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thursday, September 7, 1978
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usicals reborn as rock goes legit
By Casey McCabe
Entertainment tdltor
Rock and roU has gone legitimate. Hie
screaming throngs of teeny hoppers who
flocked to see Elvis and the Beatles have
grown up. Hie parents who, with the
advent of rock, were always fearful about
what was happening to the youth of today,
have been replaced by a generation who is
raising its children on the very same music
Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band,
The Last Waltz, FM, The Buddy Holly
Story, American Hot Wax, Renaldo &
Clara, I Wanna Hold Your Hand, and in the
disco vein, Saturday Night Fever, and
Thank God It's Friday.
Some, of course, are more authentic
than others. However, these have had a
poorer box office showing than the more
glamourous productions of Grease and
Sgt. Pepper.
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Photo courtesy of Paramount Pictures
Teenage Louise (Laraine Newman) coaches The Chesterfields in a rendition of one of her songs she hopes will gain the ear of
D.J. Alan Freed in American Hot Wax.
that caused its parents fears.
There are many ironies in this, besides
the fact that parents and children may
soon be having interchangeable record
collections. Chuck Berry, who despite the
claims of many Elvis fans, best deserves the
title "King of Rick 'n roll "had his biggest
selling hit (My Ding-a-Ling) nearly 20 years
after his definitive rock song, Johnny B
Goode (a tune you might note, that was in
cluded in the "Sounds of Earth" package
put aboard a NASA space probe, and due
for release outside the solar system before
the year 2000).
And even two years ago, Capital records
made a strong push to re-release old Beatles
material, because the new record buying
audience wasn't old enough to remember
the Beatles!
So what we have is an audience some
where between the ages of 16 and 40 who
have made rock the most popular music of
all time. And as most people know, those
are the people who have the greatest
buying power today.
This has produced some interesting
trends in marketing, and thus a boom in
rock comic books, rock t -shirts, rock radio
stations and the like. At least three Lincoln
radio stations have abandoned the likes of
Perry Co mo and Peggy Lee, for a more
lucrative title as "adult contempory"
station, or in the layman's terms "pop
rock."
But probably the most visible boom
comes in the form of rock movies. Rock
manager Irving AzofT described the new
situation in Rolling Stone.
"Its straight dollars and cents ... the
fact that Warner Communications actually
earned more money with their record
division than their picture division. The
numbers exploded in the record business.
It was a natural thing to turn to.
There always were rock movies. From
Blackboard Jungle, where audiences first
heard BO Haley and the Comets play
"Rock Around the Clock," through the
Elvis movies, and the rash of beach movies.
But these were usually low budgeted films,
aimed at a fairly select audience.
Now every major studio has a "rock"
picture released, and at least another in the
making. The first wave includes Grease,
American Hot Wax attempted to be the
most authentic of all. It is based on a few
days in the life of Alan Freed, the fifties
D.J. who coined the term "rock 'n roll"
and defended it until his untimely death in
1965. On hand for the making of Hot Wax
were Freed's wife, son and daughter, who
vouched for the films authenticity.
Although no gem of a film, it did man
age to capture the excitement of early rock
'n roll. Not just rock mind you, but rock
and roll with that basic blues beat that
kept the kids dancing in the aisles, and the
police, parents, and district attorney on
Freed's tail with the intent of stopping any
more outbreaks of this dreaded new sound.
"You just can't stand to see a bunch of
lads having a good time," says Freed, chid
ing the stone-faced district attorney. "You
can stop this show, but you can't stop rock
'n roll."
They didn't of course, stop rock 'n roll,
but they did stop the show, which included
performances by Jerry Lee Lewis and
Chuck Berry, both still out proving that
rock can survive after 40. And for that
matter, they stopped Freed's career. After
being indicted for payola and tax evasion,
he died penniless.
American Hot Wax may not have settled
well with some people, in that it wasn't the
fifties of Happy Days, and Grease, but
actually hard times with real people, and
rock n roll was part of a rebellion.
Grease, on the other hand, made no
attempt at heavy social overtones. Adapted
from the highly successful Broadway play
which first brought John Travolta into the
public eye, the directors wisely chose to let
Grease remain not just a fifties piece, but
a lighthearted, very camp parody of the
fifties, landing somewhere between Bye
Bye Birdie and West Side Story.
The songs are vintage fifties pop, with
maybe a bit more schmaltz thrown in.
Frankic Avalon comes down from "that
big ol malt shop in the sky" as a guardian
angel to sing "Bearty School Dropout",
and of course there is a token hot -rod
number in "Greased Lightning". Tho h
much of the music may be too fluffy for
some, Grease is proving to be both a huge
box office and soundtrack money maker.
Another fifties era movie making the
rounds is The Buddy Holly Story. It is
meeting with excellent critical reviews, and
to some, a surprising, though mild box
office success.
Buddy Molly was an unassuming looking
rock star who emerged from Lubbock,
Texas during the fifties and proceeded to
have a great impact on the still evolving
rock music world. I lis career , was a short
one, as he died in a 1959 plane crash, thus
creating the Buddy Holly legend. Even to
day there are Buddy Holly cultists, and
recent recording stars, most notably Linda
Ronstadt, have found success in recording
his material.
The film is carried by the sensative por
trayal of Holly by musicianactor Gary
Busey. He, as well as the backup hand, The
Crickets, played and sang themselves,
avoiding the uncomfortable look and
sound of lip-syncs. The final scene may
bother the staunch Holly fans, as it shows
Buddy playing his last show with a full
orchestra, seeming to have abandoned the
Crickets, when in reality his final show was
with the Crickets. Although it has left
Lincoln now, it is recommended viewing if
you have the chance or desire to see a film
one of the truly unique and inspiring per
formers of early rock'n roll.
After eight years, it seems that the
sixties may soon be fair game for nostalgia.
While the musicians in The Last Waltz are
still going strong today, they are perfor
mers who made their first and biggest
marks during the sixties, and that inescap
able aura still seems to hang around them,
especially when they're all together.
It is a film of The Bands lavish farewell
performance at San Francisco's Winterland
Auditorium which featured guest perfor
mances by Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil
Young, Van Morrison, Joni Mitchell,
Muddy Waters, and Neil Diamond to name
a few.
Even though they are some of the
biggest names in the business, they have
motion picture drawing appeal to a fairly
select group, as the younger movie crowds
have little to relate to in this event. While
only enjoying a one week stay in Lincoln,
it returns to the Stuart Theater as the
KFMQ midnight movie tomorrow night.
Making Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts
Chib Band, had to be quite a risk. For one,
they took the most successful album by
the most revered group in rock music to
base their movie on, and for that reason
alone, Robert Stigwood has offended
many. Sgt. Pepper, released by the Beatles
in 1967, is viewed by most as the powerful
turning point in rock musk, Peter Framp
ton and the Bee Gees, though products of
the British sixties, are viewed by most ai
the new matinee pop idols, and they take
the lead roles. This too, offends some.
But these initial predjudices could have
been avoided. It was wisely decided not to
make Sgt. Pepper a Beatles movie. It's just
a movie with a plot loosely woven around
:r, uh . . . about thirty of the Beatles best
songs. Since another wise decision was
made in not letting Frampton or the Bee
Gees try to act, these songs comprise 90
percent of the movie.
The theme is your basic good against
evil story, the good of the small imaginary
town of Heartland, against the evil of Los
Angeles and the sinful recording industry.
The slogan of the bad guys, (who include
Steve Martin, Alice Cooper, and Aero
smith) is "We Hate Joy, We Hate Love, We
Love Money" which is driven into the
heads of a new generation of young listen
ers. Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
resists temptation and goes about restoring
love to their debauched town.
There is much irony in Robert Stigwood
making a movie that preaches love over
money. The film apparently was made
without any attempt at artistic redempt
ion. It was apparently made to make a lot
of money. Frampton and the Bee Gees
have the top two selling LP.'s of all time,
George Burns, and Steve Martin are also
hot properties, the Beatles music is legend
ary, the promotion is excessive, and the
soundtrack will soon be flooding the top
40, to listeners that were too young to
remember the Beatles.
As earlier mentioned, this is just the
first W2ve of rock movies. The musicals
seem to have been saved from almost
certain death by the realization that rock
'n roD is now the legitimate and dominant
musk of this generation. There will be
good rock films, there will be bad rock
films, but they are all out, hoping to prove
that rock 'n roll is here to stay.
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