The movie does a fantastic job of immersing us in the Nashville music scene, taking us to musicians' homes, back yards and recording studios. It's like we're tagging along with the filmmakers. There is no narration, no introductions, no explanations, no exposition. It's a beautiful, intimate portrait of the music life. And, as you've probably guessed, this film features a lot of excellent music. While Bobby Bare Jr.'s "Visit Me In Music City" plays, the film shows us various spots in the city. One of my favorite songs in the movie is Robert Ellis' "Sing Along," a powerful number. "Nobody talks too loud in my home town/Nobody stands too tall for fear of getting knocked down." We see shots of various churches, and we hear these lines: "And the flames of hell, they seem so high/When I can barely see over the pew/I was just a boy when they told me that lie/But lord it felt so true." Fantastic lines. We get a sense of how important music is in that city, how music is the blood and breath of the place. And that makes us fall in love with Nashville. We go inside record stores and music venues, and are treated to some good concert footage. I especially like the shots of John McCauley performing. But the footage of musicians playing outside is even more appealing. I love the footage of Shovels & Rope, for example, and the footage of Langhorne Slim, accompanied by a woman on fiddle, playing "Back To The Wild," with lines like "I don't want to die, but I don't know yet where I belong" and "And I don't want to break your heart, but I probably will."
It is probably no surprise that some of the most compelling footage is that featuring the older musicians, the musicians who took part in the first film. I love seeing Steve Young perform "Silverlake." And at one point we're taken inside what I assume is David Allan Coe's home, and David asks, "Whose song is that?" "That's yours," he's told. And then he sings a bit of "Three Biggest Lies," which is a total delight. It's heartbreaking when he talks about how he lost the rights to his own songs. "My only income is working the road," he says. That's crazy. We need to take better care of our musicians. Where the hell would be without them? Interestingly, one of the musicians in this film actually mentions the original Heartworn Highways film, and how that was what turned him onto Guy Clark. That serves as an introduction to Guy Clark in this movie, and in that first footage of him he talks about how he came up with the main line of "L.A. Freeway." "I knew it was something really good," he says. "That lightbulb went off, man, and I started looking for a pencil and paper, and I couldn't find one. Finally, I tore a section off a burger sack and got Susanna's eyebrow pencil and wrote it down." There is also footage of Guy Clark playing "My Favorite Picture Of You" and "The High Price Of Inspiration." And just before the end, there is footage of him playing "L.A. Freeway." At the end, there is a title card letting us know that the film is in memory of Steve Young and Guy Clark, who both died in that most cruel of years, 2016, the year that took dozens of fantastic musicians from us. If you haven't yet seen this documentary, now is as good a time as any to enjoy it.
Heartworn Highways Revisited was released on DVD on April 6, 2018 through MVD Visual. The DVD contains no special features.
No comments:
Post a Comment