale. We had set out target at an ambitious $10,000 (almost the entire budget of my last feature film, Benjamin Sniddlegrass and the Cauldron of Penguins). Would we make it?
MARCH
- In the lead up to Jim Lauderdale’s fourth trip down under, to perform at the CMC Rocks the Hunter 2012 festival, the Country Music Channel screened the original short form version of The King of Broken Hearts. The feedback the program received from the viewing audience was extremely gratifying and also helped point me at the areas to focus on as we ramped up toward production on the feature length version. Have a listen to my interview about the broadcasts on the Communication Breakdown radio show (with the estimable James and the frankly untrustworthy Emmeline) here.
- Jim blew through Oz, leaving a trail of adoration in his wake. We appeared together on the FBI Radio show In The Pines, being grilled by host Emma Swift and raising awareness of the fundraising campaign, leading to a promising uptick in donations.
- Thanks to relentless promotion through social media, a groundswell of support from Jim’s fans around the globe and plugs from our old friends from BBC Radio FiveLive, Mark Kermode and Simon Mayo, we shot past our target and ended up raising $10,848 through IndieGoGo. This meant the shoot was on and we began booking flights.
APRIL
- Saying farewell to our loved ones, producer Chris Kamen and I boarded a pair of rickety Qantas 747s and headed over yonder Nashville way to shoot the feature length version of Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts. It was the start of a whirlwind month of shooting, in which Chris and I, armed only with the IndieGoGo funds, my own personal savings, two Canon 60Ds and gumption, criss-crossed a specific portion of North America and filmed.
- After a few days of pre-production in Nashville, we headed down the road into North Carolina, embarking on a tasting tour of Mexican restaurants and also accompanying Jim to the wonderous Merlefest, held each year in the small town of Wilkesboro, NC. Founded by the iconic guitarist Doc Watson 25 years ago, the festival has become known as one of the greatest roots and Americana music events in the world. Jim is a favourite at the festival, performing to adulation in a variety of configurations each year and we captured backstage, onstage, between stages and an extended comic interlude where we all tried to find our way out of the Merlefest parking lot, with limited success.
- After Wilkesboro, we traveled across the state to Durham, NC. A director from Sydney and a producer from Melbourne had traveled to Durham to interview a singer from Liverpool. We caught up with the great Elvis Costello at the Durham Performing Arts Centre, where he held up sound check for us while I interrogated him about his co-writing and harmonising with Jim, while they shared the stage together as part of Elvis’s skiffle band the Sugarcanes. Just to make the thing more geographically muddled, our local cameraman Harvey Robinson was an ex-pat Scouser living in North Carolina. It’s a small world, but I wouldn’t want to paint it.
MAY
- Leaving the greenery of the Carolinas behind us, producer Chris Kamen and I hopped a flight over to the City of Angles. We interviewed the friendly and caustic Pete Anderson, the brilliant producer behind the hits of Dwight Yoakam, and were given the guided tour of North Hollywood by bassist/producer Dusty Wakeman - and got a contact high from a medicinal marijuna store on the next block.
- Next stop was the California desert. I’m not exactly a sightseer, but it’s hard not to be knocked out by the supreme georgesness of the open, arid lanscape, dotted with Joshua trees. Jim has spent many hours wandering around the area, chasing the setting sun with a notebook and an acoustic guitar, turning inspiration into classic songs, and it’s easy to see why he finds it so amenable to creativity.
- Aside from capturing Jim’s songwriting process, we also shot Jim and Dusty Wakeman at Pioneertown, recalling memories of a record they made in the desert many years ago. Then it was over to the storied venue Pappy and Harriet’s Pioneertown Palace, for an intense, rowdy Cinco De Mio gig - the ‘Annual Spring JimFest’, as Dusty calls it.
- Our trip wrapped up back in Nashville, where we shot Jim making two different albums, chaperoned rock’n’roll icon James Burton and grabbed interviews with John Oates, Rodney Crowell, Ketch Secor, Sunny Sweeney, Peter Cooper, Ollie O’Shea and Jimmy Barret, captured by the great Nashville cameraman Brett Johnson. Then we said farewell, having gathered what we came for and run out of money, and flew back to Oz.
JUNE
- The editing process began. At this point, we had over thirty hours of footage to sort through. I was aiming for a 90-minute running time. Snip, snip, snip.
JULY
- The first cut of the film had taken shape. It was slightly over three hours long. Snip, snip, snip.
AUGUST
- The smoothest baritone in cotemporary country, Joe Nichols, was readying another trip down under. It was time for some more TVCs. Here’s one for his show at the Tamworth Regional Entertainment Centre.
SEPTEMBER
- I headed into the Brain Recording Studio with engineer Clayton Segelov and we set about mixing audio from Jim’s set at the CMC Rocks the Hunter 2012 festival for inclusion in the film.
OCTOBER
- The film was now down to a more managable 2 and a half hours. In consult with producer Chris Kamen, I shaved it down further. 90 minutes was visible on the horizon.
NOVEMBER
- After months of organisation, the world premieres of the film were locked in. With the film down to rough cut that was almost at the desired shortness, I put together a trailer for the film and launched it on an unsuspecting public. You can watch it here.
DECEMBER
- Two years after I had first pitched the idea for the film to its subject, I headed to Nashville to see The Who for the world premiere of Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts. Held at the beautiful Ford Theatre at the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, I sat in the back row and watched an audience that included Buddy Miller, Randy Kohrs, Jed Hilly and Mark Moffat take in the film. Afterword, Jim and I were interviewed by journalist Craig Havighurst about the inception and process of making the film. Check out the highlights here.
- Seeing a film with an audience can make you reasses its strengths and weaknesses. With a few days up my sleeve before the LA premiere, I reworked the cut of the film, shaving off a few minutes and tightening up sections I felt were overlong. The result was a film that felt half as long, and a fantastic response from the packed Clive Davis Theatre at the Grammy Museum. It even made some audience members cry, which is really all I could’ve hoped for. Post-screening, Jim and I were questioned by VP of the Grammy Foundation Scott Goldman, which was fun and at times very moving. Check out highlights here.
- I also seem to recall some people predicting the END OF THE WORLD! For this December!. That’s right, it was Jim Lauderdale and Robert Hunter, who recorded their dire warning at Ben Folds’ studio in Nashville with the prophets James Burton, Kenny Vaughan, Dennis Crouch, John Jarvis and Chad Cromwell. Luckily enough, Chris Kamen and I were there to capture the action, resulting in this music video.
I’d like say a special thanks to those people not already mentioned who made 2012 special, including (but not at all limited to) Michelle Aquilato, Matt Kamen, Stephen Fry and Nancy Russell.
So here I sit in Tasmania, taking in the profoundly indecisive weather and contemplating 2013. The year will kick off with a screening of Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts on Australia’s Country Music Channel at 7pm on Thursday January 3, followed by broadcasts on Friday 4 at 10am, then further airings across January. For a full list of dates, go here. Tune in, turn on and drop whatever else you were planning on doing. Sydney-siders may also be in for an extra treat in this area - so stay tuned!
Other projects, including a new web series and the special edition DVD release of Jim Lauderdale: The King of Broken Hearts, are on the cards, and who knows what else the year of the snake will hold? Who knows what evil lurks in the heart of men? Who needs pictures (with a memory like mine)?
Jeremy Dylan
December 2012
Park Beach, Tasmania
Scott Goldman, VP of the Grammy Foundation and MusiCares, interviews Jim Lauderdale and I after the LA Premiere of the documentary at the Grammy Museum, last Tuesday.
Two most noticeable differences between Nashville and LA (aside from the temperament of the drivers) are height and sprawl.
Not that Nashville has no skyscrapers (anyone who’s visited will be familiar with the Batman building), but it’s not dominated by dazzling towers affixed with gigantic visages of animated rabbits, vodka and (this week) Gerard Butler.
Nashville is basically a larger than usual small town. From the hotel I stayed at downtown, it was no more than fifteen minutes walk in any direction to get me to the Ryman Auditorium, Bridgestone Arena (where I saw The Who last week!), Gruhn Guitars, The Station Inn, Cantina Laredo and the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum.
In LA, going pretty much anywhere from my hotel involves a $30 cab ride.
So with these differences in mind, and the general difference in temperament between the citizenries, I was curious before our LA premiere: How differently would the film be received?
As often happens in early screenings of a film, seeing it played with an audience had given me insight into the pacing of the film. Some parts were playing slower than I had anticipated, some archival clips should be extended, some music cues held longer. Thankfully, there were a few days between the Nashville and LA screenings, so I had the opportunity to sit down at my laptop and rework the cut a little.
I ended up shaving off three and a half minutes over the course of the film and the difference was remarkable. Sitting in the crowd with Jim at the Grammy Museum’s Clive Davis Theater, the film seemed to move along much faster, and the moments I’d sensed attention waning in the earlier screening now held the audience to the screen.
After the film, Jim and I participated in a funny and moving Q&A (video coming soon) with Scott Goldman, Vice President of the Grammy Foundation and MusiCares. He and I were on our sartorial toes, given that we’d be sitting down the with the best dressed man in Americana music.
Jim and I talked about our “plans” for an upcoming feature film adaptation of his Grammy winning albumThe Bluegrass Diaries. A young blonde in the audience asked Jim if he was married yet. Two remarkable moments came out of the evening:
First, when Jim, talking about his 30+ year friendship with Buddy Miller, recalled the time a few years when Buddy was struck down with a heart attack and Jim feared he might lose him. He paused for a long moment in the middle of a sentence, and I could see he was fighting back tears.
Secondly, a woman in the crowd began to cry as she confessed she’d been dragged along to the screening by a friend, not knowing who Jim was was. After watching the film, she’d gained a huge appreciation for his music and felt so ashamed for her ignorance of his work.
And that is exactly the reason I made the film. Jim’s career has stretched over so many genres, labels, cities and years that he can go to Wilkesboro, NC for MerleFest and be treated like Neil Armstrong coming home from the moon, yet there are millions of people around the world who wouldn’t know his name. Some know the country hits that have come from his pen, but not the bluegrass albums that won him Grammys. They know his work with Elvis Costello, but not his radio show with Buddy Miller.
Trying to condense Jim’s talent, generosity, humor and career into 90 minutes has been a supreme challenge, but the reactions from the people who have come along to these two screenings makes me think I captured some of his spirit.
Thanks again to everybody who ventured out on a winter’s night to the Grammy Museum and to Michelle Aquilato, Lynne Sheridan, Scott Goldman and Amanda Hale-Ornelas for making this screening happen.
See you all on the LauderTrail as the film makes it way to a cinema, tv network, laptop or DVD player near you!
