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In the rock history, the Toronto Rock and Roll Revival festival in 1969 is legendary. But for Klaus Voormann, who played bass in John Lennon and Yoko Ono’s Plastic Ono Band, it was something of “a joke.”
The story of the band’s ad hoc first concert on Sept. 13, 1969, at the University of Toronto’s Varsity Stadium has been oft told, and is the subject of a new documentary, Ron Chapman’s Revival69: The Concert that Rocked the World, out now via a variety of platforms.
Using footage shot on that day by legendary documentarian D.A. Pennebaker, it chronicles how festival organizers, fretting over low tickets sales and indebted to a motorcycle gang financier, put in a last-minute call to England and convinced Lennon to agree to fly from London to Toronto on short notice and play on the same bill as his rock n’ roll heroes — Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Bo Diddley, Gene Vincent and more — as well as the Doors and Chicago.
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Lennon, however, had no band, so he rounded up a crew that included Eric Clapton (after Beatles mate George Harrison declined), Voormann — a friend from the Beatles’ early Hamburg days who designed the album cover for Revolver and was playing in Manfred Mann — and fledgling drummer Alan White, whom he saw play in a London club (and who famously hung up on Lennon’s first phone call). With minimal rehearsal — a bit on the plane ride over and backstage — the troupe played a rough and tumble set of covers, The Beatles’ “Yer Blues,” Lennon’s not-yet recorded “Cold Turkey” and “Give Peace a Chance,” as well as two Ono songs, including the lengthy, free-form “John John (Let’s Hope For Peace).”
As Lennon’s first full-scale concert performance since the Beatles’ last show on Aug. 29, 1966, in San Francisco, it was a bit loose, and it’s preserved on the Live Peace in Toronto 1969 album released three months later. With Revival69‘s release, Billboard spoke to Voormann — who also appears in the film and played on the John Lennon/Plastic Ono Band album that followed in 1970 — to recount his memories of the auspicious event.
An Unexpected Call
“John called me, and he never called me before, not so much. He’d seen me play bass and he knew I played for Manfred Mann, but I had never played for him or anything. So out of the blue he called me and said, ‘I’m putting a band together. It’s called the Plastic Ono Band. You want to play bass in the band?’ And I said, sort of, ‘What’s this Plastic Ono Band?’ I had no idea what was gonna happen, and I’d never met Yoko, so it was really very strange.
“So he said, ‘Well, Eric Clapton is going to do it, and we’ve got a little drummer in mind called Alan White.’ I didn’t know who he was, just a kid. ‘That’s it, just the four of us and Yoko and we are the Plastic Ono Band.’ I said ‘OK, let’s do it’ and (Lennon) says, ‘Great. I’ll see you at the airport tomorrow!’ (laughs)
“He just jumped into the cold water, not knowing what was gonna happen, no rehearsal. We didn’t know what we were going to play…but here’s the Plastic Ono Band and we go to Toronto to this festival tomorrow. We didn’t have any stage performance. We didn’t know what songs John was gonna do. He said, ‘Well, there’s Chuck Berry and Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis and all these great (artists) and we are just playing rock n’ roll.’ And I thought it was a little far-fetched. This is John Lennon, who played in the Beatles, and this is the first time he’s gonna be out there and presenting something new, and…we just go on stage and play? How does somebody like John Lennon get out there with a band that never played together?
“So we went to the airport, and before we got onto the plane we stood there and we were waiting for Eric Clapton and nobody could find Eric. It was getting really close to (boarding); John said, ‘Well, if he isn’t here in 10 minutes, we’re gonna go home,’ and then Yoko says, ‘No, no, no, let’s do it. It’s for peace. We’ve got to do it.’ So Terry Doran, who was sort of the road manager, he actually got a hold of Eric. He was asleep. I don’t think he realized that this thing is really going to happen. So he came and we all got on the plane, and the plane was very full. It was packed.”
The Friendly Skies
“We were lucky; they arranged for us to sit in the last row of the plane, which was right next to the engines, and it was really loud back there. John and Yoko were in first class, but he came back and we tried to (rehearse) a little bit. It was just hilarious, just a joke, trying to rehearse the songs. I played an electric bass, no amplifier. John had a semi-acoustic guitar, Eric had a semi-acoustic guitar. It was maybe a little bit of John singing “Money (That’s What I Want)” or something like that. But there was no rehearsal. We all knew the songs, yes, of course. We could play any rock n’ roll — I could, Eric could, Alan White had no idea if he could. (laughs) It was just a joke, really. Just a joke.
“We all didn’t know Yoko at all — Eric didn’t, I didn’t, Alan White didn’t. John did, of course, but I don’t know if he knew exactly what Yoko was gonna do. So when we were on the plane and rehearsing for maybe an hour, Yoko came down the aisle, ‘Can we rehearse my song now?’ And John stood up: ‘Come on, Yoko, let’s have a cup of tea.’ He didn’t even let us hear what she had in mind. He didn’t tell us what song we were gonna do, what noises we were gonna do. We had no idea.
“We came off the plane, got into the cars, the limousines, and the motorbikes were escorting us to the stadium. We went in the stadium and went back into the dressing room, and we had one amplifier for the three of us, and the drummer. There was no bass drum, just a snare and a hi-hat and a cymbal. That’s all there was. So it was another Mickey Mouse attempt to have a rehearsal. So had a bit of rehearsal and one person who came in I recognized — that was Gene Vincent. But apart from him I just walked up to the stage, went up on the stage, did the whole concert, went back to the dressing room, got my clothes, packed the bass into a case and got back into the limousine and we were off. I didn’t see anybody. I can’t tell you about any conversations with other musicians or anything. I didn’t see any of those. John, of course, they were all getting on his case, but I was completely out of that. People were not interested in Klaus Voormann. It wasn’t important to me, either, so I was happy to get out of this place.
“I think (Lennon) only really realized what he was doing when we were there, just about to get up on stage. He had his lovely white suit on and we were walking (to the stage) and he said, ‘Wait a second’ and went in the corner, and he puked. He threw up. He was very, very nervous. He didn’t even have a very good voice. HIs voice was nearly gone. So there we were with a singer, John, going up there and not having a strong voice and we just walked on the stage and played.”
Rock n’ Roll Revived
“I felt sorry for John. He really felt out of place on stage, when I see it now. John never was a frontman on stage. People don’t realize (that) when you’re with a band you may do a little bit of saying, ‘Here’s the next number…’ He was never the frontman who was actually organizing a stage persona. He never had that. He was doing ‘Cold Turkey,’ and it was such a stupid version, the way we played it. When I heard the song I was so excited; ‘We can go in the studio and make a great version of this song!’ And later on we did. I loved the record but what he played on stage was just terrible…and the audience didn’t applaud. John was dreaming, ‘Wake up!’ Telling people to wake up and participate.
“And then, of course, the big surprise came when suddenly…we had no idea if Yoko was singing classic opera or what she was gonna do. Suddenly this screaming started. ‘What’s this?!’ We couldn’t believe it. It was just…ridiculous. John said, ‘Well, when Yoko’s number comes we kind of play an E chord,’ so we played in E and just fiddled around on our instruments. We had no idea what was gonna happen. So we were just improvising, making strange noises on the guitar, on the strings. And I had flat-wound strings, so I couldn’t do many noises. If I would’ve had a flute or any crazy instrument I could’ve improvised something, but with my bass there was not much I can do.
“I knew that Yoko very much wanted to come to spread the message of peace, which is a very nice thing to do. So you had her lying there (on the stage) and she was really like a dying bird. She was croaking, making all these noises. I was standing behind her, and I could really see this woman was really trying as hard as she can out of her little body to let the people know there’s a war going on and people are dying and bombs are falling, and that was the feeling I got out of it. The audience didn’t quite get it, of course. They wanted to see John and they didn’t care about Yoko, and suddenly there was this woman making these noises.
“And Yoko is amazing. She had no…how can I say it? At that particular time she had no feeling for an audience. The charisma that comes across if a Little Richard gets up there or a Chuck Berry, they have their tricks to get the audience, and she had no idea what stage presence really was. She learned that much later, but at the time, no. And of course you had a rock n’ roll audience, not an artistic type of audience. People wanted to hang out and have a party, and then there’s Yoko trying to spread that message. It was really tough. I’m really proud of her that she actually did this. When you see the documentaries you can at least see the effort she was making to tell the people, ‘Please make peace.’ That’s what she was trying to do.”
No Encore
“I think we pretty much soon forgot about it and didn’t even talk much about it. All I remember is after (the show) we drove a long drive in a limousine to a huge mansion of some guy, it must’ve been the guy who put the concert together. He had a golf course in his garden, and I remember Terry Doran driving a golf cart and said, ‘This f–king thing doesn’t pull the d-ck off a chocolate mouse!’ (laughs) It was so slow and he wanted to ride pretty quick on it. I remember sitting at a swimming pool and somebody took some photos. We had fun. We were laughing. But there was no talk about the concert or anything. We were just ready to go back home.”
A few days before the release of the documentary The Beach Boys, founding members Mike Love and Al Jardine are sitting in the recording studio at Hollywood’s EastWest Studios, the exact spot where they recorded some of their biggest hits, including their 1966 remake of the Regents’ doo-wop ditty, “Barbara Ann.”
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“[Jan & Dean’s] Dean Torrence comes in. He peeks the door open. ‘Come on in!’,” Jardine recalls from a time nearly 60 years ago, when the studio was called United Western Recorders. Love joins in, ‘’He wasn’t supposed to,” before Jardine picks back up the story. “Dean stands next to Brian [Wilson], because there wasn’t anywhere else to sit anyway, and the two of them joined in on the melody on the high part. When you hear the harmonies on ‘Barbara Ann’ it sounds doubled. That’s because it is doubled. It’s Brian and Dean.’
“Now, wait a minute! They didn’t tell me that story,” interjects Frank Marshall, the Oscar-nominated producer and director who is sitting between the two Rock & Roll Hall of Famers in the studio. Marshall and Thom Zimny co-directed the two-hour documentary on the group that premieres on Disney+ today (May 24). To be fair, not even a 10-hour film could include all the glorious and jagged history of one of the most popular and enduring bands in music.
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The Beach Boys, initially comprised of Jardine, Love and his three first cousins, Brian, Carl and Dennis Wilson, have charted 55 songs on the Billboard Hot 100 — starting with their first sun-drenched single, “Surfin’,” in 1962, and including four No. 1s: 1964’s “I Get Around,” 1965’s “Help Me, Rhonda,” 1966’s “Good Vibrations” and 1988’s “Kokomo.”
Along with enduring hits like ““Surfin’ Safari,” “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “California Girls,” the Beach Boys ushered in a fresh wave of sound in the ‘60s that promised no worries as long as the surf was up, the skies were sunny and the hot rods had open roads. The documentary examines the band’s creation in Hawthorne, Calif., and how they became, as the documentary attests, “America’s band” — and have remained so, with their upbeat music spanning more than half a century.
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“Certainly my goal was to find out how it all happened, and to tell the individual stories of each member,” Marshall says. “It’s very complicated. A couple of members come and go and come back. And so it was really a journey for me of exploring how this group came together and what made it tick.”
In addition to Love and Jardine, the film includes new interviews with Beach Boys Brian Wilson, David Marks (who replaced Jardine in 1962 when he briefly dropped out) and Bruce Johnston (who joined in 1965), as well as archival footage with the late Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson, who died in 1983 and 1998, respectively. Even though Brian Wilson is now under a conservatorship — and, according to a doctor, suffers from a neurocognitive disorder — Marshall was able to integrate small portions of the new Wilson interviews, which he supplemented with a rich assortment of previous interviews from through the decades.
Given the Beach Boys’ decades-long infighting — Marshall says, “When we started, they kind of weren’t talking to each other”— it’s no surprise that “it took a long time to convince them that I wasn’t going to just trash everybody” when he and Zimny first approached the band.
While the documentary doesn’t flinch from the Beach Boys’ complicated history — including the Wilsons’ overbearing, controlling father, Murry, multiple lawsuits between members and even Dennis Wilson’s association with mass murderer Charles Manson — Love likes that the film leads with the music. “There [were] issues and problems,” but to concentrate on those, he says, “would be missing the point of the amazing body of work, the amazing harmonies [and] amazing songs that reached all over the world.”
Much of the Beach Boys’ history has, understandably, focused on the inventive musical genius of Brian Wilson (Jardine refers to him as “The Thomas Edison of music”). But the documentary deliberately highlights the talents and contributions of all of the members — especially Love, as co-writer on dozens of gems (including “Good Vibrations,” “Fun, Fun, Fun” and “California Girls,” and as the band’s energetic front man and somewhat keeper of the flame, given Wilson’s reticence to tour and history of mental health challenges.
“It wouldn’t be the same without all of them together,” Marshall says. “The blend.”
That familial blend was cultivated early on, Love says: “We’d all get together at Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, birthdays, and it was all about music. The first memory of Brian singing, I remember him sitting on Grandma Wilson’s lap singing ‘Danny Boy.’ Amazing.” Jardine met the cousins in high school and the blending developed into something much more sublime, Love says. The key to the Beach Boys’ stunning vocal arrangements, was “sublimating your individuality” for the good of the overall sound. “We were obsessed with that,” he says.
The documentary also examines how the competition between the Beatles and the Beach Boys drove each to greater heights. The Beatles’ 1965 classic Rubber Soul propelled Brian Wilson to create the complex, gorgeous, groundbreaking sonics of the Beach Boys’ 1966 masterpiece, Pet Sounds, and Pet Sounds showed the Beatles the possibilities they realized on the following year’s standard-setting concept album Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. (Though Pet Sounds did not do well commercially at the time, as the documentary notes, it is now considered one of the best pop albums ever made.)
One of the most painful parts of the documentary revisits Murry Wilson selling the group’s music publishing to Irving Almo Music for a paltry $700,000 in 1969 (roughly $6 million in current dollars). If sold in today’s market, the catalog would likely fetch more than $200 million. “My Uncle Murry disenfranchised me, but also his sons. That was a tremendous blow, psychologically as well as materially,” Love says. “We had fired him [as our manager] long before that and that was his way of getting back at me and my cousins.”
Furthermore, Jardine adds, in a story not in the documentary, “We actually had a deal ready to go with another company. They had already accepted. They were going to put up the money and we were going to be partners. He purposefully went ahead and sold it to Almo.”
“He totally screwed us,” Love says, with a rueful laugh. “It affected Brian in a horrible way. I mean, it set him back. He went into seclusion. Has he ever been the same?”
Though Love later successfully sued Brian Wilson for publishing money, he prefers to not “dwell” on the bad times. “What we favor is recreating those songs as beautifully as possible,” he says.
And that beautiful recreating continues. Love, who has had the legal rights to tour under the Beach Boys name for decades, and Johnston are now on the Endless Summer Gold tour, which includes more than 75 dates before the end of the year. (Wilson, with Jardine by his side, stopped performing in 2022. There are no plans for Jardine to join Love and Johnston’s band on tour. After years of touring in different configurations, Love, Wilson, Jardine, Marks and Johnston reunited briefly in 2012 for the Beach Boys’ 50th anniversary tour.)
Irving Azoff’s Iconic Artists Group serves as a producer of the documentary, and the film is the latest in IAG’s efforts to keep the Beach Boys’ music in front of listeners since it acquired controlling interest in the band’s intellectual property in 2021. “The documentary is an instrumental part of the overall strategy to bring new fans into the world of the Beach Boys,” says IAG president Jimmy Edwards. “The film serves as a wonderful introduction to one of the most culturally significant groups in the history of popular music.”
The documentary follows such IAG-guided efforts as the Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys that aired on CBS last May, a dedicated Beach Boys channel on SiriusXM and an expansive coffee table book produced by Genesis Publications, The Beach Boys by The Beach Boys, that came out in April. Adding to the bounty, an official documentary soundtrack also drops today from Capitol/UME with the band’s biggest hits, as well as a new track, “Baby Blue Bathing Suit,” from Stephen Sanchez, written in tribute to the boys of summer.
For his part, Love says IAG has “done a fantastic job” with the band’s legacy. “Probably better than we could ever hope to be done.”
“The Beach Boys’ music is timeless. We just create opportunities to experience it,” Edwards says — noting that, since the 2021 acquisition, “we’ve nearly doubled The Beach Boys’ social audience to approximately 7.5 million and saw their global audio streams surpass 1 billion for the first time in a calendar year in 2023.”
The documentary ends in 1974, with the release of Endless Summer, a greatest hits collection focused on the hits from 1962-1965 that introduced the Beach Boys and their upbeat music to a new generation — just as the documentary may now do. The double album became the Beach Boys’ second No. 1 on the Billboard 200, spending 156 weeks on the albums chart — but, more importantly, resurrected the group’s live career. They went from playing for $2,500 per night, Jardine says, to filling stadiums, and, ultimately, playing for a combined 1.4 million people in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C. on July 4, 1980.
In the film’s touching coda, Marshall gathered Jardine, Johnston, Love, Marks and Wilson this past September at Paradise Cove, the Malibu site of the photo shoot for the Beach Boys’ first album cover 61 years earlier. The scene shows the five surviving Beach Boys, laughing and smiling, reveling in each other’s company and memories.
Marshall deliberately decided to use only video, not the audio, but considers the reunion a great triumph. “My dream was: let bygones be bygones. Let’s look at the joy and what they accomplished,” Marshall says. But his endgame was to reunite the members, ultimately deciding to return to the location where it all began. “It was really designed as a montage, a cinema verité moment,” he says.
Nine months later, Love remembers it as a joyous gathering. “We did sing songs together, we reminisced about old times. Al played the guitar. Brian was remembering things that happened when we were in high school from 1958 or 1959,” he says.
The five band members reunited again briefly Tuesday (May 21) at the premiere of the documentary in Los Angeles, and Love says he looks at the whole process as a gift. “We’re grateful and thankful and somewhat honored to have this documentary that Mr. Marshall has taken under wing,” he says. “It’s a fantastic thing to have happen at this stage of our lives.”
In the 96-year history of the Academy Awards, just 15 films have won eight or more Oscars. Oppenheimer has a good chance of joining them when the 2024 Oscars are presented at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood on Sunday (March 10). The three-hour drama is expected to win eight awards, including best picture, best director […]
Wolfgang Van Halen‘s career has been full of unlikely opportunities. After all, he started with playing bass alongside his father and uncle in Van Halen when he was just 16 years old. And his own band, Mammoth WVH, has become a stadium habituate opening for the likes of Metallica and Guns N’ Roses.
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But the son of the late Eddie Van Halen and actress Valerie Bertinelli never thought he’d be part of an Academy Award-nominated song — sung by a Barbie doll, no less.
Yet Van Halen was, in fact, part of the team that recorded “I’m Just Ken,” the Ryan Gosling-sung piece from Greta Gerwig’s hit film Barbie. He plays guitar on the track, which was co-written and produced by Mark Ronson and Andrew Watt and features Slash on guitar, current Foo Fighters drummer Josh Freese on drums and Jelly Fish/Imperial Drag keyboardist Roger Manning.
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“I’m honestly happy just to be a part of it, to have an opportunity to play a super small part in it,” Van Halen tells Billboard. “It was a really, really wonderful opportunity. I knew (the movie) was good just from being involved in it and seeing what I was able to see. But to see the song I played on blow up as much as it did was pretty crazy.”
Van Halen was recruited for the track after meeting Ronson at the Taylor Hawkins tribute concert in London during September 2022. “Mark Ronson and I hit it off,” Van Halen remembers, “and he reached out and hit me up and it was just a really good time. I spent two days in his studio and we just played around with ideas and it was a really good time. (Ronson) and his writing partner Andrew are such wonderful dudes and amazing at what they do that it was an honor just to see how they worked.”
“I’m Just Ken” was a top 5 hit on the Hot Rock & Alternative Songs chart during the summer and hit No. 87 on the Billboard Hot 100, while Barbie The Album reached No. 2 on the Billboard 200 and No. 1 on the Soundtrack Albums chart. During December, a “Merry Kristmas Barbie” version of the power ballad send-up was released, accompanied by a video boasting an in-studio performance. Gosling will perform the song at the 96th Academy Awards on Sunday (March 10); the band lineup for the show has not been announced, but Ronson, Watt and others who took part in the session are expected to be part of it. Mammoth WVH recently announced the postponement of three concerts this week which would have conflicted with the Oscars and rehearsals.
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“For Mark and Andrew to bring me into it, just to play some guitar in the movie, it was really, really wonderful,” Van Halen says. “I’d love to do something like that again, especially with those guys. They’re wonderful dudes and incredibly talented. Everybody in the movie, the whole production of it, are so deserving of every accolade they’re getting. It’s really exciting.”
Van Halen does not, however, see soundtrack composing in his future at the moment. “I’m still very much focused and driving on building Mammoth and seeing what is possible with that,” he explains. “But certainly, opportunities like the one that Mark gave me for Barbie, when they come up it’s very, ‘Okay, we can certainly make time for something like this.’ But I’m very much driven in terms of, ‘Let’s see where we can take Mammoth.’”
Van Halen has mostly been taking Mammoth on the road this year, supporting last August’s Mammoth II. The group is wrapping up the first leg of a U.S. headlining tour and will be playing Europe supporting Slash Featuring Myles Kennedy & the Conspirators during March and April. The group will also be supporting Metallica and Foo Fighters during the summer. Van Halen is also “tinkering” with new song ideas, though he says any plans for a third Mammoth WVH album are “super preliminary.”
In May, Van Halen and his father’s EVH instrument company will roll out a new line of SA-126 guitars, which he designed along with EVH masterbuilder Chip Ellis and Matt Bruck.
Amidst all the good news, Van Halen is still fighting off some haters, an ongoing battle that he’s addressed in songs such as “I’m Alright” and “Better Than You.” Most recently it was former Van Halen frontman David Lee Roth, who posted a lengthy video diatribe that referred to Van Halen as “this f–kin’ kid” and a “schlemiel kid” and accused him of kicking some of Roth’s guests out of the backstage area during shows. “I’m honored he thinks about me as much as he does, I guess,” Van Halen says in response, though quickly adding that, “I would sure love to not have to be part of some sort of Van Halen drama at all, so I think I’m just gonna continue to sit in my no-comment zone…’cause at the end of the day it’s just not worth it.”
But, he continues, “It’s one thing when there’s some due on Twitter saying a lie about me. But when there’s other people trying to lie about me and make me look bad? It’s just like, you can believe whatever you want, I guess. The people who hate me are gonna continue to hate me, and I’m just gonna be over here doing my thing.”
Jon Batiste, Nicholas Britell, Taura Stinson, Carlos Rafael Rivera, Fabrizio Mancinelli and Allyson Newman are each nominated for two awards at the 2024 SCL Awards, presented by The Society of Composers and Lyricists.
Many of the SCL contenders echo the Oscar shortlists for best original song and best original score which were revealed earlier today (Dec. 21). SCL nominees include songwriters Billie Eilish, Olivia Rodrigo, Lenny Kravitz, Diane Warren, and Jon Batiste who earned spots on the Oscar shortlist for best original song.
SCL nominees who were Oscar-shortlisted for best original score include Anthony Willis for Saltburn, Mark Ronson and Andrew Wyatt for Barbie, Laura Karpman for American Fiction, the late Robbie Robertson for Killers of the Flower Moon and Mica Levi for The Zone of Interest.
The Society of Composers and Lyricists reports that it has nearly 4,000 members. According to the SCL, about half of the members of the music branch of the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts & Sciences are also members of the SCL.
The SCL Awards, now in their fifth year, will be presented on Feb. 13 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. Other categories still to be announced include the Spirit of Collaboration Award which honors a long and fruitful relationship between a composer and a director.
The Society of Composers & Lyricists is a leading organization for professional film, television, video game, and musical theater composers and songwriters. The 78-year-old organization is focused on education and addressing the creative, technological and legal issues affecting the music for visual media community.
Here are the nominees for the 2024 SCL Awards:
Outstanding original score for a studio film
Anthony Willis, Saltburn
Joe Hisaishi, The Boy and the Heron
Ludwig Göransson, Oppenheimer
Laura Karpman, American Fiction
Robbie Robertson, Killers of the Flower Moon
Outstanding original score for an independent film
Jon Batiste, American Symphony
John Powell, Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie
Daniel Pemberton, Ferrari
Mica Levi, The Zone of Interest
Fabrizio Mancinelli/Richard M. Sherman, Mushka
Outstanding original score for interactive media
Austin Wintory, Stray Gods
Pinar Toprak, Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Stephen Barton/Gordy Haab, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor
Winifred Phillips, Secrets of Skeifa Island
David Raksin award for emerging talent
Kenny Wood, The Naughty Nine
Hannah Parrott, After Death
Fabrizio Mancinelli, The Land of Dreams
Catherine Joy, Home Is a Hotel
Allyson Newman, Commitment to Life
Outstanding original song for a drama or documentary
Olivia Rodrigo/Dan Nigro, “Can’t Catch Me Now,” The Hunger Games: Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes
Jon Batiste/Dan Wilson, “It Never Went Away,” American Symphony
Lenny Kravitz, “Road to Freedom,” Rustin
Nicholas Britell/Taura Stinson, “Slip Away,” Carmen
Sharon Farber/Noah Benshea, “Better Times,” Jacob the Baker
Outstanding original song for a comedy or musical
Billie Eilish O’Connell/Finneas O’Connell, “What Was I Made For?,” Barbie
Mark Ronson/Andrew Wyatt, “I’m Just Ken,” Barbie
Diane Warren, “The Fire Inside,” Flamin’ Hot
Heather McIntosh/Allyson Newman/Taura Stinson, “All About Me,” The L Word: Generation Q
Jack Black/John Spiker/Eric Osmond/Michael Jelenic/Aaron Horvath, “Peaches,” Super Mario Bros. Movie
Outstanding original score for a television production
Nicholas Britell, Succession
Natalie Holt, Loki
Martin Phipps, The Crown
Carlos Rafael Rivera, Lessons in Chemistry
Gustavo Santaolalla, The Last of Us
Outstanding original score for a television title
Carlos Rafael Rivera, Lessons in Chemistry
Atli Örvarsson, Silo
Nainita Desai, The Deepest Breath
Kevin Kiner, Ahsoka
Chanda Dancy, Lawmen: Bass Reeves
From Barbie: The Album to Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse, soundtracks tied to blockbuster films have dominated much of the year. As 2023 draws to a close, Quincy Jones, Scott Sanders and Larry Jackson hope their new expanded soundtrack, released last Friday (Dec. 15) for the forthcoming Color Purple movie musical (which hits theaters Dec. 25), marks a new era for R&B soundtracks and continues the healing Alice Walker sparked with her paramount novel 41 years ago.
Walker’s story has undergone countless iterations over the past four decades: an Oscar-nominated Steven Spielberg-helmed film in 1985, a Tony-winning Broadway musical in 2005, a Grammy-winning Broadway revival in 2015, and now a new movie musical directed by Grammy nominee Blitz Bazawule. Led by Fantasia, Danielle Brooks, Taraji P. Henson, Colman Domingo and Halle Bailey, the new film offers a fresh perspective on the timeless narrative, as evidenced by its accompanying star-studded, globe-traversing Inspired By soundtrack. The new set is comprised of 21 new songs inspired by the film, in addition to 16 tracks taken from the Broadway musical. The genre-spanning set is heavily rooted in R&B — a conscious decision given the way R&B has been counted out by major labels over the past decade.
According to Sanders, who produced the 2005 Broadway musical and serves as executive producer on both the 2023 film and its soundtrack (released through Warner Bros. Pictures/WaterTower Music/gamma), Warner Bros. was always planning to do a soundtrack. “We knew it would be an opportune moment for them to add another dimension to The Color Purple brand extension,” he remarks.
And that’s precisely what the new soundtrack is. As cinematic universes continue to dominate mainstream media, The Color Purple has been crafting its own interconnected web of stories for 40 years — and the new soundtrack became a holy site for reunions and healing among the producers, artists, and cast.
The idea of a proper Inspired By soundtrack started to take form during an April lunch between Sanders and Jackson after the gamma. CEO had seen the film and felt its impact on early audiences. “Whatever veneer of impenetrable stoicism I had at that time, [the film] pierced it,” Jackson reflects. “To me, the great Black films are the ones [where] people are talking back to the screen, they’re applauding, there’s conversations going on, and whooping and hollering. It’s an interactive spirit, and this film has that.”
For Jackson, it was Fantasia’s performance that most moved him. The Billboard Hot 100-topping R&B star leads the film as Celie Harris-Johnson, a role for which she has already earned a Golden Globe nomination. Almost 20 years ago, Fantasia captivated America’s hearts and won the fourth season of American Idol. Shortly after her victory, she headed to the studio to record her debut LP, a Grammy-nominated effort on which Jackson would serve as A&R. That album featured singles such as “Truth Is” and the Missy Elliott-assisted “Free Yourself,” a collaboration that now has a three-way connection to The Color Purple universe.
“That was a lot for me at that time of my life — [Fantasia and I] were basically the same age and really related to what needed to be achieved,” Jackson reflects. “I was saying to Missy Elliott last night, she really helped me craft the sound for Fantasia’s first album.”
On the soundtrack, Elliott appears on two remixes: the Shenseea-featuring “Hell No,” a song from the original musical, and “Keep It Movin’,” a new addition to the musical co-written by Bailey. Like most of the artists involved in the soundtrack, Jackson says that the “Work It” rapper decided to join the project after a private screening of the film. It’s the same way he landed Alicia Keys, who co-wrote and co-produced the soundtrack’s lead single (“Lifeline”), Johntá Austin, whose “When I Can’t Do Better” marks his first collaboration with Mary J. Blige since their iconic “Be Without You,” and The-Dream. Fresh off a Grammy win for his work on Beyoncé’s Renaissance, The-Dream could be headed down to the Oscars thanks to “Superpower,” a new song he penned for the Color Purple end credits.
Often, end-credit songs are performed by artists who don’t appear in the film — but in the case of The Color Purple, everyone was in early agreement that Fantasia was the only correct choice to belt the closing ballad. For one, both the song and the movie are Fantasia’s formal re-entry into the public eye as a performer, but her specific voice and story were the best vehicle for The-Dream’s lyrics. “This is older Celie singing to her younger self — it is a quintessential ‘it gets better’ song,” Sanders gushes. “It’s so f—king moving. I can’t stop listening to it. I cry when I listen to Fantasia’s rendition.” For “Superpower,” Jackson told The-Dream, “I just want a spiritual, a song that will move on far past our time. Something that will be sung in high school graduations.”
Although the SAG-AFTRA strike almost prevented Fantasia from recording the song, the timing worked out and she was able to cut her vocal in time. Given that Fantasia played Celie on Broadway for eight months during the Broadway show’s original run, her rendition of the end-credits song is the kind of full-circle moment that most artists dream of. “Superpower” is a rousing song – one in which she deftly displays the expanse of vocal range and control – and a potential comeback vehicle for not just Fantasia, but the R&B soundtrack in general. In crafting The Color Purple (Music From and Inspired By), Sanders, Jackson and film director Blitz Bazawule drew inspiration from iconic R&B film soundtracks of decades past, including Sparkle, The Bodyguard, Boomerang and Waiting to Exhale.
“It had always been on my bucket list to do a soundtrack that felt like the great soundtracks of the 1970s, or the ones in the ‘90s,” Jackson says. “I’ve been involved in a few of them, but Clive [Davis] was always the one who was leading it. It never was something that I was driving with my own personal taste and sensibility, and this was an opportunity for that.”
The Color Purple soundtrack bookmarks a year that began with troubling layoffs for one of the most storied labels in Black music history. In the middle of Black History Month (Feb. 16), Billboard reported that Motown was set to be reintegrated under Capitol Music Group – hence the layoffs – making for a less-than-preferable outcome after the company attempted a run as a standalone label back in 2021. Despite a precarious start to the year, R&B artists have once again forged a spot at the forefront of the mainstream, thanks to acts such as SZA, Victoria Monét, Usher, Coco Jones and more. It’s a level of momentum, Sanders and Jackson hope to continue with their generation-bridging Color Purple tracklist.
In addition to the cast, The Color Purple soundtrack features contributions from Jennifer Hudson, Keyshia Cole, Mary J. Blige, Mary Mary, H.E.R., Ludmilla, Megan Thee Stallion and more. Like Fantasia, Jennifer Hudson’s track marks another full-circle moment for The Color Purple universe. Hudson took home the 2017 Grammy Award for best musical theater album thanks to the Broadway revival, and, of course, she was a contestant on the same season of American Idol as Fantasia. In another connection, Hudson herself also starred in a blockbuster Black movie musical that hit theaters on Christmas Day: 2006’s Dreamgirls, for which she won the Academy Award for best supporting actress.
Although Walker’s novel specifically highlights the stories of Black American women in the American South during the early 20th century, the new Color Purple soundtrack both globalizes those narratives and translates them to contemporary times. Megan Thee Stallion’s remix of “Hell No” — a selection from the original musical – carries a special weight given the way she has refused to let misogynoir drown out her voice over the past few years. Jamaican cross-genre star Shenseea appears on a different “Hell No” remix, and her inclusion on the tracklist – alongside Brazilian singer-songwriter Ludmilla – highlights how The Color Purple’s narrative resonates with Black women around the world.
“Every day was meeting to reaffirm why I’m doing this, to remind myself the importance of this work,” explains director Blitz Bazawule. “It’s daunting. You’re talking about a legacy that you don’t approach if you don’t have anything real to contribute.” Bazawule aimed to contribute new perspectives of childhood and Celie’s inner dialogue in his version of The Color Purple. In translating a Broadway play to the silver screen, Bazawule was pushed to think about which characters and moments in the plot needed songs. “Keep It Movin’,” co-written by Bailey and Grammy-winning songwriting duo Nova Wav, was one of those songs. “Nettie’s character, as I saw it, needed to impart to Celie some level of confidence that will stay with her sister before they reconnect at the very end,” Bazawule says. “[The song] shows a young girl’s innocence which will very soon be snatched away quite violently. I need that moment to be memorable and really reflect the love the sisters have for each other.”
Bailey, who starred as the titular Little Mermaid earlier this year, is, of course, one-half of the Grammy-nominated sister duo Chloe x Halle. The “Angel” singer drew from her relationship with her sister for “Keep It Movin’,” a dynamic that exemplifies the symbiotic healing nature of The Color Purple soundtrack. As artists completed their contributions to the project, they experienced moments of healing themselves. According to Bazawule, those moments occurred throughout filming, spurred by the omnipresence of faith and gospel music on set. Gospel music is a clear throughline between the original music, the Inspired By soundtrack, and the way the musical’s songs were reworked for the film.
“Gospel is the foundation. When you think about how our version of The Color Purple functions, which is the oscillation between joy and pain and turning our pain into power, it’s the definition of gospel,” remarks Bazawule. “You don’t have anything without gospel, so, for us, it was central to how we advanced everything. I also was very clear that I’d have to split my musical journey into 3 three parts: gospel, blues and jazz.” To bring a more cinematic, gospel-infused feel to the original Broadway music, Bazawule tagged in Billboard chart-topping gospel star Ricky Dillard; He also recruited Keb’ Mo’ to bring in the blues, and Christian McBride for jazz. He even made sure his DP (Dan Lausten) and production designer (Paul D. Austerberry) got an authentic Black church experience. With both Fantasia and Domingo regularly leading the cast and crew in prayer, The Color Purple transformed into “spiritual work that shows up in the amount of healing that a lot of us went through making this film,” says Bazawule.
“You cannot work on The Color Purple without understanding what anointing looks like,” Bazawule asserts. “When those singers open their mouths, that’s church talking. That was very clear and it stayed critical up until the end.”
Just days before The Color Purple is set to open in theatres, a Hollywood Reporter piece exploring the hesitancy of studios to promote movie musicals as musicals started to make the rounds online. Black movie musicals are few and far between, especially when holiday films and biopics are removed, and The Color Purple is hoping to dispel the notion that audiences aren’t interested in seeing musicals on the big screen.
“I hope [The Color Purple] opens the door to many more and I hope directors and studios take more chances with Black movie musicals,” muses Bazawule. “Again, when it comes to music, we are unmatched, so you just have to find the narratives. I hope and pray our movie will move the needle.”
A new documentary about the life and career of Moses Michael “Shyne” Levi Barrow is now in production. The Honorable: Shyne is the latest project in the works from Andscape, the Black-led multimedia platform affiliated with Disney and ESPN. Leading production on the documentary is ColorCreative, the Black-owned and female-led management and production firm whose principals are Issa Rae, Deniese Davis and Talitha Watkins.
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The Honorable: Shyne will document Barrow’s trajectory from rapper to politician. Currently Leader of the Opposition in the Belize House of Representatives and leader of the Belize United Democratic Party, Barrow was launching his recording career with Sean “Diddy” Combs’ Bad Boy label when a shooting incident outside Club New York in 1999 led to his incarceration for nearly nine years. Released in 2009, Barrow is known for such hits as “Bad Boyz” and “Bonnie & Shyne.”
In an exclusive statement to Billboard about the upcoming documentary, Shyne said, “Immigrating from Belize to Brooklyn as a child left to survive and thrive in the concrete jungle of New York, hip-hop had a massive influence on my life, giving me the space and community to explore my creativity and amplify the voice of my pain and purpose. The difficult decisions of my life have shaped me into the person I am today, steadfast in my desire to build a better life for the people of Belize and humanity. By bringing my story to audiences, I hope to inspire them to find the indomitable spirit within so they can overcome all adversities and be the best version of themselves positively impacting their part of humanity with their unique footprint as I have done through music, faith and public service.”
The Honorable: Shyne is being directed by Marcus A. Clarke, whose credits include Blood Brothers: Malcolm X & Muhammad Ali and The WIZRD about Atlanta rap star Future. In a press release announcing the Barrow documentary, Clarke said, “I intend for this film to immerse audiences in Shyne’s remarkable journey of transformation, as he transitions from a Brooklyn rapper to a prominent diplomat in Belize. It captures his profound process of self-discovery, marked by redemption, ultimately guiding him toward a life dedicated to public service. The world has waited patiently to hear Shyne’s story, so it’s truly a privilege for me to collaborate with ColorCreative and Andscape to bring this film to life.”
Executive producers for The Honorable: Shyne include DJ Khaled, Talitha Watkins, Carolina Groppa, James Shani, Ameer Collier and Raina Kelley. Noted Watkins in the press announcement, “The Honorable: Shyne will capture the essence of Barrow’s journey, providing viewers with unprecedented access to his experiences. It paints a comprehensive picture of a man who has overcome immense challenges, to redefine his life, make a positive impact on his community and reconcile with his past.”
Composers and songwriters Mark Isham, Steve Dorff, Pinar Toprak, Jeff Rona and Christophe Beck are among the honorees and participants in a series of events being staged by the Society of Composers & Lyricists and Nashville Film Festival from Sept. 28 – Oct. 4. The in-person portion of the conference will be hosted at various festival partner venues.
On Friday, Sept. 29, Isham will discuss his career scoring for film and TV in a session moderated by SCL president Ashley Irwin. Isham won a Grammy for best new age performance in 1991 for his album, Mark Isham, and a Primetime Emmy for outstanding main title theme music for CBS’ EZ Streets in 1997. He received an Oscar nomination for best original score for A River Runs Through It in 1993. With more than 125 film scores, Isham has been hailed as an innovator in electronics and a lush orchestral melodist.
Later that afternoon, Dorff, a 2018 Songwriters Hall of Fame inductee, will delve into his decades-long career. The conversation will be moderated by Tracy McKnight, BMI vice president, creative, film, TV & visual media, with a reception to follow. Dorff received a Grammy nomination in 1980 for best country song for co-writing the Eddie Rabbitt hit “Every Which Way but Loose” and three Primetime Emmy nods for writing songs for the sitcoms Growing Pains and Major Dad. Dorff, the father of actor Stephen Dorff, may be best known for co-writing the top 20 Hot 100 hits “I Just Fall in Love Again” (Anne Murray) and “Through the Years” (Kenny Rogers).
The Society of Composers & Lyricists in association with ASCAP and the Film Musicians Secondary Markets Fund will present the SCL Career Symposium as part of the Nashville Film Festival on Saturday, Sept. 30. For the complete schedule, go to https://thescl.com/scl-career-symposium/.
On Saturday evening, Sept. 30, the SCL and Nashville Film Festival will co-host a reception with Electronic Arts Music at Ocean Way Studios in honor of Toprak, who will be awarded the Music City Maestro Award for her continued collaboration with the Nashville scoring community. Toprak received a Primetime Emmy nod in 2020 for the HBO show McMllion$ With her work on Captain Marvel and Fortnite, Pinar is the first female composer to score both a film and video game that have grossed more than $1 billion globally. (Captain Marvel has grossed $1.13 billion globally, according to boxofficemojo.com, with $426.8 million of that coming from the U.S.)
Toprak’s other credits include writing and producing music for Christina Aguilera’s 2019 Xperience Live Show in Las Vegas and conducting Billie Eilish’s performance of “No Time to Die” at the 2022 Oscars ceremony.
On Sunday, Oct. 1, as part of the Nashville Film Festival Awards and Student Awards, The SCL in association with SESAC will present awards for outstanding song and outstanding score for a songwriter and composer in the student film category.
Founded in 1969, the Nashville Film Festival (NashFilm) was one of the first film festivals in the U.S. For more information, visit www.nashfilm.org.
The Society of Composers & Lyricists (SCL) is the primary organization for professional film, television, video game, and musical theatre composers and lyricists.
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