I recently saw a headline about us currently living in "a golden age for music documentaries," and it makes sense. Baby Boomers and members of Generation X are the generations that grew up surrounded by music and that lived through the birth and growth of rock and roll. They're nostalgic for the musical soundtracks of their lives. Many musical stars of the 1970s and 1980s are in the midst of farewell, reunion or flashback tours, and they're packing venues. Also, there are more television and online platforms than ever before, and those platforms are desperate for content. Combine an innovative filmmaker and a musical performer or group, you're likely to find an audience for their product somewhere.
1970's Woodstock is, of course, the template for many classic documentaries. Other classics include Stop Making Sense, The Decline and Fall of Western Civilization, Gimme Shelter, and The Last Waltz,
but I've seen and enjoyed several of the more recent documentaries that I highly recommend.
Trailer
The most recent release is Summer of Soul, directed by Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson, front man of the musical group, The Roots. When I say summer of '69, your mind automatically goes to Woodstock, right? Who knew that there was also a Harlem Cultural Festival that brought the biggest names in R & B or Soul music to a park in Harlem over a period of six weeks? Apparently, not many people knew, but it drew massive crowds. One man captured more than forty hours of live performances on videotape, which then sat, untouched for fifty years. A couple of other people discovered it and intended to do something with it, but those efforts came to naught as well. Then, Questlove entered the picture. Questlove realized that the footage not only contained fantastic, never before seen performances, but it also represented a criminally neglected episode in American history. The film is full of great performances by people including Stevie Wonder, Sly and the Family Stone, Nina Simone, Gladys Knight and the Pips, B.B. King, Mahalia Jackson, and the Staple Singers, just to name a few. It also includes recent interviews with performers and audience members.
Twenty Feet From Stardom (2013) is a story about unsung (get it?) heroes of the recording studio, the backup singers. The film focuses on 6 of the best known backup singers in the industry, who were active from the late 1950s to the present. These women, like Darlene Love and Merry Clayton, provided the background for some of the biggest records in history. In Love's case, her voice was actually used, uncredited, for the lead parts on several songs. She actually recorded songs for some famous girl groups of the 50s and 60s, and those songs were released under the groups' names. She jokes in the documentary, "I recorded the songs and they were climbing up the charts before the group had ever even heard the song." The groups would then lip-sync to the Darlene Love version while on stage. Incredible. And then there are younger backup singers like Lisa Fisher, who had a big pop as a solo artist for a minute in the early 90s, winning a Grammy, and Judith Hill, who is still working on a solo career. The featured women are awesomely talented, and their stories are quite compelling. Sadly, in today's musical digital and computer-generated musical scene, the backup singer is becoming a rarity in the studio.
The Wrecking Crew (2008) is about another group of invisible artists. The Wrecking Crew was the nickname given to a group of 15-25 super-talented studio musicians who recorded albums in Los Angeles in the 1960s. They literally played the music heard on dozens and dozens, maybe hundreds, of albums in the 1960s and early 1970s, often for bands that couldn't or didn't play their own instruments. The albums would be released under the performer's or band's name, and the Crew never got any credit. The Wrecking Crew musicians worked because they were so good and so fast. They could record an album in a day instead of 3 weeks or more. The Crew recorded for what seems like everybody in the 60s. Name a 60s album, and, if it was recorded in Los Angeles, chances are extremely high that it was a Crew job. It was amazing to see and hear their stories.
Look for Part Two of this blog next week, in which I list some great documentaries about specific 1980s artists.
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