Music has been the backbone of movies ever since the days of silent film when a piano player or organist would accompany the picture. Over time, we have seen this relationship grow even further intertwined. Would “Star Wars” be the same without John Williams’ score? Would “High Fidelity” be the same without its unforgettable soundtrack? In this episode, our host Kody Ford talks with our panel—Kyle Kellams, host of KUAF’s Ozarks at Large; Damen Tolbert, jazz musician and University of Arkansas-Pine Bluff professor; and Bryan and Bernice Hembree, musicians and co-founders of Fayetteville Roots Festival—about why they love movies and music.
Damen Tolbert:
IG - @damentional
Bryan and Bernice Hembree:
smokeyandthemirror.com / fayettevilleroots.org /
IG - @smokeyandthemirror / IG - @fayettevilleroots
Kyle Kellams:
ozarksatlarge.com / kuaf.org / IG - @ozarksatlarge / IG - @kuaf_radio
Kody Ford: Well, I want to thank all of you for being here today. This is a fun podcast we've got lined up and being at Arkansas Cinema Society, we're all about movies. And one important part with movies is music. And you know, y'all are... We have three musicians here today, plus a music aficionado and journalist, uh, as well. So, uh, I want to welcome you all to the show.
Kyle Kellams: Thanks for having us.
Damen Tolbert: Thank you. Thank you.
Bryan Hembree (BYH): I just want to state Kyle is, is, a, official musician, uh, you know, in our minds.
KF: Yeah. In spirit! Well, I want to start off with a question and Brian, Bernice, you probably know this. Anyone who's ever been on Ozarks at Large: the first question Kyle Kellams asks you during soundcheck is, "What is the first film you remember seeing?" And mine is, I believe the only time you've ever heard this, Kyle. It's The Care Bear Movie, which I saw when I was like maybe four? I don't know. I, I was a young one, but, um, so I want to take that column. I'm going to kind of rip you off for a second. So I want to ask the question: What is the first film you remember watching where the music stood out to you? And so Kyle, I'll start with you on that one.
KK: Very easy, uh, Wizard of Oz. I remember being, I don't know, six, seven, back when you only had network television and my brothers had told me, "oh, you've gotta see this movie. You've got to see this movie." And before I talk about the music, just a little thing, I watched it the first time on a black and white television. So they had told me, wait till she gets out of Kansas and nothing happened because it was in black and white. I didn't see it turn to color until I had watched it a few other times. But to this day, I remember Judy Garland singing “Somewhere Over The Rainbow” and it just floored me. And I can't tell you why then other than, you know, it's this longing. And, and I, I don't think I've ever had a situation where a single song in a movie has meant as much. And I still would say it's one of the best songs ever written specifically for a movie. Yeah.
KF: Damen, what about you?
DT: Uh, well, uh, he took my answer cause that was, that was that right there. Seriously. Um, growing up, um, on weekends, when I spent with my aunt, she would throw on musicals. So, she was in a musical, so it was the Wizard of Oz. And, uh, my second one was My Fair Lady. Um, and at that time, you know, growing up, I had no idea what was going on in the screen until the songs came on. And so, you know, the Rain in Spain stays mainly in the plain and, you know, just to have those things pop up randomly. Um, and of course, you know, it helped with my diction as well. I come from a family of teachers, so diction is very, very important. Uh, and so, yeah, as far as the musical score, you know, having the things on screen that it wasn't even necessarily them singing be accented as well. It's just like, it's kind of like watching a cartoon, but live.
Bernice Hembree (BNH): Yeah. Uh, my answer is, it's a, it's two-fold, number one, Cinderella, hands down. Um, my grandma loves Disney movies. Um, and that was something that we would bond over when I was really young. And, uh, I didn't watch much TV as a kid. That was something like, if it was daytime, you were outside, no way could you be watching TV. Uh, but over at Granny's house, we could do whatever we wanted. So, Cinderella came on and I remember the moment like stopping in my tracks and hearing the singing is one thing, but just the score, the composition of the music intertwining with the birds coming to sing at her window sill. And it was one of those that will never leave my memory. And Tom and Jerry cartoons, like the, uh, the orchestration in those cartoons. I remember Saturday mornings just being blown away by the music and the cartoons. That was something that, um, I always found really impressive. Yeah.
KF: But what about you, Bryan?
BYH: I'm gonna break the mold here. I'm sorry, guys. Okay. Uh, and I guess I'll go with two because, you know, I like that you all have been talking about kind of like orchestrated score versus, you know, song based score, you know, or lyric based score and that kind of thing. But, um, my family tells a story about when I was a kid, they took me to see E.T. in the, in the movie theater eight times, you know? And, and so, and, and I, I just can't imagine. I was probably just like, "E.T. - gotta go, gotta go." You know, it just like gripped me. And to this day when I hear that music, uh, I know it's imprinted somewhere in, in deep in my psyche.
BNH: He hears like one note and he'll name it.
BYH: Oh man. Yeah. Yeah. And so, so from a scored film, definitely E.T., Um, but from, um, from a like song based, um, perspective, uh, just a few years after that, um, Coal Miner's Daughter, which is where, what I was saying about breaking the mold with where we were heading down here. Um, I remember it was the first VHS tape that my family ever bought. And this is back in the day. And I watched a documentary recently that corroborated this, the VHS tapes were like $99. And I remember it, we, we, we bought this VHS tape for almost a hundred dollars. And so we only own one. And for whatever reason, you know, my mom's favorite movie or whatever was, it was Coal Miner's Daughter. It was the new release, uh, you know, that, that she was really wanting to have. And I watched that movie over and over again. And, uh, that's where I got introduced to leave on helm and, and so much of like early country, Americana roots style music. And it's just such a great movie. And so, you know, from a, from a lyric based song standpoint, that, that that's my movie for certain.
KF: So that one really like shaped who you are today in a lot of ways. It kind of set the path in some ways.
BYH: Like the whole front end of that movie. Uh, first I love biopics. And so the whole front of that movie tickles my biopic fancy, but then there's a whole section of the movie where they're like, you know, going town to town in a, in a, in an old station wagon, like stopping at radio stations and giving interviews and then playing the gig that night, you know? And like now I'm all over it. That's all we do, you know? And, uh, and then, you know, then just like the, over the top, you know, now Loretta has made it and she's got big gowns and she's struggling with addiction. And, you know, the, the over the top Nashville kind of act three of that movie. I don't know. I just, I love all all, all all parts of it.
KF: That was like one of the original music biopics, wasn't it? Can anyone think of earlier ones?
KK: Glenn Miller story? I mean, I know I'm old. I know I'm old.
BYH: I was gonna go The Buddy Holly story, uh, which is right there also in the early eighties, I'd have to, I'd have to look up that. I think Buddy Holly Story was probably like Gary Busey probably '81, '82, somewhere in there, but yeah.
KK: Well, he does sing the Blues.
BYH: Yeah. Yeah. You know, now that you mentioned with Glen Miller, I, I definitely perused that as a kid a lot because it was in that same biopic, Musician, biopic mold. But I know I saw that after “Coal Miner's Daughter,” but yeah, we'd have to dig into that. Kody, this is a whole thing, music biopic,
KF: I know.
BYH: We could do a segment, whole podcast.
KF: We, we could, we have a whole series on that. I, what about you Damen, a biopic? Any that you like for music?
DT: You know, off the top of my head, I was, I was trying to, um, come up with something, but, um, you know, I guess, I guess my age is showing here, it just couldn't, couldn't pick up one off the top of my head. Um, uh, and when you say, when you say biopic, you mean like a biography of a musician, correct?
KF: Yeah. Like Ray or the Miles Davis one that they did with Don Cheadle.
DT: Oh, okay. Now I will say Ray -- Ray was very, very, very, uh, it was such a great movie, more so for the acting. Uh, and then to me, the music kind of, it allowed me to then go explore Ray Charles's music more, more than just for the blues aspect, you know, and to go back and find out that he did have whole big band charts behind him. Um, singing straight ahead, jazz. And it's beautiful to me, um, that not only were we able to look into his life, but I was able to explore the music after the fact and gain a new respect for, uh, an artist, you know, who has passed. Um, there's a few biopics I would love to see, you know, like Luther Vandross. Um, I just want to be in, just next to him just wanna travel back in time and just stand there in the corner, you know? Um, but yeah, as far as, um, biopics, maybe The Temptations, that's a really good one, um, Five Heartbeats. That's not necessarily a, it's a fictional biopic, but you know, it has all the sauce of, of, you know, reality in the music industry with a little bit of, you know, hyperbole.
BNH: Dream Girls. I think that's a fictional biopic.
DT: Yeah. And that's, and that's one I hadn't really seen.
KF: And then you get all the way into Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story.
DT: Oh yeah.
KF: Because I mean, this was a hilarious movie and it really did, like at that point they had had that structure so nailed down with the biopic. It's like, you know, they're going to get addicted to something at some point, you know, and, and all that. But yeah, that's, for fictional biopics, I'm going with that one as my favorite. But, uh, what about you, Kyle? Do you have one? You want add one?
KK: A biopic? I mean, uh, I don't know. I, I, I'm going to differ from Brian here. I'm not a huge fan of them. Cause I, I'm the type that will watch a movie and then instantly go, you know, on online and see what did they do right, what did they, what did, what characters did they combine? I mean, I liked Ray. I liked what was the Johnny Cash one, “Walk the Line?”
KF: Walk the Line.
KK: I liked them. Um, but I tend to, I don't know. I dunno. They, they're okay. I'm just not a huge fan.
BNH: I'm always impressed when they have actors that are talented musicians play the part. That is always impressive for me. I find it irritating when you have, like, in My Fair Lady, I hate to like, I don't know if we know the same and, but you know that, um, Audrey, in the Audrey version, she didn't sing all of those songs because they didn't think her voice was strong enough. This was a dagger to her. And she went through a long depression in her career because she felt like she wasn't living up to The Sound of Music, the stature that they were wanting from that same movie, and so they had some American artists record some of her songs and it was such a, such a slap to her. So I hate it when that happens. And I'm so impressed when they have like a Sissy Spacek that can transform a part in a role and make, make it as good as it should be.
BYH: Yeah. I mean, I'm, I'm actually right there with you, Kyle. Um, I do want to say, you know, we usually do agree. And then when you said I'm gonna take the opposite. I was like, oh my gosh, this is amazing. I was completely oblivious to what you're going to say, but, but I, but to like walk back from that, I'm, I'm right there with you. I, I actually think that's why I think Coal Miner's Daughter stands out as a movie, whether it's the performance and it is Sissy Spacek doing, you know, actually performing or just, just all the elements of it. Um, few biopics hold up to that level. And, and I also think it was just a moment in time, you know, for whatever reason, you know, some of the more modern biopics have the advantage of CGI and other elements that seem to make it otherworldly, which takes it away from the realness for me, I don't know, you know, just something that, you know, I I'd have to go and watch to really point out what I'm talking about.
KF: Yeah.
BNH: I'm excited for the Aretha biopic. The score for that I've heard is incredible. And
BYH: That's one they've got to get right. Just, just, she'll come back. She will haunt somebody. She will show up as a large, overpowering ghost and just say, "you did it wrong."
BNH: I don't know, this isn't a biopic, but there was that, um, Pixar movie called Soul. Um, and I recently discovered that and loved it. I thought it was so fantastic. And the jazz pianist going into the zone.
DT: Yes. That is so real.
BNH: So real! They really nailed, they really nailed it: how, how you do get in the zone and how to transport you from where you are.
KK: Okay. I want to ask about that cause I'm not a musician and I've always envied that. Did you ever see the movie Hustle and Flow? There's a sequence in there. I think it's about two thirds of the way through where we're watching these musicians create and you see them making this music. And as someone who's never made music, it seemed to me that was the most exciting portrayal I've ever seen on film of creativity. Now it may be complete bogus because I don't know that feeling and it's been years since I've seen it. So I can't really remember what resonated, but it, it brought excitement, I thought, to the film. This is two guys playing off each other, how you would write music.
DT: Hmm. Yeah. Uh, uh, as a, as a jazz musician, now that you bring up Soul, um, one thing I really, one thing I really, really appreciated was they really got heavy hitter musicians to play those parts behind the, behind the scenes. So, um, I believe, um, now don't quote me on this. If it was Angela Bassett playing the main, uh, female saxophonist role, but the saxophone is behind her, her name is Tia Fuller and she is amazing. She's a professor at UC Berkeley, if I'm not mistaken, don't quote me on any of these things. Um, but she is a professor. Um, and as she was doing the CGI saxophone and I'm running in my head and they were doing the fingerings correctly, CGI, and I'm like, that's loads away from the Charlie Parker biopic where this guy's just kind of flapping around and they press play. And you know, it just kept changing the shot. So you never really knew. Um, but that the feeling of the whole in the zone thing is it's a, it's a spiritual it's it's when you, you hit, you hit this, this frequency of "I'm picking up this sound from nowhere, you know, from, from nowhere. And somehow it's real open for me to sit down and just get it out." Um, do you write, Kyle? You're, uh, you're a writer?
KK: Not fiction. I mean, I, for the radio show, I'll, I'll write nonfiction, you know, stories, news stories, but I've tried writing fiction before and, boy, that whatever zone is available there has eluded me, I'm just not that good.
DT: Yeah. Well, the, the zone itself, um, is, is it it's at the moment of creation. So, even when you're writing something for, for your news show, if you ever came across like, oh man, these sentences back to back are really gonna hit them. And it's like, oh, I got another one for them. And then another one, that's that feeling. And it's about it's about that, that open zone of expression. And if you can enjoy that with another person or a group of people, oh, that resonates and it's just, oh, it just gets so much better.
BYH: I have seen Kyle in the zone. I want to say that. Kyle's zone is live on the radio and I've seen it up and close year after year. And, and Kyle has a plan, but you know, it doesn't always follow plan or, you know, the idea comes up that the guest says something and Kyle goes in a different direction and I've seen Kyle in the zone in that moment. And so that's your, that's your creative zone.
KK: Well, thank you. That's nice of you to say.
KF: Well, I want to jump back to talking about being in the zone and the creation. Damen, you have, your degree is part of it in composing? Am I wrong about that?
DT: Uh, yes. You're, you're um, uh, that's incorrect. My bachelor's in sound recording and my master's is in, uh, music education.
KF: Okay, Well have you-
DT: As far as writing music, Um, I kinda just, I've always been a creative. I've, I started off writing creative writing before I was writing music. And so, um, as soon as I can hear it, it's kinda like talking. If you can read, you can write, if you can hear it, you can write it. And it was never separate from me. So whenever I got a spark of music, I'm just like, oh, those are notes, get them out. And, um, so it's pretty much being inspired by these, uh, cinematic movies and also, uh, the music that I grew up listening to, uh, thanks to my dad being a DJ. I was, I got exposed to a lot of different styles of music very early before I even knew what was happening. You know, I didn't realize, like, for example, in like '90, '95, whenever like the newest hip-hop thing would come out, I was, I thought I was a year behind. That's how separate I was from mainstream, um, music. I thought it was a year ago when this stuff was happening at that moment. And so, um, the composing part has always been just there. I actually consider it my second instrument. Um, and you know, if you can read, you can write. That's the way I see it.
KF: I think what I'm thinking of is you and I had talked about, you have some interest in maybe composing for film. Did we have that conversation? Yeah, I think we did. Uh, the last time I saw you.
DT: Yeah. So, um, uh, I, I consider music being like emotions without words. And so when a scene pops up and it makes me feel any emotion, it's almost immediate. I get a whole score built in my head and because I've studied music, I can actually, I actually know that, oh, that's the French horn part. Oh, that's the tuba part. I need a timpani for that, you know, but in my head it just comes up and it's, uh, I, I, if I have the chance, I would like, try to sing it into my phone or something like that. But other than that, it might get lost and I'll just be walking down the street, enjoying a whole cinema topic score in my head by myself.
KF: Uh, Brian, Bernice, I wanna jump over to you. I know that there's a project y'all are working on, we're not gonna talk about it today. We definitely want you to come back once you're ready for that; for some composition you're doing for a film, but, uh, you guys, uh, in your previous band, I believe, didn't you do a, uh, work with TheatreSquared for a play, uh, and write original songs for that?
BNH: Not we arranged some traditional music. They used, they used some old gospel and old traditional, like Southern Appalachian kind of style, um, that we then adapted for that.
KF: Yeah. Okay. Well, have you guys, other than the project that you're working on and pre-production with right now, have you got to compose for film before?
BYH: No, it's a new endeavor.
BNH: We've had people use our music for films or little website things or commercials, but never written for something specific. So that's exciting. Yeah. Yeah.
KF: Well, I'm excited to hear about it once you guys are able to really, you know, jump into the water on that and come back and talk to us. But you're talking about your songs being licensed out for films. It brings me back to one thing I wanted to talk about. So we sort of talked about, you know, what music, you know, whether it was “Somewhere Over the Rainbow” or what have you that jumped out to you, but what soundtrack? Cause like I grew up in the nineties, I was a kid, one of the first CDs I ever bought was “The Crow” soundtrack. I'm pretty sure I bought the soundtrack before I even saw the movie because my parents wouldn't let me watch R rated films. So I had to wait and go over to somebody's house whose mom didn't care. Uh, but as you remember how much it blew my mind, the soundtrack, and then you had so many classic ones from that era, like “Empire Records” and, uh, “High Fidelity” and all these others. Um, so I, I'll throw this out to you guys first. Uh, do you have a favorite soundtrack of, you know, well that nineties style where it's like that really great mixtape?
BNH: I have, I have two that come to mind. Uh, one was “Great Expectations.”
KF: I love it. I love that one.
BNH: Well, good! It's random, I don't even remember how I got that soundtrack. It was probably at the mall. I don't, it might've been on discount and I just bought it or something who knows, but I loved it. Um, and then this is very random, but the Fifth Element soundtrack for me was really interesting. Um, and there I was studying classical voice pretty deep at that point and the opera scene where the woman is singing this part, but it like mixes in some electronic work with her voice and it blew my mind. Cause that was not, that was not something I was used to hearing at that point. Um, and so I listened to that on repeat a lot. So those were my two.
KF: Anyone else want to jump in with their favorite soundtrack?
DT: “The Matrix”? Yeah, I deal with that. Um, there's one soundtrack. I didn't know what the soundtrack because I didn't see the movie, um, “Love Jones”? The movie that soundtrack is really, really, uh, really smooth. I didn't know that there were songs on there that are singles, like just from that soundtrack that I loved and they were all on the same, uh, same on the same CD.
KF: Yeah. That was a very nineties thing for sure. Like all the good soundtracks. There's always that one or two songs that they led with “Empire Records.” It was a song by, I think the guys Edwin McCain, maybe it's like the third track and it's real retro groovy. It's almost sounds like it should have been on Austin Powers. And I remember that being a single and that was on MTV for a while. I think, you know, they sort of went away in the early through mid aughts and it seems like James Gunn has kind of resurrected them with the “Guardians of the Galaxy” mixtapes and all that. Uh, although I don't think they're doing original songs for that per se. I think it's mostly just he's pulling from different areas. I guess Tarantino has always done this really well too with together that mixtape style. Um, anyone else have one that they want to chime in about?
BYH: If we're talking nineties? I mean, you know, the Singles soundtrack I think is pretty much, that was me. Like, you know, I, I got sucked in by Nirvana and the Seattle scene and, and early grunge and singles was like hitting on that. It was, you know, in the whole movie itself and even, you know, the soundtrack was like deep cut of that kind of cultural movement, you know? Uh, but for me, uh, two, two that we owned, they were actually records that we own, uh, that are not nineties, but the Big Chill was like, just seminal for me. I mean, you just can't get away from that. You know? I mean, it was a great, I mean, I'm sure there were these, you know, Motown review, you know, records, albums coming out, but they hit the nail on the head with that one and, you know, and it was, it was huge for me. And then I, as a kid owned the Ghostbusters soundtrack on vinyl and you know, like, uh, Ray Parker, I mean, it's like, you know, you know, the, the, the title song, you know, Who You Gonna Call, you know, Ghostbusters, I mean, it's, it's, it's, it's, uh, it's quintessential eighties groove and eighties, uh, you know, cinema music. I feel like.
KF: That's awesome. Yeah, absolutely.
KK: When you get to go last in one of these, you get you've put together the list. So, um, West Side Story, mainly because I had then and still now have an enormous crush on Rita Moreno, um, for Singles type soundtracks, there was a movie called Times Square, which wasn't very good, but it put together a bunch of punk rock and new wave songs. And that came out some time in the mid eighties. And then I love Times Square, Times Square. I love the soundtrack to Michael Mann's movie Heat, uh, de Niro and Pacino. There is a segment and Brian Eno didn't do all of the score, but there's, when they're robbing the bank. There's a, there's a tune there called Force Marker. And you see de Niro and Val Kilmer coming out of the bank and it's perfect. And it goes through what is also the best cinematic shootout in the streets of LA. And it's just like this four and a half minute beautiful synchronization of soundtrack and action,
BYH: You know, to that point, uh, we revisited “Wall Street” recently just to watch. I don't really remember how we got there, but man, like nothing against, I mean, you know, nothing against the movie, but like without the music that movie had lost, I mean, literally the entire like urban identity, you know, that they're building, uh, is, is just, uh, I don't know. I, you know, I Love it.
BNH: Does it show how important a soundtrack is for a film?
BYH: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm, I'm pretty certain, it was the solo project for him. It wasn't, it was post Talking Heads, but it just, just the signature of, of his music on that, on that movie was so important.
KF: Did you guys see the David Byrne one man show on Broadway?
BYH: No, they're reprising that in, in winter and spring of 22. So we're hoping to maybe go and get good tickets.
KF: Yeah, I saw it on HBO, but I would go and watch it in person. It was incredible.
DT: I want to briefly mention two soundtracks that popped in my mind are really important to my life. If we don't have to do, we don't have to discuss them because this is going to, it's going to trigger you. First one, since you're missing Tarantino, “Kill Bill” soundtrack.
BNH: Yes! That one is so good!
DT: Hands down. And then the other one that's real important in my life is “The Wiz,” which is, uh, the African-American cultural adaptation of “The Wizard of Oz” scored by Quincy Jones. And dear goodness that I still listened to, um, to some of those, you know, just on there, on my Spotify playlist, you know, cause the music is that good and its original scoring and, and dear goodness, I just love it. Yeah.
BYH: Have you seen, so this is like not biopic, but just bio, just, you know, documentary, the Quincy Jones doc on Netflix.
DT: Yes, several.
BYH: Oh, my God. It's insane. First off the breadth of the documentary is insane, but then the breadth of his career, like I can't even believe, you know, so when you mentioned The Wiz, I was like, oh yeah, of course that too. You know what I mean? There's so much, so much of a body of work. Uh, it blows my mind, so yeah. So I'll, I'll throw that out there. It's just pure documentary. I know, I know that's like its own category, but um, non-fiction a reader and watcher, you know.
KF: Well, let's hop into, uh, music documentaries and for a second, I know for me, like when I think about one of my all time favorites, it had to have been the Wilco one. “I Am Trying to Break your Heart,” which I, I actually saw it before I was that into Wilco. I think like I, some friends of mine. Oh, you should, you know, they had mentioned, I'd heard a couple songs and this was the Limewire days when we were, you know, totally not illegally downloading music and they're, oh, you should watch this. So we went and saw it at the independent theater there in Little Rock. And then I think I went home to my own town, like the next weekend. And it was like my birthday. And I went somewhere. It was very close by and I went and bought that album. Uh, and just like, you know, having heard it the whole way through, I was like, I'm buying this. I hadn't bought a CD in ages, but I'm buying this one. And I mean, that when, and it's just so strange because it was just like, we're going to be a fly on the wall. And it just worked out perfectly where they just had that crazy dramatic arc through all of it with, you know, Jeff Tweedy's struggles and then the band friction, everything. And I think they put together a really good film. Uh, does anyone have like, uh, a concert documentary as well? You know, a different one we have that hasn't kind of been popped up yet.
DT: Um, Linkin Park and Jay Z did a crossover thing, whatever in concert. And they had, um, a Emcee on Plug, but I don't know if it was maybe just, um, a marathon I remember seeing or if it was a separate, uh, piece, but I know, um, Linkin Park and Jay Z did, did something together where they, it was a, and I know Linkin Park by themselves. I've seen a few of their, um, of their concerts. Um, but like actually filmed though.
KF: Well, the Linkin Park, Jay Z thing, I remember like they had some pretty decent songs, but I remember that kind of came about because there was The Grey Album that Danger Mouse did, you know, with the remixes, with The White Album by The Beatles. And like, it was going to, I had heard, and I don't know if this is true, but I had heard that Roc-A-Fella records looked into releasing that, but to license, all those samples would have been multi-million dollar thing. And it just like, they would have lost money on it. Uh, and so there's like, everybody can just download it for free, but that I think is kind of where that Linkin Park collab came from. And then they did that remix, but yeah, that was a lot of fun for sure. Um, who else has some?
BNH: Well, music, documentaries? I don't know if this is what you're talking about, but Nina Simone, that one is incredible and blew my mind when I watched that one, I learned a lot and dove in pretty deep for that. And then recently, my daughter, who's 15, um, we watched the Beyonce, the Beyonce films.
BYH: The Coachella, the Coachella documentary. It's insane.
BNH:
And then we would pause it and try to do the dances.
KK: Good luck.
BNH: I wish that there had been like a little bit more behind the scenes because massive that's such a massive project and undertaking and putting on a show like that. I would have loved to have seen a little bit more behind the scenes on how it came together.
BYH: Yeah. That's a really good point. I mean, it, it is the entire documentary is for this one performance, you know? So, so it's like, it's a concert documentary because it's about the performance, but it's about how she gets what it takes to get to that performance, to come back from childbirth and to come back from, you know, kind of, uh, you know, period that she took off and then to come back, uh, you know, after having to cancel, uh, you know, Coachella and then come back to honor that gig. I mean the whole, the story of it is incredible and it's, it's, it's, um, it's not direct narrative, it's not linear narrative. It follows a really creative arc where it takes you into different places and you really have to dig, you know, think about it. But yeah, that blew my mind. I, I was, I walked in and I'm like, what are we watching again?
BNH: We'd have to pause it, and then run out saying, "You got to see this, come in here!"
KF: Did you do the dances too, Brian? Learn the Single Ladies thing, or?
BYH: There's, there's a couple of guys that are in her, her, her troupe, they were just amazing. I didn't even try to touch him.
KF: I don't blame you.
BYH: I'm not, I'm not even close. Um, well, I was going to say is not really, it's a documentary, not about concert, but the Funk Brothers documentary about the house band Motown is incredible. And, and one of my favorite music, anything on, on film is in that movie, in that documentary, when you were talking about the zone, I w I, I thought about this moment, they, they get the band together. Um, in modern times, it's not, it's not like historical footage, but they get to get the band together. And they're like, okay, you know, show us how you made Ain't Too Proud to Beg. And, and they like start out with a baseline. And then the drummer comes in and they add this, like, you know, it was kind of backbeat guitar and it, and it's coming together and you're hearing, and you're like, you get in the groove. And the last element they bring in the tambourine and it all of a sudden, like, that's the song. And, you know, just to see those eight layers of the musicians that actually made that, you know, made that song, made that record to see those come together and they show how important that last element is to the identity of that song. That's one of my favorite music moments in any, any, you know, documentary style film for certain.
KK: Well, to sound old, I grew up in the middle of nowhere, Arkansas, and before MTV, right? MTV didn't start till I was in college, so you just didn't see much music. You could maybe try to stay up and watch the midnight special or Don Cursor's rock concert. But the drive in, the drive in would occasionally have concert movies as the second bill. So my friends and I went to see, uh, The Last Waltz, which was great. We saw the movie No Nukes: Jackson Browne, Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt. But we saw Woodstock. I think I was probably in ninth or tenth grade. And they showed the Woodstock, uh, you know, concert film. And you talk about blowing my mind. I didn't know what brown acid was. And this guy was up there saying, don't take the brown acid. I was like, all right, when I get older, don't take the brown acid. And I had heard of Jimi Hendrix, but had never heard Jimi Hendrix. It's like, what the hell is this? And The Who? And Country Joe and the Fish. So those were my first concert experiences because you just, if you were in Baxter County, Arkansas, and you didn't have a car, you didn't see live music. So those were the ones. We also saw, um, The Song Remains the Same, the Led Zepplin. Yeah. I still don't know what the hell was going on in that. I need to watch that again, cause that was just way past me when I saw it.
BYH: I, I, you made me think of something about that too. When I was a kid, I had a friend whose dad had a bunch of like ACL, Austin City Limits bootleg VHS. Some that I think he had recorded when it aired, but then there was this, people would pass those recorded episodes around like, you know, like bootlegs. And, uh, I, you know, I just remember watching Stevie Ray on ACL with him as like a VHS, you know what I mean? Like,sit down kids and he prepared. You know, I don't know. I mean, you know, I think, I think Kody you've hit on something here, um, instead of an entire, uh, you know, an entire organization onto itself, music, music documentary, cinema.
KF: All of these, we could do in-depth podcast series on, for sure. For sure. Well, I know we've also talked about movies about music. I think Bernice, I believe you mentioned Dream Girls and Singles came up. Bryan, which, Singles is one of my absolute favorite movies of the nineties. And what's so cool about that is like Cameron Crowe broke that. So, you know, everybody thinks it was, and it was Nirvana that blew it into the mainstream, but Cameron Crowe had been living there for several years. He wrote that, he cast Eddie Vetter and Chris Cornell and Alice in Chains like all of those. And it was all about that Seattle scene. And it just luckily came out right whenever it blew up, you know? And, and so, yeah, I've always been a fan of those and just, you know, Matt Dillon's character in that movie is so funny. Anyway, you know, uh, does anyone have, you know, cause w w I'll ask this, then we've got one final question, but does anyone have any other movies about music that not, not a musical per se, but a movie about music that comes to mind and why you love it?
DT: Whiplash.
BYH: Oh, J.K. Simmons.
DT: I love it because at like, as a jazz musician, I felt every bit of that man's journey. The, you know, I don't know if I'm good enough to I'm over practicing to get good enough, but to whose standards and even the, um, now he wouldn't be that extreme, I would never go through that much physical pain, you know, for the music, you know, that that director could have went somewhere else after awhile. But, um, but just watching that and feeling that, and I had a band director, um, who was very militant, you know, uh, when it came to marching band. So there was, there was several things that, that resonated with me and the main character, uh, where it's like, yeah, that's the, that's the jazz journey if you choose to take it, but there's another route where you keep your sanity as well. So, you know, it's up to you, you know, if you want to be greater, you want to be who you want to be great for really is the question.
BNH: Yeah. I don't think we've seen that, so that that's going to be on my, on my list. Yes. It's in marching band. I grew up in a military marching band, militant band leader. Yes. I know all about that.
KF: Anyone else have one they want to add?
BYH: You know, I'll admit that this movie is cheesy, but, um, so, you know, when you mentioned Matt, Matt Dillon, you know, I have this thing. So one of my proto movies in my life was The Outsiders, cause it was filmed in Tulsa. I grew up in Tulsa. So, so I oftentimes branch off to like what those actors were also in. Uh, and, and so, and I don't have to do this with Ralph Macchio, cause then you have Karate Kid. And so like those two movies alone were so similar for me, but crossroads with Ralph Macchio, when he's, you know, he like goes down the crossroads and makes a deal. And then he, like, he plays the dual and, you know, at the big concert with the devil, I mean, it's a total cheese thing, but to like, see one of my, you know, early film heroes, this is Johnny and, and you know, and The Karate Kid as a guitar hero, that's all I needed. I was in, I was in all, all levels of that.
KF: Did they...
BYH: I watched it later, and was like, "I don't know..."
KF: Did they do the editing thing where it's like, you see his face and it cuts to someone else's hand over on the front.
BYH: I think, actually, Steve did all of the actual guitar parts and then was the b-shots of the hands on the guitar. Yeah.
DT: Wow. Uh, I wanna, I wanna, um, I wanna throw in, and since he talked about the guitar and Tenacious D and The Pick of Destiny, That's about music.
BNH: Yeah. Talk about creativity and fearlessness. Like, there's just no fear there. It's just.
DT: Yeah. Jack Black with that and School, uh, uh, School of Rock.
BNH: We've seen it probably 74 times. Our daughter loves that movie. So we, we know that one forward and backwards, so good.
BYH: I think you're, I think you're proving true, Kody. You said, you know, what would movies be without music? But I think what would movies be without music? Movies. Is probably how you look at it.
KF: Yeah, absolutely. Well, this brings me to my final question and it's something we've touched on throughout the whole podcast today, but I want to give everybody a chance to put it into words, a succinct thought of sorts, what power does good music, whether it be a soundtrack of like a Tarantino type soundtrack or a score, a film score, or Hans Zimmer or somebody like that, you know, what power does good music provide for telling a story? So, uh, let's start with Kyle.
KK: Uh, frames it, right? I mean, my goodness, every time I answer a question, I sound older, but here you go. Watch the original 1931 Frankenstein with Boris Karloff and Colin Clive. There was no music and it's its own sort of atmosphere. Then James Whale, the same director, makes Bride of Frankenstein two years later with a score, which is considered one of the best early sound scores in film history. And it's such a more atmospheric framed experience. Um, there's, there's something about watching Frankenstein now because we're so used to music being behind the action that it has developed its own kind of element like, oh, wow. What a bold choice to not have music. I don't think it was necessarily that choice, but if you watch those two very similar films together, you'll see, whoa, a great score can take a great screenplay and great acting. And yes, Boris Karloff was a great actor in those films and make, get so much more. It, it's hard to think of a movie that I truly love other than Frankenstein take the music away. And it would be the same film.
KF: Oh, sorry. I'm just going to ask on that real quick. How was that like back in the day, whenever they would have like a piano player organist or whatever in the theater, was it that era for the original?
KK: Well, they were moving out of that. So, um, by then you could put the separate, I'm getting in over my head, Damen will probably help me out here, but you could put the separate when creating the spools of film, you know, you could have the, the soundtrack also on the film, a separate track or channel or something. So we're moving away from that. And I suppose, cause Frankenstein was made, you know, just a couple of years into sound being available. And so it may have been one of those that did have accompanists, you know, in the theater. But by the time you got to Bride of Frankenstein, that was almost gone and, and, and soundtracks on the film were becoming the standard.
KF: Um, Bernice, did you have a thought or you guys...
BNH: I would think about a film that wouldn't be the same without the music is Star Wars hands down like that. Like it wouldn't be the same movie if you didn't have that.
KK: Jaws.
BNH: Yeah, totally. And then my other thought is wouldn't it be cool if we brought accompanists back for films?
KF: I love a good live scoring. It's a lot of fun.
BNH: That'd be so fun.
BYH: So this is something that I was talking to Professor Frank about in that era that you're talking about, Kyle, what you said made me think of it. So he was telling me about this time in, in late silent film and early audio technology, where they actually made two different cuts of the film because the one film would go out to a, you know, a, a theater that was still had a live musician or a live orchestra to play along with the silent film. But there was also one that was dubbed with voice in it. They had to actually cut two different versions of the film and he's done some work where he looks at comparing those two and what decisions were made with sound, without sound. And that's fascinating to me. I mean, that seems to get at the core of that issue of like, what does sound add to, you know, to a film, um, you know, for certain?
KF: Uh, Damen I'll hop back over to you real quick. Uh, what power does good music provide for a story in your opinion?
DT: So kind of getting back to what Kyle had mentioned about the time period is that, uh, some people don't know that music was before speech in film. So really, you only had the, uh, the actors onstage, you know, doing the exaggerated movements and then the score or the accompanist behind that would accentuate that. And so, um, the score really tells the story, you know. Uh, the way I teach my students is the, the sound effects are the action of the screen. The script is the, what do you call it, is the plot and the music tells you the emotion. So the music in any film or any form of visual media is media, is telling the audience how to feel about what's going on on screen. Uh, there's a, there's a, uh, experiment or a couple of, um, uh, videos on YouTube where they take this scene from Pirates of the Caribbean, where, uh, Jack Sparrow's, you know, about to do this, this little heroic, you know, ride in on sea. And if you change the music, you'll have a completely different idea of what about is, what is about to happen next. And if you take, uh, even the genre, like horror, horror movies rely on music in order to have their effect to be, um, you know, to, to happen on the audience because I have to anticipate something's going to happen or something's going to come around the corner in order for it to surprise me. So even just having that violin, [mimics violin note], is going to be like, oh, something's going to happen. And then all of a sudden something happens. It's like, it's helping to tell the story. And just the visuals by themselves, by themselves, um, don't provide the aesthetic information and it provides plot information and that's cool, but then I'm going to walk away without an emotional imprint. And so without the music, you really can't tell the story fully.
KF: Yeah. It's like, without the [mimics Halloween Theme melody] like for the Halloween film, Michael Myers is just a weirdo in a mask who loves cutlery. Like, that's it, that to me, that is the creepiest of all film scores. Like I always listen to it around Halloween when I want to get creeped out. Just that one, that James, not James, uh, what's his name who did it.
BYH: Carpenter.
KF: John Carpenter? John Carpenter did. Yeah. Uh, who I think scored a lot of his films, but yeah. It's, I agree with you completely. I think it's a great point. That music is the emotion for it. So to close us out, Brian, Bernice do y'all have any more thoughts on, you know, w what you think about good music and how it affects story?
BNH: I'm going to second this, like, you don't even need language in, in the, the film. We just watched a couple of shorts, those little Disney shorts, and there was one on The Simpsons last night that we watch, it's like a four minute short. Um, and, and there's no dialogue it's hands-on off music only, and you have the story laid out in the music. It's, it's so intense and beautiful. And like, I cried.
BYH: Yeah. If you're, If you're a Simpsons fan, there are these two shorts that are about four or four and a half minutes, and they both follow Maggie. And so, of course, she's not going to speak, and it's just, it's, it's brilliant. And, and, and, you know, she, she's just navigating, it's a, it's set in a daycare, it's set in the Ayn Rand, a school for tots, you know? And so it's all, it's got all of the heady, you know, inferences that you would expect from The Simpsons, but then what you lose is that, um, satirical commentary, the narrative, and what you get is the music and, and the, the, you know, the, um, you know, the art of, of, of the, of the cartoon itself, it's pretty powerful.
BNH: If well done. You should be able to close your eyes and not have to see what's on the screen to, to feel the expression of the movie. You should be able to get that just from the score or the songs put together to lace it all together for you.
BYH: There you go. We'll end on The Simpsons.
KF: All right, it's a good way to end. Anyone have any other thoughts that you'd like to add?
BYH: Oh, well, if we're going to say that, The Simpsons, uh, put out a great soundtrack mixtape in, in the late eighties. Uh, and, and I own that. And so if we're going to end on The Simpsons, we should, you know, encourage people to go find that.
KF: Yeah, give it a plug.
BYH: It's like Bart sings all these songs. And, uh, they, he does a cover of a, of, of, um, “Bad to the Bone,” you know? And anyway, so yeah.
KF: I remember this and I remember the Beavis and Butthead the cartoon, uh, not the film, but the cartoon had its own soundtrack too, because it had a Nirvana song, like the last song they ever recorded called, “I Hate Myself and Want to Die,” which probably should have tipped some people off where Kurt was headed. But yeah, that one was on there. It was the first time I ever heard that song. Uh, but yeah, so it was always fun whenever cartoons, you know, did those kinds of things. Uh, but, okay, so that concludes our panel discussion today. I want to thank, uh, Brian and Bernice Henry. I want to thank Damen Tolbert, and I want to think Kyle Kellums for being here. And before we go, because we have some musicians here and if people want to follow you, how can they follow you, Damen?
DT: Uh, if you want to follow me type in Google or whatever search platform, my first and last name as is spelled D A M E N T O L B E R T. Or you can search my stage name: Damentional, D A M E N T I O N A L. Damentional. Just type that in anywhere and you should be able to pull me up.
KF: Okay. And how can people find out about Smokey in the Mirror?
BNH: Go to SmokeyandtheMirror.com. That's Smokey with the E Y and you can find us on all those streaming platforms. And we have a website. You can check out our bio and find our music there. Yeah. Yeah.
KF: And Kyle, if people want to listen to Ozarks At Large.
KK: Uh, KUAF.com or ozarksatlarge.com
KF: So that concludes this episode of real talk, Arkansas. I can thank my panelists, Damon Tolbert, Kyle Kellum's and Brian and Bernice Henry for joining me and talking about all the great things that we love about movies and music. So tonight, or this morning, whenever you're listening to this podcast, maybe, you know, setback hop on Spotify or whatever streaming service or CD player you have, and listen to one of your favorite soundtracks or scores. And just take a moment to appreciate how great music make movies. Thanks for listening.
[THEME MUSIC PLAYS]
KF: Reel Talk Arkansas is produced by Christian Leus and Kody Ford. For more information visit www.arkansascinemasociety.org