Stevie Van Zandt: Disciple

Year 17, Day 193 - 7/12/25 - Movie #5,076

BEFORE: To be honest, my vision board never once contained THREE Springsteen-related documentaries - but today's film is another one that was left over from last year, it did arrive in time to make the Block, however I didn't really see the way to link it in, maybe because my focus last year was more on Elton John, the Beach Boys, Little Richard and Donna Summer. (Beatles and Stones are perennials, of course.) Probably if I'd really taken a look at the giant cast list here, I could have found a way to work it in - but still, what a difference a year makes, because since last year's block "Road Diary" got released, and PBS decided this spring to air that 1979 No Nukes concert, so there you go, this easily fits into a Springsteen mini-chain. 

There are THREE docs this year with cast lists so large, they're basically making the whole thing possible - I could put them almost anywhere and they'd make the chain work. The tougher part this year was not just following the links, but also finding an order that made some sense and didn't jump around in subject matter TOO much - really, getting all the rock docs together would be enough for me, but if all the films about actors want to line up over THERE and all the films about cartoonists and animators gather over THERE, really, I'm ecstatic about the order I ended up with. Assuming the chain holds, of course. 

Do I even need to say it? Bruce Springsteen carries over again from "The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts". 

THE PLOT: Traces Van Zandt's career as a musician, activist and actor from New Jersey to stadiums around the world. 

AFTER: OK, this is a LONG-ass documentary, it's two and a half hours long, did it really need to be?  Well, yes and no. Van Zandt had a number of different careers, he kind of re-invented himself over and over again, and when one career path seemed like it was at an end, he found a new one or he invented a new one.  And I kind of forgot that he was like the Bob Geldof for the anti-apartheid movement back when the world realized that South Africa didn't get the memo that it was the 20th century now, and widespread racial oppression just wasn't going to fly. Van Zandt got everyone who was anyone in the hip-hop, rap and soul genres together and recorded "Sun City", a single (and later an album) that targeted the businesses in that country which were supporting the racial policies of an unjust government, basically we all boycotted South Africa for a couple years and that economic pressure forced a change in their government - please note this is not to be taken as an endorsement of Trump's tariffs, I'm sure they'll end up being a financial disaster. 

But it's a case where someone realized he had a power to organize a cause, he had the contacts to get other people involved, and he was motivated to try and make a change in the world. I'm not saying he did this alone, but he was the catalyst that got things moving, though he hadn't considered himself an activist before that time. When the South African government crumbled and Nelson Mandela was released from jail, that's known as a result. You never know that the mountain can be moved until someone tries to move it - also you never know what you can accomplish in your down time when the boss (or The Boss) lays you off. 

That's section 2 of this doc, the "Revolution" segment, when Van Zandt thought his music career was over. After fixing Apartheid, then what? Section 3 is "Evolution", where he talks about just walking his dog for seven years. But then along came "The Sopranos", and his third career as an actor was born - it supposedly came about when Van Zandt was inducting The Rascals into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, and talking directly to the camera in an off-hand but expressive style, and David Chase, the creator of the HBO series, was watching, and felt Van Zandt would make a great mobster. Van Zandt turned it down, because he didn't want to take a job away from a professional actor, so they created a new character for the show, and he was allowed to have input in creating Silvio Dante, the manager of the Bada Bing! club and a member of the Jersey mob. 

The conflict, however, arose when "The Sopranos" still had a year or two to go, and Bruce also decided to put the band back together. I remember when Max Weinberg was leading the band on Conan O'Brien's show during his "extended vacation" from the E Street Band, and when Bruce called, well, he just had to leave. There must have been a clause in his contract that stated "if Bruce Springsteen wants to go on tour, then the party named herein is allowed to terminate his contract with NBC, immediately". (Actually, at first Weinberg took a 5-month break from late night TV to tour with Bruce in 2007, then came back and left Conan for good in 2010. Whatever.)

Again, full disclosure, I'm just a casual Bruce Springsteen fan, just the Greatest Hits album, no need to go beyond that - so I'm not really a Southside Johnny & the Asbury Jukes fan at all, I just don't really get it. But, you know, I'm not from Jersey, I just visit A.C. when I can, good buffets. (We might be due for a re-visit next year, honestly our last 2 visits were a bit underwhelming.). And Van Zandt's Disciples of Soul, well I don't even know what that band is all about, even after watching them play in this documentary. There's an oboe player, a guy with a mohawk, and I can't tell if they're playing rock or funk or soul or rofuso, some weird combination of all three. Really, I'm glad Stevie got invited back to play with Springsteen, it seems like that's where he gets to put his talents to their best use, although he also does seem to have his fingers in a lot of other pies, from music education to running his own record label and also some kind of syndicated radio show and I'm guessing probably some podcasting too. 

But again, this doc is much too long, what it really needed was some more editing. We don't need to hear from EVERYONE who was involved in the Sun City project, we can hear from a few of them and get the idea. I know this section was really important, but still, it could have used some trimming. Same with the first section, the start-up of the Asbury scene and the years spent with Southside Johnny, trim that and the Sun City stuff and you could probably get this beast of a thing down to two hours even, just saying. 

I've never met Van Zandt, never been to a Springsteen concert, hell I've been to Atlantic City many times and never felt the need to swing by Asbury Park and see the Stone Pony. But I feel a strange kinship with him now that I know his story.  No, I never toppled the authoritarian goverment of an African nation, but I worked my way through the NYC animation scene in a way not unlike how he navigated his way through the music scene - he's just way way more successful at things than I've been. He worked with Springsteen for 15 years and when he felt like maybe his opinions weren't being listened to, he walked away from that band. I worked for a top-name animator for 31 years, and when I felt like my opinions weren't being listened to, I quit that job to prove a point. So I understand when you're someone's right-hand man for a very long time, you love that person and you hate him at the same time. Little annoyances probably just became big ones over time, and so Van Zandt pivoted and ran his own band, got into acting, got into political causes, he charted a new path and did what interested him or what he felt he had to do, and right now I just have to figure out what it is I want to do, whether that's getting a job doing captioning or try to find voice work or finally get on Jeopardy!, really I just need to pick something and work at it to see what I'm capable of. So I'm inspired by tonight's doc, I just need to apply the Little Steven method to my own life, maybe. 

Hey, just a thought here, but since Trump just got nominated by Netanyahu for a Nobel Peace Prize (allegedly, though I'd like to check the paperwork on this...) maybe there's a sudden need for other candidates so we can make sure that Trump doesn't actually win the damn thing - anyone out there willing to nominate Steven Van Zandt for his efforts to help end Apartheid? I know it's been a while, but so what? Some kind of recognition might be welcome, even if it's long overdue. 

Directed by Bill Teck 

Also starring Steven Van Zandt, (also carrying over from "The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts"), Jackson Browne (ditto), Arthur Baker, Jeff Barry (last seen in "Dreamland"), Nicole Barsalona, Ruben Blades (last seen in "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice"), Gary U.S. Bonds (last seen in "Blues Brothers 2000"), Bono (last seen in "Wham!"), Bill Bradley, Edward Brigati, Bob Clearmountain, David Chase (last seen in "The Many Saints of Newark"), Jay Cocks, Chris Columbus (last seen in "Rent"), Palmyra Delran, Michael Des Barres (last seen in "Mulholland Drive"), Dion DiMucci, Lance Freed, David Fricke, Peter Gabriel (last seen in "Nothing Compares"), Gary Gersh, Scott Greenstein, Jimmy Iovine (last seen in "Sheryl"), Joan Jett (last seen in "Dare to Be Different"), Kenny Laguna (ditto), Scott Kempner, Jon Landau (last seen in "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band"), Darlene Love (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles: Part Two"), Southside Johnny Lyon, Jesse Malin, Zou Zou Mansour, Paul McCartney (last seen in "Stan Lee"), Melle Mel (last seen in "Quincy"), Willie Nile, Vincent Pastore (last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Hart Perry, Richard Plepler, Billy Rapaport, Chita Rivera (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Joe Roth, Rich Russo, Richie Sambora, Ted Sarandos, Scorpio, Mike Stoller, Pat Thrall, Zoe Thrall, Gary Trew, Billy Van Zandt, Maureen Van Zandt, Eddie Vedder (last seen in "Conan O'Brien Can't Stop"), Peter Wolf (last seen in "Faye"), Bill Wyman (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything")

with archive footage of Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Max Weinberg (all carrying over from "The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts"), Stiv Bators (last seen in "Tapeheads"), Jeff Beck (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Lou Reed (ditto), Pat Benatar, Chuck Berry (last seen in "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind"), Dick Clark (ditto), Little Richard (ditto), Elvis Presley (ditto), Ed Sullivan (ditto), Steve Biko, Julian Bond (last seen in "John Lewis; Good Trouble"), Jon Bon Jovi (last seen in "Moonlight and Valentino"), Pat Boone (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Bo Diddley (ditto), Alan Freed (ditto), Nona Hendryx (ditto), Brian Jones (ditto), Keith Richards (ditto), Lorraine Bracco (last seen in "Nonnas"), Dominic Chianese (also last seen in "Night Falls on Manhattan"), Jimmy Cliff, George Clinton (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Lol Creme, Adam Curry (last seen in "Zappa"), Miles Davis (last seen in "Listening to Kenny G"), Sammy Davis Jr. (last seen in "Brats"), Phil Donahue (ditto), David Letterman (ditto), Dean Martin (ditto), Robert De Niro (also last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Jonathan Demme, Johnny Depp (also last seen in "Faye"), Lee Dorsey, Bob Dylan (last seen in "Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black"), Edie Falco (last seen in "Fool's Paradise"), Henry Fonda (last seen in "Call Me Kate"), James Gandolfini (last seen in "The Drop"), Peter Garrett, Kevin Godley, Jeff Goldblum (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Mark J. Goodman, Wavy Gravy (last seen in "We Blew It"), Daryl Hall (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), John Oates (ditto), George Harrison (also last seen in "Stan Lee"), Ringo Starr (ditto), Herbie Hancock (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Debbie Harry (last seen in "Personality Crisis: One Night Only"), Abbie Hoffman (ditto), David Johansen (ditto), Chrissie Hynde (last seen in "McEnroe"), Michael Imperioli (last seen in "The Night We Never Met"), Mick Jagger (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), John Lennon (ditto), Ronald Reagan (ditto), Frank Sinatra (ditto), Peter Jennings (last seen in "Dark Waters"), Varnell Johnson, Stanley Jordan, Eddie Kendricks (last seen in "Hitsville: The Making of Motown"), Jim Kerr (also last seen in "Dare to Be Different"), Bruno Kirby (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Patti LaBelle (last seen in "Beauty"), Spike Lee (last seen in "Yogi Berra: It Ain't Over"), Nils Lofgren (also last seen in "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band"), Patti Scialfa (ditto), Nelson Mandela, Winnie Mandela, Nancy Marchand (last seen in "Regarding Henry"), Dave Marsh, Michael Monroe, Sam Moore, Tom Morello (last seen in "Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves"), Eddie Murphy (last seen in "Daddy Day Care"), Conan O'Brien (last seen in "Trainwreck: Poop Cruise"), Iggy Pop (last seen in "David Bowie: Out of This World"), Steve Popovich, Margaret Potter, Tom Potter, Dave Prater, Bonnie Raitt (also last seen in "Linda Ronstadt: The Sound of My Voice"), Joey Ramone (last seen in "Rock 'n' Roll High School"), David Ruffin, Run-D.M.C., Danny Schecter, Steve Schirripa (last seen in "Wonder Wheel"), Tony Sirico (ditto), Gil Scott-Heron (last seen in "Clive Davis: The Soundtrack of Our Lives"), Paul Shaffer (last seen in "Bathtubs Over Broadway"), Jamie-Lynn Sigler, Nancy Sinatra (last seen in "Sammy Davis, Jr.: I've Gotta Be Me"), Ronnie Spector (last seen in "The Wrecking Crew!"), Zak Starkey, James Stewart (last seen in "Shining Through"), Pete Townshend (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), John Ventimiglia (last seen in "The Phenom"), Charlie Watts (last seen in "The Stones and Brian Jones"), Brian Williams (last seen in "Inside Job"), Charlie Wilson, Bobby Womack (last seen in "Muscle Shoals"), Ronnie Wood (last seen in "Belushi"), 

RATING: 6 out of 10 colorful bandannas (they never really explain his reason for wearing them, but you can find it pretty easily online)

The Legendary 1979 No Nukes Concerts - Springsteen E Street Band

Year 17, Day 192 - 7/11/25 - Movie #5,075

BEFORE: Well, tonight's concert film presents me with a problem, a choice to make - do I just stay the course, stick with my Doc Block as it is until August, or do I tear it down and build it back up again using the same bricks?  I had said that I would resist all temptation to do that - but Tom Petty makes a guest appearance here, and I just recorded a two-hour concert of his from 2006, which also guest-stars Stevie Nicks (on the duet "Stop Dragging My Heart Around"). This, of course, would allow me to drop in another concert, like one with Fleetwood Mac, maybe "Live in Boston", but my linking choices from there would be limited, the only way back to the chain would be to the "Yacht Rock" film. Then I'd have to re-order everything and separate out the Steven Van Zandt film from the Springsteen films, and sure, there's a way to do it but it would ruin my whole feng shui, I'd also literally be breaking up the Beatles. I'd also have to really cram two more films into my schedule and double-up a couple times, so I'm going to try really hard to not do that.  Concert films are great but I want to get back to fiction films sooner rather than later, and I feel like if I use up two more slots on docs then in December I'm going to wish I hadn't done that. So let's just move forward and forget I said anything about this diversion. 

Bruce Springsteen carries over from "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band". 

THE PLOT: Edited from the original 16mm reels, this concert film features the band's entire set list from the famous 1979 concert for the first time. 

AFTER: Here we go, this is exactly what I wanted to see after so much build-up in yesterday's doc, which spent so much time on rehearsals and the vagaries of travel and all that backstage touchy-feely stuff - man, we just want to rock out! I know, you can only watch so many concert films and these days directors need to find a way to make each one special, and Bruce is getting older, yada yada yada, but screw all that, just play the effing SONGS already. I guess maybe they were also afraid that if they put the whole 2023-2025 concert out as a film, that would affect the number of people who showed up for the live concerts? Like, if it's a movie you can just watch it and then you don't have to pay for a ticket, take a bus out to the stadium, stand in line, sweat your ass off and pay another $50 for a concert t-shirt to prove that you were there and you can wear it the next day to the office when you show up exhausted and late. Plus somebody in the crowd probably stole your wallet so now you've got to get a replacement drivers license and put a hold on all your credit cards, what a nightmare.  

Screw all that, we're staying in and staying up late tonight and we're rocking like it's 1979 and Bruce is 30 years old again. He does a riff on that James Brown "I can't do no more" act, but it's not very long before he breaks character and yells at the audience, "I'm only 30 years old!" Ah, those were the days.  We're looking back at the glory days tonight (before the song "Glory Days" came out, ironically) and Clarence is still alive, so's Danny, and Nils Lofgren hasn't even joined the band yet!  It's ALL thriller and no filler, that's for sure. But we have to back up JUST a bit and explain "No Nukes" first, I think. This was a Woodstock-like event that was organized by MUSE (Musicians United for Safe Energy) and took place in September 1979 at Madison Square Garden (which is actually circular, and also not a garden and not anywhere near Madison Square anymore) and were intended to raise awareness of the dangers of nuclear energy. The line-up included Crosby, Stills & Nash, Doobie Brothers, James Taylor, Carly Simon, Bonnie Raitt, Jackson Browne, Ry Cooder, Poco, Chaka Khan and more. There was a 3-LP record compilation released, and just like with "Woodstock", a concert film that kind of chopped up the performances and really only showed the highlights. 

The date is significant, because the MUSE group formed shortly after the Three Mile Island near-meltdown incident in March 1979.  And really it was FIVE concerts at MSG, plus a rally in Battery Park City. But all we need to know tonight is that it was apparently the FIRST big live concert that Springsteen and his band did, I guess they'd only been playing small clubs and gymnasiums up until that point - but I should probably research that, it doesn't sound possible. But the Springsteen concert was released as its own album, and then in 2021 they made it into a separate concert film, which aired earlier this year as part of the PBS pledge drive, you know that's when they air all the best stuff. 

Here's the set-list, again, no filler: 

"Prove It All Night"

"Badlands"

"The Promised Land"

"The River" (from the upcoming album at that point)

"Sherry Darling"

"Thunder Road"

"Jungleland"

"Rosalita (Come Out Tonight)"

"Born to Run"

"Stay"

"Detroit Medley"

"Quarter to Three"

"Rave On"

"Stay", of course, was an old song from the 1950's, and this is where Jackson Browne & Tom Petty joined in. Jackson Browne had put it on his 1977 album "Running on Empty" paired with his song "The Load-Out", which of course is all about packing up after the concert when everyone has gone home, and screw it, maybe let's do one more song. Which is a bit weird because the first line mentions the seats are all empty, so the audience has gone home, so who exactly are you performing this song for?  And I bet the roadies DO mind, because they have to load up the trucks so they can drive all night and make it to the show in Chicago. Or Detroit, I don't know. They do so many shows in a row, and maybe sometimes they drive to the wrong city?  

And the "Detroit Medley" became a radio staple for Springsteen, it's a combination of "Devil with the Blue Dress", "Good Golly Miss Molly", "C.C. Rider" and "Jenny Take a Ride", all originally from Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels.  I never really understood the "C.C. Rider" song, Elvis used to cover it too, but it goes all the way back to the Ma Rainey blues days, when it was called "See See Rider". Nobody knows what it was about, then, I just checked. 

Anyway, I really needed this - this Doc Block is a marathon, not a sprint and we're not even at the halfway point yet. It's Friday night during a very hot summer, so if you can't get out to a live concert then just open a beer or mix up some margaritas and listen to a Springsteen concert really loud. Or if you can't afford a giant concert there's probably a Springsteen cover band playing somewhere near New Jersey - there's Tramps Like Us, Bruce in the USA, The Boss Project, Bruce Juice, The Human Touch and I think Hank Azaria just started his own, which is called The EZ Street Band. And I have a feeling that somewhere there's just got to be a jazz/swing band that covers the Boss's songs and they call it Bruce Swingsteen. 

Directed by David Silver

Also starring Roy Bittan, Clarence Clemons, Danny Federici, Garry Tallent, Steven Van Zandt, Max Weinberg (all carrying over from "Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band"), Jackson Browne (last seen in "The Velvet Underground"), Rosemary Butler, Tom Petty (last seen in "Sound City").

RATING: 7 out of 10 sax solos

Road Diary: Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band

Year 17, Day 191 - 7/10/25 - Movie #5,074

BEFORE: OK, so I didn't get that second theater job, which puts me back in limbo. The primary job is undergoing a summer slowdown, so with the minimum number of work-hours this week, I filed for unemployment - but there's a waiting week, so I won't get paid at all this week, not until next week, and I'm in a bit of trouble. There's money in the savings account, but I prefer to leave it there, I left it alone all during the pandemic and I'm not looking forward to having to tap into it now. So I've doubled my efforts on the job sites, applying for captioning jobs and also one where I would review and train ChatBot responses, even applied to a BBQ restaurant I know, it popped up first when I joined a new site, and I figured that might be some kind of sign. I need something fast, otherwise I'm going to have to go up to my parents' house in Massachusetts and start clearing out their garage, my sister offered me a week's pay to do that. I might have to take her up on that at the end of the month if nothing else comes through for me. Will keep you updated, but in the meantime, we're back into the "rock concert" portion of the Doc Block. 

Bruce Springsteen carries over from "Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind". I picked one person who appeared in archive footage introducing The Killer, and that person is the focus of the next couple of films. That pattern should get me through the next two weeks, but after that the links may get a little weirder, which makes me nervous, as weird links are more likely to just not be there at all.

THE PLOT: Bruce Springsteen and E Street Band showcase the process of creating their live performances, sharing footage from band rehearsals, behind-the-scenes moments, rare clips and personal reflections from Springsteen himself. 

AFTER: Well, it's a different format tonight, most rock docs would be all about the concert performance, but this one's also about the set-up, the preparation, the rehearsals. That's not typical, most bands wouldn't let you see behind the curtain, all the personal stuff - but this was a special case because Springsteen hadn't toured in four years when the pandemic hit, so when you add on two years of COVID and zero live concerts, that meant it was six years before he could head out on tour again. Bruce and all of his band-mates also made the horrible decision to get six years older during that time, and you know, eventually that sort of thing tends to catch up with you.  If you wait too long between tours you could suddenly find out that you're too old to go out on tour at all. Bruce was born in 1949, so that means he was 74 at the start of their last tour. 

What's kind of crazy is that the tour started in Tampa in February 2023, went all around the world (with a couple several-month breaks) and only JUST ended one week ago in Milan, Italy. That's two years and five months (again, with a couple breaks) and still, it's a very long-ass tour. Making up for lost time, perhaps. One thing that this doc does NOT tell you is that various band members got COVID at different times during the start of the tour, and at that time we still hadn't reached herd immunity, so it was still taken seriously - Little Steven missed a date, Nils Lofgren missed one concert, and he hadn't been absent since 1984. Then Bruce had to postpone eight shows in September 2023 because he was being treated for a peptic ulcer, and his wife urged him to sit out because he'd already battled COVID a couple times. The tour started up again, but then Bruce had vocal issues in May of 2024 - so great, more make-up dates in Prague and Italy had to be tacked on to the end. 

It's great to see the band, any band, back together, though - and the film gets a little bit into the intricate process of selecting three hours of material from Springsteen's 1,100-song library from over the past 50 years. I'm not saying the guy's been prolific, but the horn section on this tour was complaining about the thousands and thousands of sheet music and charts just for them, and they're only one section of the band!  Bear in mind that Bruce was NOT calling this tour any kind of farewell tour, because if he did that, then it would have been even more impossible for anyone to get tickets. Anyway that would have been exploitative - but not everyone gets to plan their farewell tour, I'm just saying, unexpected things have been known to happen, so in some case that last tour you did WAS your Farewell Tour, and you just didn't know it. Then again, Cher and KISS have probably been on about five farewell tours each. I think I saw Meat Loaf on his farewell tour, and pretty much everybody knew it was going to be.

Eh, Springsteen probably has "artist brain", he's not going away any time soon. As of December, this 2023-2025 tour was ranked as the sixth highest-grossing tour of all time, taking in over $630 million, and at that point they still had a few months to go!  Part of that money came from Ticketmaster's new "dynamic pricing" program, which meant that mid-range floor seats were going for between $4K and $5K, and lower four figures for some less desirable tickets.  They also came up with the genius idea of making "platinum" tickets in random locations, meaning you could drop a couple hundred on some upper-tier seats, and then suddenly they could turn into "platinum" and now they'll cost you 10 times as much. Yeah, some fans weren't happy about that. Just keep some upper row tickets at $50 each, this isn't exactly rocket surgery. 

Yeah, there's no mention of the ticket price controversy in the doc, either, why would there be?  Now what I would REALLY like to see in a doc is the planning that goes on behind the scenes when someone has to book the dates and they have to figure out when each stadium is available, which means working around all the sporting events, and then figuring out the logistics of moving everything from city to city in the most logical (or illogical) manner - you can put the band members on a plane, but I think they still have to drive the gear on trucks - or do they?  But I want to see the guy with a map of the country and little pushpins and yarn trying to figure out if it makes more sense to go to Dallas or Houston after playing in Orlando. Then from Dallas to Houston to Austin?  That makes no sense, Austin is REALLY close to Dallas, only seven shows in and they're already back-tracking?  Austin to Kansas City, THEN Tulsa?  Then Portland, which is very far away, that's crazy!  Put me in charge and I'll work out a schedule that makes sense and conserves fuel and there will be no unnecessary moves. MSG in Manhattan and then Barclays in Brooklyn, OK, now you're planning more clearly. But then from Brooklyn to Cleveland? That's a tough drive. Then BACK to Baltimore? This makes no sense. 

Anyway, these guys are pros, they do this all the time, so let's pretend like they know what they're doing. The members of the E Street Band talk about their lives on the road, how they used to travel by car and then upgraded to vans, then motor homes so they could sleep on the road, and then (one assumes) that they eventually got their own plane, like Elvis did, and they could sleep on the planes. Then you know you've made it, who needs a hotel when you can sleep in a bed on your own plane? 

Anyway, on this latest tour, the set list was carefully chosen, there was a purpose to it all, because collectively the songs explored the more basic themes of life and death, so you have to figure that maybe being in his mid-70's, that maybe Springsteen's got his own mortality on his mind. Now this would be a problem for me because I'm not a hardcore Springsteen fan, I mean, I have his Greatest Hits album but that's all. So of course I know all the staples of the classic rock stations - "Born to Run", "Thunder Road", "Hungry Heart", "Badlands" and then of course everything from the "Born in the U.S.A." album, because I was alive back then and you just couldn't escape "Dancing in the Dark", "Glory Days", "My Hometown" and "I'm on Fire", those songs were just everywhere. Then I know a few of the songs that came later, like "Human Touch", "Brilliant Disguise" and "Streets of Philadelphia", but then after that things get pretty fuzzy for me. So if he wanted to focus on "Ghosts" and "Letter to You" and "Wrecking Ball", well, then I'd be lost during those songs. I remember "The Rising" being released after 9/11 but I'm just not familiar with his music after that. But that's OK, I wasn't about to drop a few thousand on Springsteen tickets anyway - I probably should have tried to see him on Broadway in 2021, just to be able to say I saw him perform, and I know a couple people who went to see him then.

OK, so I'm not in the target demographic for this tour film if I'm only familiar with the old songs. But, you know, his fan base is getting older, too, and they need to play new songs because us old fogeys need to take more bathroom breaks than the youngs do, and the songs from the new albums are always the best time to do that. You don't want to miss hearing "Rosalita", after all. I saw this film's director make an appearance at the theater where I work, which was after a screening of "Sly", that other doc about Sylvester Stallone that I opened the Doc Block with last year. 

Directed by Thom Zimny (director of "The Beach Boys" and "Sly")

Also starring Roy Bittan, Nils Lofgren (last seen in "20 Feet from Stardom"), Patti Scialfa (ditto), Gary Tallent, Steven Van Zandt (last seen in "The Christmas Chronicles"), Max Weinberg (last seen in "Personality Crisis: One Night Only"), Anthony Almonte, Jake Clemons, Barry Danielian, Ada Dyer, Charlie Giordano, Curtis King Jr., Jon Landau, Lisa Lowell, Eddie Manion, Ozzie Melendez, Michelle Moore, Curt Ramm, Soozie Tyrell, 

with archive footage of Clarence Clemons (last seen in "De Palma"), Danny Federici, David Sancious, Vini Lopez

RATING: 6 out of 10 opening acts (that I've never even heard of before)

Jerry Lee Lewis: Trouble in Mind

Year 17, Day 190 - 7/9/25 - Movie #5,073

BEFORE: This is another film that's been on the list for probably close to a year, I think it also didn't make the cut last year because it didn't link to much, so I kind of just had to start with this one and a few others this year, and build the chain up around last year's leftovers. I think. But still, it's the big Summer Rock Concert Doc Block, so I'm going way back to the founders of rock and roll, like I did last year with Little Richard and the Rolling Stones and the Beach Boys. 

Johnny Cash carries over from "Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black".  

THE PLOT: A glimpse into the complex life and thrilling, unparalleled performances of rock and roll's first and wildest practicioner: Jerry Lee Lewis. 

AFTER: Sure, there are interviews here, but it kind of feels like somebody kind of forgot to put any information into this documentary - I suspect they had an overload of performance footage and so this ended up being top-heavy on Jerry Lee playing the piano, but despite his age fluctuating, that's all kind of the same thing, over and over again.  Because despite the longevity of his career, I feel like Jerry Lee Lewis didn't have that many songs - it kind of feels like he had one song with a bunch of different names, because really, they all sounded alike. He'd tell us what was shakin' or that there was chicken in the barn or something, then he'd just kind of bang randomly on the piano for the next three minutes. Just me? 

It feels like the director then noticed his mistake, because FINALLY there are some stats posted over the closing montage - but that's kind of too little, too late. But maybe that's because they wanted to hide the stuff about his six marriages, one of which was to his 13-year old cousin, when he was 23. I guess that sort of thing flew a little better back in the 1950's, or maybe not. To be fair, there is a joke from Bob Hope about him "adopting" his wife, but more attention maybe should have been paid to this at the (in)appropriate time.  

The good news here is that you can just watch the last five minutes before the credits, and you can learn everything you might need to know about Jerry Lee Lewis - like how he outlived all or his contemporary rockers: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and of course Elvis. (I'll get to Elvis in a couple weeks, but maybe not in the way you'd expect.). It's also notable that Jerry Lee had a stroke in 2019 when he was 84, and he lost the ability to play the piano. But he re-taught himself, the hard way I suppose. Well, there was just no stopping the man, at least until he died three years later.  

Over the years, people tried to cancel him, censor him, boycott him, but rock's first real wild child just kept on going, even when he was an old man. Forget rock and roll, he probably inspired the bad boy punk movement and then later rap culture as well, with all his crazy antics outside his music. He even pulled a reverse Beatles once, by going to the Star Club in Hamburg and recording an album right where the Beatles started, and you just know he kicked over the piano stool and climbed on top of the piano and well, you probably just had to destroy the whole instrument after that. 

Then in 1968 he switched over to country music, because I guess you can't rock and roll forever, it's just not the place for old men. He had 17 top ten country singles by 1977, practically inventing the new genre of "hard country". I don't know where anybody could go after that - opera? heavy metal?  But he was never really accepted in Nashville, he only played at the Opry once, in 1973. But after a few country songs, he slipped right back into "Whole Lotta Shakin'" and "Good Golly Miss Molly", because you can take the man out of rock, but you can't take the rock out of the man. 

Original inductee into the Rock Hall of Fame, Lifetime Achivement Award from the Recording Academy, a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and he was touring in his 70's, I just wish someone had made a documentary worthy of the man, one that, you know, actually listed some of these accomplishments and wasn't just him playing the same stuff over and over again.  Seriously, there's an unnecessary montage JUST of him being introduced on stage, and that means we get to hear his name like twenty times in a row, but come one, dude, we already know it!

Directed by Ethan Coen (director of "Drive-Away Dolls")

Also starring Jerry Lee Lewis (last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything")

with archive footage of Steve Allen (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Chuck Berry (last seen in "Billie"), Tom Jones (ditto), Glen Campbell (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), Dick Cavett (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), Bob Hope (ditto), Dick Clark (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Bruce Springsteen (ditto), Fats Domino (also last seen in "Little Richard: I Am Everything"), Elvis Presley (ditto), Don Everly, Mickey Gilley, Merv Griffin (last seen in "Brats"), Bryant Gumbel (ditto), Buddy Holly, Jane Pauley (last seen in "Brats"), Carl Perkins (last seen in "Under the Volcano"), Sam Phillips, Little Richard (last seen in "Moonage Daydream"), Robbie Robertson (last seen in "Bitchin': The Sound and Fury of Rick James"), Tom Snyder (last seen in "Faye"), Ed Sullivan (last seen in "Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story"), Jimmy Swaggart

RATING: 4 out of 10 issues with the IRS

Remastered: Tricky Dick and the Man in Black

Year 17, Day 189 - 7/8/25 - Movie #5,072

BEFORE: Johnny Cash carries over from "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon". This is another doc that seems to be part of a Netflix series, like "Music Box" or "Trainwreck", but I'm not interested in any of the other episodes, just this one. So I'll just treat this like it's a stand-alone hour-long doc - I don't know what makes it "Remastered", like did they try to tell this story before and find they had to re-edit it? The term is usually used with albums when they're re-released and some sound editors remix the songs, so it's a bit confusing.  I'm still trying to figure out why "The Current War" was released with "Director's Cut" in the title, and also I'm still trying to determine why the doc about the ship disaster was released under the heading "Trainwreck", because no trains were involved. 

FOLLOW-UP TO: "Elvis Meets Nixon" (Movie #1,126), "Elvis & Nixon" (Movie #3,507)

THE PLOT: Concerned by a rising rock-n-roll influence on a growing liberal fanbase, President Nixon invited Johnny Cash to the White House to solidify his base in the traditionally more conservative genre of country music. What Cash did instead was subversive and surprised everyone. 

AFTER: Before watching today's film, I went down to the basement and rummaged around in the pile of clean t-shirts until I found the one with the image of Elvis shaking hands with Richard Nixon, something I would probably wear anyway around the July 4 holiday, because it's got big lettering on it that reads, "I Call It America...and I Love It!"  I guess I was hoping for a similar bit of crazy here, similar to that time that Elvis visited Nixon and they made him some kind of fake honorary drug enforcement officer, which is a bit like putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop. But that's neither here nor there - 

The difference with Johnny Cash meeting Nixon is that he wasn't just invited to visit, they wanted him to put on a concert and everything, Nixon's handlers had convinced him that as Johnny Cash goes, so goes the country, and the country at the time was very divided, half of the U.S. hated Nixon because of the unjust war in Vietnam, and the fact that U.S. servicemen were dying far from home in a war that made no sense. The other half of the U.S. hated Nixon just because he was a total dick, but I guess since he was Republican and good for their business interests, they put up with him. I don't know, this all seems a bit familiar...the whole unjust war thing reminds me of Bush/Cheney and the whole being old and clueless thing is Trump all day.

This documentary interviewed a LOT of the same people as yesterday's doc about Johnny Cash, well, sure, if they wanted to get opinions and insight from his family and friends, they're going to draw from the same circle of people. At first I thought maybe tonight's film was just cut together from outtakes and archive footage left over from "The Redemption of an American Icon", but that's not possible because this Netflix doc was made four years earlier. So it's just the same pool of people that they were able to interview.  

There's a lot covered here in a short time about the politics of the late 1960's, not just the Vietnam War but the race relations in America, the black Civil Rights movement and also Mr. Cash was an advocate for the rights of Native Americans, he even recorded a song about Ira Hayes, who was a Native American man that was one of the U.S. Marines that raised that flag over Iwo Jima, and appeared in that iconic photo. In addition Cash had his variety show, and although he had on several guests from the "counter culture" of hippie rock, Cash was raised to support the U.S. President during troubled times, after all FDR had given his family 20 acres of farmland in Arkansas so they could struggle for years picking cotton. (No wonder he wanted to be a musician and go out on tour.)

So the wonks in Nixon's administration figured they could invite Johnny Cash to perform at the White House, and Cash could bring his whole family, they could wear fancy clothes and eat a dinner first because Cash would have to sing for their supper. Nixon was using this as a bit of political theater, because he wanted the support of the "silent majority" (aka white people) in the South, this was a standard tactic of Republicans, they needed the Conservative Southern vote to win elections and they didn't want Tennessee to turn into a swing state. That would come later, with all the Nashville music people going all liberal and stuff. I know Texas is a purple state now, and the voting in the big cities like Houston is kind of balanced by all the rural areas that tend to vote the other way.  

Nixon kind of messed up, because he had two requests, that Cash perform "Okie from Muskogee", which is a Merle Haggard song that was anti-hippie and anti-drug, and "Welfare Cadillac", which was a satirical song at the time that poked fun at people on welfare.  Well, Johnny Cash didn't like being told what to sing, and also, some of his best friends were hippies, and also some of his friends were drug addicts, plus he was raised poor, so he found a way to deny Nixon's request by saying he didn't have time to learn those songs. OK, fine, but then what was he going to sing instead?  The set list was kept secret, some even say that Johnny Cash didn't know what he was going to sing until he got there and read the room. 

Bear in mind, there was precedent for using the White House concerts as a form of political commentary, Eartha Kitt had accepted Lyndon Johnson's invitation to perform, only to chastise his policies once they turned her mike on. And in Nixon's first term, one of the Ray Coniff Singers had held up a sign during their White House performance urging him to stop dropping bombs on Vietnam villages, which was of course a key part of his strategy.  So there was some question over whether Cash's rebel side would show itself, or if he'd toe the line and thank Nixon for the opportunity to perform, as set up through their mutual friend, Rev. Billy Graham.  

You can see in the footage that Johnny Cash was sweating - a lot. Maybe it was warm that day, or maybe he knew that the eyes of the world were on him, and it was a lot of pressure.  Cash sang "The Ballad of Ira Hayes", that song about the Native American U.S. Marine who was at Iwo Jima, and then whipped out a new composition of his own, called "What Is Truth". It was a song about the younger generation, how they looked to their parents and teachers to try and understand the world, and how important it was not to lie to them. While it was not directly an anti-war song, singing that song in front of a politician carries some extra weight with it - and Cash had prefaced it by saying he had visited Vietnam just a few weeks before and performed for the troops, as many as he could in the time he was there.  

You want to talk about "walking the line", this was doing that, plus threading the needle. The song's metaphor was clear, even if the implication wasn't blatant. A lot of people have had to find the middle ground, perhaps, like how do you support the troops while still saying you're against the war?  Well, if you support the troops, don't you want the war to end so the troops can come home safely?  Cash could have performed a song like "Blowin' in the Wind", which asks about when can the cannonballs be banned and such, but he didn't, he just wanted to make Nixon uncomfortable a bit, but still, a bold move nonetheless.  Maybe he liked the dinner and he wanted to make sure he got invited back, I don't know.  

It didn't help Johnny Cash hang on to his TV show, though - but again, he was a rebel so he was always going to buck the system. Even when he closed his show by saying that he supported the President, his liberal producers couldn't believe it, because saying anything political like that would automatically alienate half of the viewing audience. And then a few weeks after his White House Concert, his new protest song managed to alienate the other half - so as a variety show host, Cash was essentially done and ABC pulled the plug on his show.  

But maybe Johnny Cash got inside his head just a bit, because not long after, Nixon revealed his bold new strategy to win the Vietnam War by bombing Cambodia (which the U.S. had been doing for some time, apparently, on the down low) and at this point, even some of the people who supported the war in Vietnam felt that Nixon was going too far. This was when Dan Rather and Walter Cronkite started to turn against the futility of the war, and man, if you've lost Cronkite, you lose the country.  Nixon had decided to tell the truth about his intentions in Southeast Asia, and it was a bit more truth than the American people could take - even if the U.S. military could ultimately take over Vietnam, they were just going to move on to the next country and keep going. The morale of the soldiers was at an all-time low, because they felt they might never be able to go home. 

And then a few weeks later came the Kent State protests, and all the fallout from the shooting of students there led to university protests across the country. Well, I guess we can now lay at least some of the blame for Kent State on Johnny Cash, but if it hadn't happened that way, it might have played out a different way that meant the war could have lasted longer and more troops would have died. So Cash probably saved more lives in the long run, if you look at it that way. A few months later, in December 1970, Elvis visited Nixon at the White House, and the rest is, as they say, history.

Directed by Sara Dosa (producer of "Becoming") & Barbara Kopple (director of "Havoc" (2005))

Also starring John Carter Cash, Don Reid, Jimmie Snow, Mark Stielper, Joanne Cash Yates (all carrying over from "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon"), Aram Bakshian, Pat Buchanan (last seen in "Get Me Roger Stone"), Alexander Butterfield (last seen in "Elvis Meets Nixon"), W.S. Holland, Bill Miller, Lou Robin, Bill Zimmerman

with archive footage of Richard Nixon (last seen in "Join or Die"), David Brinkley (last seen in "The Mystery of D.B. Cooper"), Bill Brock, June Carter Cash (also carrying over from "Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon"), Ray Charles (ditto), Bob Dylan (ditto), Billy Graham (ditto), Marshall Grant (ditto), Joni Mitchell (ditto), Tommy Cash, John Chancellor (last seen in "Armageddon Time"), Ray Conniff, Walter Cronkite (last seen in "I Am MLK Jr."), Lyndon Johnson (ditto), Neil Diamond (last seen in "Super/Man: The Christopher Reeve Story"), Cass Elliot (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Albert Gore Sr., Merle Haggard, H.R. Haldeman, Lady Bird Johnson (last seen in "The Special Relationship"), Martin Luther King Jr. (last seen in "Joan Baez: I Am a Noise"), Eartha Kitt (last seen in "Boomerang"), Jim Lovell (last seen in "Apollo 11"), Pat Nixon (last seen in "Street Gang: How We Got to Sesame Street"), Dan Rather (last seen in "Mike Wallace Is Here"), Tex Ritter, Pete Seeger (last seen in "Recorder: The Marion Stokes Project"), Jack Swigert, Fred Thompson (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), William Westmoreland

RATING: 6 out of 10 future Watergate criminals in attendance

Johnny Cash: The Redemption of an American Icon

Year 17, Day 188 - 7/7/25 - Movie #5,071

BEFORE: This makes 15 docs so far this year (16 if you count "Will & Harper", viewed outside of the Doc Block) and this means I'm only 1/3 of the way through, I'm just hitting my stride, with the actors and athlete out of the way, there's more room for musicians and some big summertime concerts. Now that I watched "A Complete Unknown", and I know that Bob Dylan was friends with Johnny Cash back in the 1960's, this transition makes a lot more sense. Bob Dylan carries over from "Joan Baez: I Am a Noise". See, I'm learning something new every day!  

THE PLOT: The untold story of how "The Man in Black" saw the light. 

AFTER: I also learned that Johnny Cash had a variety show on ABC, I guess I should have known that, it was the golden age for variety shows. It was recorded at the Ryman Auditorium, which I know was the host of the Grand Ol' Opry for many years - the Ryman was a stop on our bus tour of Nashville back in 2017, but we didn't go inside. By then the G.O.O. had re-located to a new home outside the city limits, and I think they have their own deal now, like it's a theme park and a bunch of restaurants and I'm guessing a few souvenir shops, and the Ryman's used for other things now. But this doc has a montage of some of the acts that guested on Cash's show, and it's like a who's who of rock and country and gospel - and this was back in the day when those were three SEPARATE divisions of music, and artists tended to not cross over. 

This doc follows the "splash page" theory, start at the most interesting moment in your subject's life and then flash back to when they were a kid and build back up to that climax. For this, the movie chose the experience Cash had when he was trying to break his addiction and get himself off of drugs, and he apparently went down in to a cave in Tennessee and crawled through it, not sure if he'd come out alive on the other side. Really, I thought this was probably just a metaphor for getting clean, but the story is that he really spent time in this cave and thought that God led him out of the darkness and his faith was restored. Good story, I guess, but I think I preferred it as metaphor. 

They go back to Johnny Cash's childhood, when he knew he wanted to be a singer and his little brother wanted to be a preacher, and later this is kind of an explanation for why Johnny felt he needed to be both. He became an ordained minister of some kind, and I guess there were some country fans who thought he should have stuck to just music, and they didn't like the Reese's peanut butter cup-like combination of country music and strong faith. But then again, so much of the U.S. is filled with Evangelicals and also country fans, so you've got to figure there's probably some crossover there, so maybe he gained as many fans as he lost?  Or maybe not. 

On the whole, this documentary was way too "churchy" for me - how do you know when a celebrity has "found Jesus" and is turning their life around? Don't worry, they'll tell you. Then later on a bunch of their family and friends will be interviewed about how strong his faith was, but still, spending half a million to record an album and make films set in Israel, instead of, you know, just taking a vacation there. 

Commercially, at that point, what a terrible decision - I mean, I'm glad it saved his life and all that, and he got off the pills, but he devoted so much money to making films about Jesus and walking in his footsteps in the Holy Land that absolutely nobody wanted to see. This was before "The Passion of the Christ" and all that, there was no market for religion-based movies of any kind, Hollywood was still a bunch of heathens who hadn't learned how to tap into that market. Still, church attendance has been declining steadily and agnostics and athiests far outnumber the righteous, but the faithful are way more organized, plus they have Kirk Cameron on their side. 

And I guess we're all going to just overlook how Cash abandoned his first family, he just didn't go home after a tour and sure, I'm happy he found love and happiness with June Carter, but still, there were kids from that first marriage who probably saw things differently. How "American" is it to have a second family later in life, after spending years out on tour, addicted to speed, drinking too much and getting into car accidents all the time? Actually, that sounds very American. 

I want to touch on the hypocrisy of recording the Folsom prison album, too - I think it was great if he wanted to do a concert in a prison, entertain the inmates and talk to them straight about how he once was lost and now is found, or whatever. But then to record that and release it as an album that made a lot of money, well I now see that as a bit of exploitation. Cash must have known that a prison full of inmates that had very little entertainment would have been like the most receptive audience EVER, and then to profit from their enthusiasm on the recording? There's a belief in some religions that if you do a good deed but then tell people about it, then you've negated the good deed. Well, Johnny Cash kind of told everybody about how he entertained the Folsom inmates, so good deed negated I guess. 

So it's really no surprise to me that he got to a point in his life where he didn't know if he was still useful, if he could still make a record or sell records or put on concerts, as the attendance at his shows on the state fair circuit was dwindling. (Well, he did want to talk about Jesus a lot, and maybe not everybody was receptive to that...). That's when he got in touch with Rick Rubin, the record producer who revitalized his career with some compilation albums that had old country, new country, standards and cover songs of Nine Inch Nails and U2 and Tom Petty and Neil Young. This is when I discovered Johnny Cash, and it's the first time I ever found him interesting. They still regard his cover of "Hurt" as one of the saddest, most meaningful and bestest covers ever, and this year's Super Bowl had an ad for Christianity that used Cash's cover of "Personal Jesus" by Depeche Mode, although I'm willing to bet he didn't know that the song was meant to be ironic. 

But that's who Johnny Cash was, I think - a straight shooter who probably couldn't be ironic or sarcastic if he tried. Well, lying is a sin after all, and then once he got old he just seemed like he was way too serious about everything. Maybe a lot of people get that way when they're closer to the end than to the beginning, and they've seen a lot of people they cared about pass away, I don't know. I hesitate to use the word "redemption" because it carries so much weight with it, it implies that there is a moral certainty to the world and that you can make up for your misdeeds just by praying them away, and I don't think I believe that. Better to not have effed up in the first place, I think, but some people believe in a life after this one, and that guides their hand. I don't pretend to know what Cash's politics were like, but he strikes me as someone who would have supported Jimmy Carter during the 1970's and then would have switched over to the Bush family during the early 2000s, meaning he probably would have fallen for Trump's MAGA B.S. if he'd lived longer. You can work in cotton fields as a kid, and serve in the military in your 20's, but I think if you make millions in the music industry later in life, you probably have to re-register as a Republican. 

I'll also quibble with the whole "Man in Black" thing - I guess he had a song about it, that wearing black was on behalf of the poor and the hunger, and that he was more accepting of the other sinners in the world, but the much more likely explanation is that black clothing was easier to keep looking clean on long tours. It's also easier to get matching outfits for band members on the fly.  And then during Wynonna Judd's interview, she says she always wears black in tribute to Cash - sure, and the fact that black clothes have a slimming effect has NOTHING to do with that. 

As for the drugs, well during the mid 1960's, doctors were prescribing amphetamines at a pretty good clip, not just to famous people like Judy Garland and the Beatles but also regular people like housewives, who needed that extra energy to clean up and take care of their kids and also make dinner. So there was addiction all over the place, and thousands of people were using uppers to stay awake and then found they needed sleeping pills to go to bed, and meanwhile building up their tolerance, so they needed stronger doses of both as time wore on. Well, we've seen this already in a few docs this year, so we know it's a prescription for disaster. Cash got in trouble for smuggling both Dexadrine and sedatives in his guitar case after visiting Mexico in 1965. But those pills weren't even illegal at the time. Cash reportedly stayed clean for seven years at a stretch, but notoriously relapsed after receiving painkillers for an abdominal injury in 1983 caused by being kicked by an ostrich on his farm. No joke. 

Directed by Ben Smallbone

Also starring Duane Allen, Jimmie Allen, John Carter Cash (last seen in "Glen Campbell: I'll Be Me"), Jessi Colter, Alice Cooper (last seen in "Jim Henson: Idea Man"), Sheryl Crow (last seen in "The Minus Man"), Franklin Graham, Wynonna Judd, Greg Laurie, Ken Mansfield, Tim McGraw (last seen in "The Blind Side"), Don Reid (last seen in "Smokey and the Bandit II"), John Schneider, Rick Scott, Elvie Shane, Jimmie Snow, Mark Stielper, Marty Stuart, Reggie Vinson, Johnny Western, Harry Yates, Joanne Cash Yates, 

with archive footage of Johnny Cash (last seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), June Carter Cash (last seen in "Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President"), Vivian Liberto Cash, Louis Armstrong (last seen in "Billie"), Ray Charles (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Eric Clapton (last seen in "Buddy Guy: The Blues Chase the Blues Away"), Billy Graham (last seen in "Mr. Warmth: The Don Rickles Project"), Marshall Grant, Larry King (last seen in "Call My Kate"), Kurt Loder (last seen in "Personality Crisis: One Night Only"), Joni Mitchell (last seen in "The Beach Boys"), Luther Perkins, Linda Ronstadt (also seen in "Albert Brooks: Defending My Life"), Rick Rubin (last seen in "Sound City"), James Taylor (last seen in "Marvin Hamlisch: What He Did for Love"), Stevie Wonder (last seen in "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes"), Neil Young (last seen in "Gordon Lightfoot: If You Could Read My Mind")

RATING: 5 out of 10 ill-advised gospel & Christmas albums

Joan Baez: I Am a Noise

Year 17, Day 187 - 7/6/25 - Movie #5,070

BEFORE: I'm headed back to work today, after about 12 days off - the annual summer slow-down is in effect, which is why I applied for other jobs and had one interview, but no news on that front yet. Today there's a double-screening of "Jurassic Park Rebirth" and "28 Years Later", but I'm not in the mood to watch either film, plus I'm managing the screenings, so I can't.  I'll have a lot of time in the office to catch up on blogging and e-mails.  

This film was on my list for last year's Doc Block, but I postponed it, I can't remember if it didn't fit into the linking or if I just cut one doc for timing reasons. Either way, it looks like I made the right move because this year I was able to watch "A Complete Unknown" about a month ago, and that serves as a proper lead-in, maybe, the fictional version before the documentary. 

Martin Luther King Jr. carries over from "Ali & Cavett: The Tale of the Tapes". 

THE PLOT: Legendary singer and activist Joan Baez takes an honest look back and a deep look inward as she tries to make sense of her large, history-making life and the personal struggles she's kept private. 

AFTER: This film is another split format - this one into thirds, maybe. One third is interviews, one third is family photos and journal entries from when Baez was a teenager and in her 20's, and one third is concert footage from three stops on her 2018 Farewell tour, filmed at stops in upstate New York, near Selma, Alabama and Oakland, ending up at the Beacon Theater in NYC. I guess that's coming full circle, in more ways than one.  

It's not really chronological, like the archive stuff sort of starts in college, where Baez developed her performing skills in cafes around MIT and Boston University, which she attended for about 6 weeks, but her father worked at MIT.  He was a former preacher in Brooklyn, but also studied mathematics and physics at Stanford, and he was the co-inventor of the x-ray microscope. His hobby seemed to be taking his family on long car-trip vacations and recording audio journals along the way.  The family converted to Quakerism at some point, which was sort of a pre-cursor to Joan's support of pacificism as an activist years later.  Of course there's also footage from Martin Luther King's march on Washington and the "I Have a Dream" speech, as she and Bob Dylan performed "When the Ship Comes In" at the event. Some participants pointed out that most of the performers at the event were white, which maybe was an odd choice. 

So now we can see the March on Washington from Joan Baez's perspective, and also get her take on the relationship with Bob Dylan. She points out that he needed a lot of help in those days, he was focused on songwriting so much that he needed help with getting from place to place, finding food, all the normal day-to-day stuff, and she felt the need to be the mother figure. She admits they both acted like kids, though, so it seems they had some good times together over his first few years of performing, and then they kind of drifted apart, as people tend to do. Before Dylan it seems Joan Baez dated a woman for several years, and sure, that tracks, it's more common now than it was then but that doesn't mean it didn't happen then too.  It's certainly not the most shocking revelation in this doc. 

Her career continued in both music and activism, which sometimes went hand-in-hand. She toured or played concerts in support of Amnesty International, civil rights, prison reform, gay rights, environmental causes, Occupy Wall Street and against the wars in Vietnam and Iraq.  Somewhere during all of that she married David Harris, who she had met in jail after being arrested during a protest.  Their son is now an adult and was part of her band on this farewell tour in 2018 - I'm guessing maybe that COVID delayed the production of the documentary, which wasn't released until 2023. 

Late into the film, things get very problematic when Baez starts talking about having multiple personalities, or what we now call dissociative identity disorder. She list a bunch of animal-based spirits who are part of her, and the function that each one serves or the quality it represents. Then on top of this, she mentions the repressed memories of possibly being molested by her father as a child, and when you factor that in to the depression that she and her sisters suffered from, other unexplained stomach aches and bi-polar issues over the years, combined with an inability to connect to people on an individual basis, it could all be tied together. Plus, we're always supposed to believe the victims, right? Well, maybe not, because if you have to dig deep down through therapy and hypnosis to find memories of the incidents, things get a little uncertain and it's maybe unclear if the therapy technniques used caused those memories to exist. Joan's parents denied any abuse after her memories surfaced, but it's also possible they were in denial of her father's actions. The effect by itself is hardly proof of the cause, when you factor in her DID and the possibility of "false memory syndrome", and that's all I'll say on the matter. 

    

Directed by Miri Navasky, Maeve O'Boyle, Karen O'Connor

Also starring Joan Baez, Pauline Baez, Bill Clinton (last seen in "Join or Die"), Hillary Clinton (ditto), Gabriel Harris, Michael Moore (last seen in "Fahrenheit 11/9"), Dirk Powell, Sarah Schneider, Grace Strumberg, 

with archive footage of Christiane Amanpour, Albert Baez, Joan Baez Sr., Kim Chappell, Bob Dylan (last seen in "The Greatest Night in Pop"), Mimi Farina, Richard Farina, David Harris, 

RATING: 5 out of 10 quaaludes (which is probably too many)