From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1986
Stars Pays Homage to Chuck Berry On Film in Celebrating His 60th
(SEE ALSO: Flashback Pop Music History 1986: October 16)
LOS ANGELES — Feature film director Taylor Hackford has agreed to shoot “Chuck Berry: Hail! Hail! Rock-n-Roll,” a tribute concert that originally planned as a music video and has now escalated into a major Universal Studios theatrical project for release next year.
MCA Home Entertainment will fund the project, which will be produced in association with Connecticut-based Delilah Films. Delilah president Stephanie Bennett will produce. Rolling Stone Keith Richards will act as musical director and put the back-up band together, and former Band member Robbie Robertson will be creative consultant.
MCA will have pay-cable and home video rights, and MCA Records will issue the soundtrack.
Bennett produced “The Compleat Beatles,” “The Everly Brothers Reunion Concert,” “Girl Groups: The Story Of A Sound,” and “Blue Suede Shoes: A Rockabilly Session With Carl Perkins And Friends.” She has just wrapped an MCA Home Video original called “Women In Rock,” and, after the Berry film project is completed, plans are in the working stages to develop a feature film on the life of Janis Joplin.
Bennett says the project was first discussed as a home video and pay cable special but that the interest shown in it by major rock names and the involvement of Taylor Hackford made it feature film material.
The role model for the movie, Martin Scorsese’s “The Last Waltz,” the Band’s star-studded farewell concert. It won’t be strictly a concert film, though, says Bennett.
“Taylor Hackford believes Chuck Berry has never been properly shown on film doing anything other than his music,” she says.
“Everyone involved,” adds Bennett, “will be networking with artists who may appear.” Like Hackford, she is hoping that the concert will include the participation of major musical figures. “But the idea is not to solicit rock figures for name value. All the artists, such as Keith Richards, were strongly influenced by Chuck Berry. Fortunately, the lack of a Stones tour freed Richards to get involved.”
Hackford says, “This will be a complex film, a lot more than a concert film. Chuck Berry has the attributes of an actor. He’s moody. He has phenomenal presence. I want to get that on film.”
Hackford says the concert itself, with Berry the principal performer, will be shot in a stylized, brightly lit fashion.” He hopes to film on a concert stage in the Midwest as well as on location at Berry’s Missouri farm.
“I’d like to have five superstar guitarists and five major vocalists,” says Hackford. “I envision scenes of Chuck rehearsing with them at his farm and then cutting away to the concert. There will be vocal duets. One other element I’m planning is is visual dramatizations of Chuck’s songs interwoven into the film. I’d like to do it in a non-documentary style and break the cinema verite mold.”
Bennett says the concert will be shot sometime in the fall, possibly in September or October. Details on a venue is still being negotiated. Bennett surmise the film will be released to theaters possibly sometime in April 1987. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; August 23, 1986)
