Category Archives: Film

Film, Marvin Gaye, Soul

May 21: American Masters – Marvin Gaye What’s Going On (documentary)

MG

May 21: American Masters – Marvin Gaye  What’s Going On (documentary)

Marvin Gaye released What’s going on May 21, 1971, we present a great documentary about the album.

Marvin Gaye is one of the great and enduring figures of soul music, but his life was one of sexual confusion, bittersweet success and ultimately death by the hand of his own father.

Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. (April 2, 1939 — April 1, 1984), better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a four-octave vocal range. Starting as a member of the doo-wop group The Moonglows in the late fifties, he ventured into a solo career after the group disbanded in 1960 signing with the Tamla Records subsidiary of Motown Records. After starting off as a session drummer, Gaye ranked as the label’s top-selling solo artist during the sixties.

Because of solo hits such as “How Sweet It Is (To Be Loved by You)”, “Ain’t That Peculiar”, “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” and his duet singles with singers such as Mary Wells and Tammi Terrell, he was crowned “The Prince of Motown” and “The Prince of Soul”.

His work in the early and mid-1970s, including the albums What’s Going On, Let’s Get It On, and I Want You, helped influence the quiet storm, urban adult contemporary, and slow jam genres. After a self-imposed European exile in the early eighties, Gaye returned on the 1982 Grammy-Award winning hit, “Sexual Healing” and the Midnight Love album before his death. Gaye was shot dead by his father on April 1, 1984. He was posthumously inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1987.

In 2008, the American music magazine Rolling Stone ranked Gaye at number 6 on its list of The Greatest Singers of All Time, and ranked at number 18 on 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.

This fine documentary is directed by Samuel D. Pollard, also an editor and producer, known for 25th Hour (2002), 4 Little Girls(1997) and When the Levees Broke: A Requiem in Four Acts (2006). Including interviews with the singer’s family, friends and musical colleagues.

What’s Going On  (2008):

– Hallgeir

Classic Concert, Concert films, Film, Rolling Stones

Classic Documentary: The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter

poster-gimmeshelter

Classic Documentary: The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter

“It’s creating a sort of microcosmic society, which sets an example to the rest of America as to how one can behave in large gatherings.”
– Mick Jagger

“Altamont was supposed to be like Woodstock, only groovier, and their movie would be groovier still. Instead, the Stones got what no one had bargained for: a terrifying snapshot of the sudden collapse of the sixties.”
– Godfrey Cheshire

Gimme Shelter is a 1970 documentary film directed by Albert and David Maysles and Charlotte Zwerin chronicling the last weeks of The Rolling Stones’ 1969 US tour which culminated in the disastrous Altamont Free Concert. The film is named after “Gimme Shelter”, the lead track from the group’s 1969 album Let It Bleed. The film was screened at the 1971 Cannes Film Festival, but was not entered into the main competition. It is one of the greatest documentaries ever made, not just in the music documentary genre. The last third of the picture is painful to watch but difficult to turn away from.

Gimme Shelter (full documentary/concert movie):

The Maysles brothers filmed the first concert of the tour at Madison Square Garden in New York City. After the concert, the Maysles brothers asked the Rolling Stones if they could film them on tour, and the band agreed.

Continue reading Classic Documentary: The Rolling Stones Gimme Shelter →

Country, Film, folk

Documentary: Get Folked – The Great Folk Revival (2013)

get folked

Documentary: Get Folked – The Great Folk Revival

Terrible title but entertaining documentary.

Exploring the recent resurgence of folk music. Throughout the evening, celebrity fans Stephen Mangan, Bob Geldof, Cerys Matthews and Seth Lakeman reveal exactly what it is about the folk sound that finds its way into their hearts. Richard Thompson, Frank Turner, Donovan, Billy Bragg and many more also discuss the enduring appeal of this age-old musical form.

“Folk – a musical tradition with roots in the pre-electric world – is now becoming the new 21st-century pop phenomenon… Is it the antidote to manufactured music, the new punk, or simply evidence of the enduring appeal of this age-old musical form?”
– NME

Continue reading Documentary: Get Folked – The Great Folk Revival (2013) →

Blues, Film, Rolling Stones

Classic Documentary: Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey

blues odyssey

Classic Documentary: Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey

“I discovered music during my teenage years and after I joined the Air Force, I found that I loved music that had its roots in the sound of Black people from the Southern states.

The way I learnt about their music seemed to echo the way their forebears had taught them: it was about tradition, a tradition passed on by word of mouth. I have learned so much from the Blues, and have come to realize that there is much more to the Blues than people think.”
– Bill Wyman

Bill Wyman’s personal tribute to the music and musicians that inspired him to pick up a bass guitar and become a founder member of the ‘Greatest Rock’n’Roll Band in the World’, The Rolling Stones.

Bill personally interviews such luminaries as BB King, Buddy Guy & Sam Phillips, in a global journey documenting the history of blues music, this documentary is essential to anyone who has either purchased the book or has an interest in exploring the story & journey of blues music narrated by an ex-member of The Rolling Stones, the band who did so much to introduce the music to the mainstream audience.

Bill Wyman has a deep and sincere love of the blues and it shines through in this great docu. He is a life-long fan/disciple/collector of blues music, and a true expert on this genre. Here we get almost two hours with great music clips and interviews from this important musical history.

Bill Wyman’s Blues Odyssey (Complete documentary):

– Hallgeir

Classic Concert, Concert films, Film, Leonard Cohen, Live

Classic documentary: Leonard Cohen Bird On A Wire (1974)

palmerset5

Classic Documentary: Leonard Cohen Bird On The Wire  (Documentary, 1974)

On March 18th 1972, Leonard Cohen began a 20-city European tour, beginning in Dublin and ending in Jerusalem on April 21st. Other cities included London at the Royal Albert Hall, Paris, Stockholm, Vienna, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Berlin and Tel Aviv. This film is an impression of what happened during that tour.

israel_gig

Bird on a Wire is a great documentary of Leonard Cohen in his prime. Tony Palmer was given complete and intimate access to Cohen, filming him on stage, backstage, on the bus and in hotel rooms. The band is incredible. There are songs where Jennifer Warnes and Donna Washburn stand behind Cohen and sing over his shoulder, sharing one microphone. Most of the concert footage is very close on Cohen’s face, giving the movie a strangely intimate feel.

The movie begins a couple of days before the Tel Aviv concert. This is not just a concert film. The live performances are interspersed with insightful interviews in which Cohen talks about a range of topics:  “I don’t have a good voice, everybody knows that” and the difficulties of performing personal songs night after night on stage. Cohen has always been candid but it doesn’t get more personal than this.

The world premiere of this feature film by Tony Palmer was at the Rainbow Theater on July 5, 1974, in London. The original version cost over 120.000 USD to produce, but Cohen was not satisfied. He spent six months in England editing and rearranging the film to show the deeper elements in music, the conditions that produced it, and his interaction with the audiences. It contains songs from albums as well as concerts, including those of Berlin, Vienna, Copenhagen, and Israel in March and April 1972. It is a documentary rather than an art film.
– Ira Nadel: Life in Art and Dorman & Rawlins: Prophet of the Heart

The footage from the last show in Jerusalem is amazing.  Halfway through the show, Cohen walks off stage, quoting Kabbalah and saying that he just wasn’t giving a good concert.

A stoned(he seems so) Cohen jokes about being “bombed in Jerusalem” and after smoking some ( a lot of) cigarettes, he goes back on stage to deliver a legendary encore that included Famous Blue Raincoat.

Continue reading Classic documentary: Leonard Cohen Bird On A Wire (1974) →