Music Sunday: The Rock Doc Edition

Today, I'm thinking about rock documentaries. This probably is because about a week or so ago I watched a great documentary about Jimi Hendrix, called "Jimi Hendrix: Hear My Train A'Comin'", that was part of the American Masters Series on PBS here in the States. It was two hours long, and followed Hendrix's entire life, from his birth in Seattle, Washington, in 1942, to his untimely death in London in 1970 at the age of 27. It is a good look at his career, from playing with the Isley Brothers and Little Richard to his biggest successes, first in England and then in the United States and around the world. Here is a trailer for the film, which includes commentary from not only Hendrix's friends, but from musicians such as Paul McCartney and Steve Winwood:



You probably know, if you've been following along here for very long, that I love documentary films in general. One of my favorite sub-genres with documentary film-making is rock docs, as they get called sometimes. One of the first, and one of the best, is "Monterey Pop", directed by D. A. Pennebaker, that chronicles the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, held in Monterey, California. The festival was organized by music promoter Lou Adler, singer John Phillips (of The Mamas and The Papas), producer Alan Pariser, and publicist Derek Taylor. Because of Taylor's work with The Beatles, it was widely believed that The Beatles would perform at the festival, but that did not happen, although Paul McCartney recommended both Jimi Hendrix and The Who for the festival, and their appearances at the festival their first major performances in the United States. It was also Janis Joplin's first large-scale performance, although her performance (and Hendrix's) did make it into the original cut of the film. You can find footage of their performances, though, on YouTube. One performance that did make it into the film was that of Otis Redding, in his first major appearance in front of a largely white audience.

I don't think this clip made it into the first cut of the film, but it is a good clip, so I'm including it anyway. It is The Buffalo Springfield, with David Crosby guesting (in a sign of things to come), singing "For What It's Worth" (yes, I think I did share this song last week, too), introduced by Peter Tork, of The Monkees. This was a key feature of Monterey Pop, acts being introduced by other musicians, who didn't necessarily perform at the festival:



The year 1970 saw the release of three rock documentaries, all of which are good (although at least one of them got lukewarm reviews when it was released) and all of which are still worth viewing today. In order of their release, these are "Woodstock", "Let It Be", and "Gimme Shelter".

I've written about the Woodstock festival here before, and probably about the film, directed by Michael Wadleigh (one of the editors was Martin Scorsese), as well. It documents, of course, the Woodstock Music & Art Fair, which has become legendary in the history of music festivals and of the history of rock and roll. Coming in at about three hours long, the film does not feature performances by everyone who played at the festival, but it comes pretty close. Those whose performances appear in the film include, among others, Crosby, Stills, Nash, (and Young, in one song), The Who, The Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Arlo Guthrie, and famously (or perhaps infamously), Country Joe & the Fish. Among those who didn't make it into the original cut of the film include The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and the Grateful Dead. There are a couple of later versions of the film that are also floating around. One is the director's cut, which was released in 1994, and a 40th Anniversary edition, from 2009.

This did make it into the film. It is Country Joe & the Fish's performance of "Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag". It figures that there would be some anti-war music at the festival. After all, it was 1969, during the height of the protests against the war in Vietnam. And so this band obliged, with a fairly clever protest song. Alas, the Fish cheer, which came right before they sang this song (and is what really makes the band's Woodstock performance infamous in some circles), is not included in this clip:



"Let It Be" was a whole different kettle of fish from "Woodstock". This film documents the recording of The Beatles' album of the same name, right about the time the band began to fall apart. In fact the film, which is a bit difficult to find these days, includes the last public performance of all four Beatles together. This was the much talked-about and written-about rooftop concert in the middle of London that ended up being shut down by the police because it was disrupting business in the area. The film didn't really get wonderful reviews when it was released in May 1970, but it was and remains an interesting look at a rock band in the final stages of its career. Here is the original theatrical trailer from the film:



And then, in December 1970, "Gimme Shelter" was released. It chronicled the Altamont Free Concert that turned into such a disaster for The Rolling Stones. As the film shows, the concert started out as a nice gesture by the Stones but due to lack of planning, poor choices, and just general bad luck, the event turned into a disaster. In the event, one concert-goer was stabbed to death by security - which was being provided by the Hell's Angels, a choice that no one seemed to be willing to own up to later. The fact that the man who was killed, Meredith Hunter, was carrying a gun, was just one in the whole constellation of things that went wrong. He shouldn't have been carrying a gun, but professional security might have been able to handle the problem by other means. The film shows not only the planning for the show and some of the show itself, but the aftermath, which seemed to shock the members of the band as much as it did everyone else. Here is the original trailer for the film:



And here is the part of the film when Mick Jagger is looking at the footage from the concert where the killing of Hunter is shown, and the aftermath of that:



Certainly, this isn't what the Stones set out to do when they proposed the concert, and it isn't what the filmmakers had in mind in documenting it. But, sometimes, it feels when watching the film like it is a precursor of things to come as American society has gotten more violent and developed more of a gun culture. It's a frightening thing to watch, but I think this is an important film because it documents this and also shows what can go wrong even when most of the parties have the best of intentions.

Because I don't want to end on such a depressing note, I'm going to close with mention of one of my favorite rock docs of all, the 1978 film "The Last Waltz", which documents the farewell concert of The Band, held at the Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco California, on November 25, 1976, Thanksgiving Day. I've written about The Band and "The Last Waltz" here before, so I'm not going to go into a lot of detail, other than to say that the film was directed by Martin Scorsese, and to post a clip that I haven't posted before here, as far as I can recall. It is from some songs recorded in the studio a few days after the concert but included in the film. This is "Evangeline", with The Band and Emmylou Harris. You might notice that a couple of band members have switched instruments, with Richard Manuel on drums and Levon Helm playing mandolin:



These are, of course, only a few of the many rock documentaries out there. Go find one and watch it. And, if you will, leave me the titles of a few of your own favorites in the comments.

Movie Monday: The Thanksgiving Movie Edition

Last Friday, I wrote about how Black Friday seems to be getting more attention this year than Thanksgiving Day in the media. And I stand by that statement.

Which is why I decided to devote Movie Monday this week to films in which Thanksgiving Day plays a significant role. I've probably highlighted all of these films around here before, but this is a good time to do so again.

There certainly aren't as many Thanksgiving movies as there are Christmas movies, but in looking around and doing some research, I found more than I had imagined I would. I haven't seen most of those movies, so I thought I'd focus on a few that I have seen. Not all of them are movies that you probably really associate with Thanksgiving.

The first of those is "Miracle on 34th Street" (1947, and the several remakes). That's a Christmas movie, right? All about Kris Kringle and whether the Jolly Old Elf is real or not. Well, yeah. On the other hand, the action revolves around the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade, a drunk Santa, another Santa who isn't thrilled with his instructions to entice customers to do all their Christmas shopping at Macy's, the second Santa's claims to be the real Santa Claus, and the near-universal parental dilemma over what to tell their children about Santa's reality or lack thereof.

This movie, which has become a classic, stars Maureen O'Hara, John Payne, Edmund Gwenn as Kris Kringle, and a young Natalie Wood. It is one of the few holiday classics that I can stand to watch. Some of the reasons include that the scenes in the film of Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade were actually filmed during the 1946 parade and that the scenes in Macy's were actually shot on location in the Macy's flagship store on 34th Street in New York City. These facts tickle the history geek in me. Other trivia about the film includes the fact that this was Thelma Ritter's screen debut.

It is also fascinating to me that although this is a holiday film, it was released in May because 20th Century Fox studio head Darryl F. Zanuck was convinced that more people go to the movies in the summer than during the holidays. Because of the time of year the film was released, there was a great deal of effort expended to hide the fact that it was a holiday movie ahead of its release. This trailer, from 1947, shows the lengths that the studio went to, to keep the theme of the film a secret:



And here is a short scene from the film:



Another film that doesn't really scan at first glance as a Thanksgiving film is the 1978 documentary "The Last Waltz", which was The Band's final concert before their breakup in 1976. What makes it a Thanksgiving film? Well, it was filmed on Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976. Other than that, it probably really isn't a Thanksgiving film in the strictest sense of the term. However, it's a really good film, one of Martin Scorsese's music documentaries, and I like it a lot. I'll take any opportunity I can to share a bit of it. This is the clip I always think of when I think of this film:



But, there are Thanksgiving movies that really are about Thanksgiving and all the angst that Thanksgiving dinner means in some families. The one that captures this the best, I think, is "Home for the Holidays" (1995), starring Holly Hunter, Anne Bancroft, Robert Downey, Jr., Dylan McDermott, Claire Danes and Charles Durning, and directed by Jodie Foster. Holly Hunter plays a woman going back home for Thanksgiving at a bad time in her life. She's just been fired, her teenage daughter has decided that she would rather spend the holiday with her boyfriend's family - and not only that, she's planning on having sex with him. "Safely" - and her family is about as dysfunctional as families get. Add to that, her brother brings home a friend for dinner than none of the family has ever met before. Here's the trailer:



Seriously. See "Home for the Holidays". It's a good movie - and it will make your own dysfunctional family seem absolutely normal and sane by comparison.

And then there's "Alice's Restaurant" (1969), the film version of Arlo Guthrie's famous (and famously long) song of the same name, which tells the story of the Thanksgiving he got arrested for littering. The story told by the song is there, and fairly reliably translated (and mostly true), and Arlo plays himself. More drama, more fictional, is added into the mix, but it remains a good movie. If you know the song, you probably want to know that Officer Obie is played by William Obanhein, the real Officer Obie. If you're a fan of folk music, you might also want to know that Lee Hays, bass singer with The Weavers, and Pete Seeger play themselves.

As this clip shows, "Alice's Restaurant" the movie preserves as its centerpiece "Alice's Restaurant" the song. There's much more here, and this is only part of the song. Really. The movie is very Sixties, but it's also very good at being what it is:



So, in the next couple of weeks, in the run-up to Thanksgiving Day, take a couple of hours out of your busy schedule and see a Thanksgiving movie. You know, before the onslaught of Christmas movies takes over the airwaves and the cable channels.