If you’re one of those types who memorizes the personnel credits on your favorite albums, we have a film for you: Twenty Feet From Stardom, which opens the Louisiana International Film Festival Thursday, April 18 at the recently renovated and re-opened Joy Theater. Morgan Neville’s film celebrates the overlooked life of a backup singer, shedding light on the elusive figures who exist in the small print of album liner notes. Neville, who’s done previous documentaries on Brian Wilson, Burt Bacharach and others, interviewed some of the great hidden singers like Claudia Lennear (Joe Cocker’s Mad Dogs & Englishmen) and Lynn Mabry (George Clinton & P-Funk), and less-hidden ones like Bruce Springsteen and Mick Jagger. It’s a film that could do for back-up singers what Standing in the Shadows of Motown did for studio musicians.
"Twenty Feet From Stardom" Documentary Film NOLA Premiere at Joy Theatre April 18
Neville will be present at the screening, and so will one of the film’s notable subjects: Merry Clayton, whose voice should be familiar if her name isn’t. She’s the one who stole the show from Jagger on “Gimme Shelter” and sang the hair-raising bridge. Clayton will give a rare performance after the film, backed up by Jonathan Batiste & the Stay Human Band.
The festival will then move to Baton Rouge for the remainder of the weekend, when more than 50 films will be screened at a handful of venues (including Raleigh Studios at the Celtic Media Centre, the Cinemark at Perkins Rowe and the Manship Theater at Shaw Center for the Arts). Especially notable from a local angle are T-Galop: A Louisiana Horse Story (4:30pm Friday at Celtic Media Centre), which looks at Creole and Cajun jockeys and cowboys; By And By: New Orleans Gospel At the Crossroads (2:15pm Saturday at Old State Capitol), about perennial Gospel Tent favorites the Electrifying Crown Seekers; and two dramas filmed in Shreveport: The Iceman (9:30pm Friday at Cinemark Perkins Rowe) and The East (6pm Sunday at Cinemark Perkins Rowe), which stars Louisiana native Patricia Clarkson.
Full details on the festival and previews of all films are at www.lifilmfest.org
[Twenty Feet From Stardom and opening gala for Louisiana International Film festival. 7PM Thursday, April 18 at the Joy Theater, 1200 Canal St. Tickets $15 including live music. Info at address above].
