October 21, 1999
Middlebury Filmmaker to Show Documentary
About Iowa Singer/Songwriter Greg Brown on Nov. 6
“When I was a kid, we had
prayer meetings every Wednesday night, Friday night, Sunday morning,
and Sunday night. Our church was all white and the black Baptist
church was about two blocks down the street. The windows were
open on those hot summer nights and it seemed almost like a dialogue.
We’d sing a song and then, coming from down the street, I’d hear
the Baptists singing it.” — Greg Brown, singer/songwriter
“Hacklebarney Tunes,”
a documentary about singer/songwriter Greg Brown, will be shown
Saturday, Nov. 6 at 7 p.m. in Middlebury College’s Twilight Auditorium,
on College Street (Route 125 near Municipal Building). The screening,
which lasts 60 minutes, is free and open to the public. Jeffrey
Ruoff, the producer/director, will be present for a discussion
afterwards. This screening has been scheduled in anticipation
of Greg Brown’s live performances at the After Dark Music Series
in Middlebury on Nov. 7-8.
“Hacklebarney Tunes” tells the story
of a singer/songwriter from southern Iowa whose grandparents were
Appalachian folk musicians. The son of an itinerant preacher,
Greg Brown grew up in small towns across the Midwest. In the early
1980s, he performed weekly on National Public Radio’s “A
Prairie Home Companion” with Garrison Keillor. As Keillor
states in the film, “Greg has this Midwestern fundamentalist
background that we spent a lot of time discussing, usually as
we sat on my porch drinking whiskey and smoking unfiltered cigarettes.”
Today, despite an international reputation, Brown
still lives in Iowa City, performing at local taverns and maintaining
strong ties to his community. His music is eclectic in nature,
but deeply rooted in traditional American styles of country, blues,
folk, and gospel.
“Hacklebarney Tunes” has a strong regional
flavor, featuring musicians and critics from Iowa and Minnesota.
In addition to live concert performances and informal jam sessions,
the film takes its audience to a religious service at the rural
fundamentalist church Brown attended as a child, fishing with
Brown, and on a visit to Earlville, the town of 700 where his
formative teenage years were spent. Music critics from the Utne
Reader and other publications place Brown’s art in the context
of American musical styles. Numerous songs are featured from Brown’s
eclectic work, including “Canned Goods” and “Laughing
River,” as well as such classics as “Pretty Boy Floyd”
and “Lost Highway.”
“Hacklebarney Tunes” was independently
produced with grants from the Jerome Foundation, the National
Endowment for the Arts, the Iowa Humanities Board, the Iowa Arts
Council, and KTCA-St. Paul.
Jeffrey Ruoff is a film historian, documentary
filmmaker, and member of the film/video department at Middlebury
College. For more information about the screening, please contact
Ruoff at 802-443-3244.