Middlebury Filmmaker to Show

Documentary About Iowa Singer/Songwriter Greg Brown on Nov.

12

Event is Free and Open to the

Public

“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

MIDDLEBURY, Vt.—”Hacklebarney

Tunes,” a documentary about singer/songwriter Greg Brown, will be

shown Sunday, Nov. 12 at 3 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 sold out live performances at the

After Dark Music Series in Middlebury on Nov. 12 and 13.

“Hacklebarney Tunes” tells the story

of a singer/songwriter from southern Iowa whose grandparents were

folk musicians from Appalachia. 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 with Garrison

Keillor on “A Prairie Home Companion.” 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, we see a religious service at the rural fundamentalist

church Brown attended as a child, go fishing with Greg, and visit

Earlville, the town of 700 where his formative teenage years were

spent. Music critics from the Utne Reader and other publications

place his 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-TV in 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.

Graphics Available: A

black and white photo of Jeffrey Ruoff and a color graphic with the

film’s title are both available via e-mail. For images, contact

Sarah Ray at sray@middlebury.edu.

Producer/director Jeffrey Ruoff

is available to speak in advance with critics

about the film. VHS preview copies of

the film are available for review.

— end —