FILMMAKER’S STATEMENT

A lot of ink has been spilled by music writers about what deserves to be
considered the ‘first rock and roll song’. I’ve always felt that the
beginning of any new spirit or style in the world - in sports, art,
religion, politics - makes for an interesting story. Who jumps aboard the
new thing right away and who decides, no thanks, I’m sticking with what I
know? What is the cost when you make either decision? HONEYDRIPPER takes
place in the little crossroads town of Harmony, Alabama, in 1950. Blues
singers still sit outside the drugstores, playing for pennies, the jukebox
has room for big bands, jump combos like Louis Jordan’s, country and
proto-rockabilly stars like Hank Williams, Perry Como style crooners and
perky novelty songs, while gospel is the most commonly listened-to live
music. But technology is about to intrude. The guitar player, relegated to
sideman on the bandstand, is about to plug his ax in. And once the guitar
can wail and slide with the same volume as the horns or piano - watch out.

In the movie Gary lark Jr., a guitar prodigy out of Austin, plays Sonny Blake, conjuring up
the spirit of Ike Turner, T Bone Walker, Johnny Watson and countless others
who pushed the music forward when they got electrified, and
Danny Glover plays Pinetop Purvis, an itinerant boogie-woogie piano player who
has made his stand by buying the Honeydripper Lounge and presenting the
music he’s absorbed in his own life, up-to-the-moment or not. He is haunted
by his past and resistant to the future, and suddenly this good-looking kid
rolls into town carrying a guitar with no hole in it-

There is tension and harmony in almost every song, and wars are fought
within music without a word being uttered. One of these battles for
dominance that was waged in the early 50’s was between the guitar and the
piano. Fats Domino and Jerry Lee Lewis did their best to hold the stage,
but when Chuck Berry started blasting piano chords on his guitar and duck-
walking across the stage (Jerry Lee did his best, but the piano is not a
mobile instrument) the course of popular music was set. Even the honking
saxophone, raunchy soul of rhythm and blues, faded to a support role, or in
white rock, disappeared almost entirely.

I’ve heard inner city hoop players and jazz musicians use the same phrase
to describe the rules of entry to their world - ‘If you can play, you can
stay.’ Electrified blues bands in Chicago were known to literally play
their competitors off the stage, taking over their gigs. In HONEYDRIPPER
Pinetop Purvis has to decide whether the new music is a threat or a
life-saving opportunity. Tension, harmony, potential violence - put some
rhythm in it and it’s drama. It’s rock and roll.

-<http://honeydripper-movie.com/about/filmmakers-statement//john-sayles/>John
Sayles

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