Being There’s Top 10 Greatest Rock ‘n’ Roll Films (A Non-Fiction Edition)

Although music is essentially a listening experience, one cannot deny its significance on a visual and cultural level.  Events like Woodstock were more than just large-scale concerts, they were cultural experiences that continue to resonate today.  But luckily, we have more than the memory of (let’s be honest) people who were probably too stoned to know what was really going on.

This month, we collect a list of our picks for the greatest rock ‘n’ roll-era documentaries or concert films.  Some of the usual suspects ended up on our list, while others may be entirely unfamiliar to some of you.  We believe that all are essential viewing for members of the film and music communities, and hope they prove an enriching experience for all!


1. Don’t Look Back (D.A. Pennebaker, 1967)




Subject: Bob Dylan’s 1965 tour of England

Anyone who has seen the 1967 rockumentary Don't Look Back won't be at all surprised to find that D.A. Pennebaker's now legendary film made number one on our list. In fact, many of the subsequent films in our top ten probably owe more than a passing debt to Pennebaker's classic portrait of the young Bob Dylan, not to mention the influence of its melding of music and video on MTV. Don't Look Back is an infinitely revealing film showing Bob Dylan at the height of his popularity. Not always flattering, but consistently honest in its portrayal, the film doesn't shy away from showing the singer at his most unpleasant or unforgiving. With a plethora of backstage and hotel room footage, Don't Look Back peels away the layers of this always enigmatic performer, showing us a man still trying to reconcile his private self with his public rock-poet persona as he is endlessly confronted by sycophantic fans and second guessing members of the media. The Bob Dylan presented in Don't Look Back isn't always likable, but he's somehow redeemed by the quieter and more personal moments, as we are reminded that there is a very real person behind that harmonica and acoustic guitar.

One of the most influential music documentaries ever made, Don't Look Back starts with the much-imitated but rarely equaled music video for Dylan's classic "Subterranean Homesick Blues." Widely considered the very first music video ever made, the scene is noteworthy not just for its simple and iconic use of cue cards, but also for an almost unnoticeable Allen Ginsberg hanging out in the lower corner of the screen. This opening scene sets the tone for the rest of the film as we get an up close and personal glimpse into the public and private world of singer-songwriter Bob Dylan on the cusp of his transition from acoustic folk artist to electrified rock ‘n’ roll idol. With an entourage including Dylan's then-girlfriend Joan Baez, Alan Price, Donovan, tour manager Bob Neuwirth and Dylan's stoic manager Albert Grossman, there's rarely a dull moment as Pennebaker unobtrusively follows Dylan on his last solo acoustic tour, the 1965 concert tour around England.

With a fly-on-the-wall perspective, we accompany Dylan and company from Manchester to Merseyside and everywhere in between, as Dylan's charged live performances are interspersed with his occasionally equally as charged spars with press and various hangers on. We are also made privy to his more private downtime as he spends time intermittently goofing around with friends or chain smoking while typing steadily at his typewriter. Some of the film's funnier moments come when Dylan is dissecting the inane questions of the press, and there are plenty of great scenes in which we see him casually interacting with his fans. Then there are the more uncomfortable moments, such as his polite but tense confrontation with the president of his British fan club or his irritated demand to know who threw a wine glass out of his hotel window. The film also chronicles the disintegration of his relationship with Joan Baez, from his seemingly cool indifference to her through most of the film, to the moment she walks out of his room, and as she later admits, out of his life. With so much off-stage footage, Pennebaker managed to create the most intimate document of a man who, at only 25, was already one of the world's most mysterious, overanalyzed and universally acclaimed songwriters. Don't Look Back is a fully rounded portrait of Dylan at his most accessible and forthright, and more than anything, at his most human. Despite being filmed 40 years ago, it remains a rock and roll classic and a prototype to all of the many music documentaries that came after it.  (BM)


2. The Last Waltz (Martin Scorsese, 1978)




Subject: The Band’s Thanksgiving Day farewell concert

Goodfellas fans may be surprised to see Martin Scorsese’s name attached to this film, which documents The Band’s final performance on Thanksgiving Day in 1976.  But Marty was no stranger to music, having served as a second unit director and editor on our #9 pick, Woodstock, and having included songs by The Rolling Stones and Cream in 1973’s Mean Streets.

One of Mean Streets’ producers, Jonathan Taplin, had once been a roadie for The Band.  Once known as The Hawks, The Band had served as Bob Dylan’s backing band in 1966 and again in 1974, after having established their own career with critically acclaimed albums like Music From Big Pink and The Band.  By 1976, The Band had decided to call it a day and had gathered together some of their friends in the music world for one big send off to be held at San Francisco’s Winterland.  Scorsese, who was a fan of The Band, expressed interest immediately, and spent two years putting together the perfect documentary, which largely focused on that magical performance at San Fransisco’s Winterland.

The focus of The Last Waltz is on that final, magical concert, which included performances by Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, Muddy Waters, and others, all alongside The Band.  The film captured the performance beautifully, with talented camera work from the likes of Laszlo Kovacs, Michael Chapman, and others.  One key moment comes at a solo moment from The Band, where Rick Danko is standing, shadowlike, singing “see the man with the stage fright”

Since a few of the people The Band wanted to have involved, like Emmylou Harris and The Staple Singers, couldn’t be at the concert, studio-shot performances were interspersed with the concert, as were brief scenes of relaxed interviews.

Like with many documentaries, some of The Last Waltz’s greatest moments come out of accidents.  During Eric Clapton’s performance with The Band of “Further On Up The Road,” Clapton’s guitar strap unhooks during his solo.  Without skipping a beat, Band guitarist Robbie Robertson takes over, delivering his own solo, before Clapton jumps right back in.

Although Martin Scorsese has made countless films aside from The Last Waltz, he still speaks of the joys of being a part of the experience.  His participation also allowed him to forge a friendship with Robbie Robertson, who has been involved as music producer or composer on Raging Bull, The King of Comedy, The Color of Money, Casino, and Gangs of New York.  (ADM)


3. Stop Making Sense (Jonathan Demme, 1984)




Subject: Talking Heads

I’m one of the few writers for this magazine who doesn’t know a damn thing about music. I like music, I’m interested in it, but the difference between good and bad is as much a mystery to me as how the thermos knows to keep hot things hot and cold. So when I tell you I think the Talking Heads make some good music, well, it might be true but probably only by accident.

But what I can tell is that Stop Making Sense is great film experience, the most adeptly shot, cohesively planned, and solidly entertaining concert film ever made. And the experience is a uniquely cinematic one, with action planned around camera placement, limited spontaneity, and—allegedly—post-production overdubs. That it is less a pure record of a concert because of these factors is beside the point. The audience is not seen until the final reel, and even then they seem to be yet another clever expansion of the scope of the show rather than a documenting of real people experiencing what we are seeing (though, to be fair, they clearly are real audience members, not studio extras filmed at another time).

This is not to imply Stop Making Sense is a detached, aesthetic experience. Rather, it is an exhilarating one, different from a real concert, but no less entertaining. Byrne is not a stage performer who inspires great affection, but he’s not just being weird for its own sake. The show is a strange one, but it is great entertainment, a fact that cannot be just an inadvertent side-effect of self-indulgence. For instance, the slow, piece-by-piece buildup to the full band performance of “Burning Down the House” isn’t just a conceit of unusual stagecraft, it’s a marvelous way to infuse a narrative drive and cascading momentum to the show. And Byrne himself is a wonderful visual entertainer. While there is no poetry in his movements (no MJ is he), it is a dynamic compelling prose. He’d probably bristle at the term “entertainer,” but that’s precisely what he is in Stop Making Sense.

His short disappearance (understandable for concert reasons, not so much for cinema), is the film’s lone misstep. Regardless of whether the Tom Tom Club are weak songwriters, they are drastically less interesting performers and the tonal change too abrupt. Still, it is a brief annoyance and one quickly erased by the strength of the final three songs.

It’s never clear with this sort of film how real credit ought to be dispersed between cinematographer, director, and editor, but the team of Jordan Cronenworth (Brewster McCloud, Blade Runner), Jonathan Demme, and Lisa Day (Let’s Spend the Night Together) collaborate for a wonderful perspective, intimate at times and at others standing back in awe. Filming over multiple evenings allowed close camera placement without the headache of seeing cameras from other angles and this freedom allows wider lenses than an all-in-one go would have permitted. Thus we really feel we are able to see anything we want at any time, and amazingly Demme and Day’s instincts seem to match our own, taking us exactly where we need to be.

Stop Making Sense is brilliant entertainment. It doesn’t carry the emotional weight of some other films on this list, and it’s hardly an insight into the lives and minds of the band. But it’s one of the very few stage-bound films that can truly works as cinema. (NW)


4. Gimme Shelter (Albert & David Maysles, 1970)




Subject: The Rolling Stones’ 1969 tour, with a focus on the tragic Altamont concert.

The Rolling Stones’ free concert at the Altamont Speedway in California is nothing more and nothing less than the end of the so-called ‘love generation.’  As an answer to Woodstock, and to attract publicity, The Rolling Stones decided to put on a free concert with the help of acts like Ike & Tina Turner, The Flying Burrito Brothers, and Jefferson Airplane, following through with Jerry Garcia’s suggestion that they hire members of the Hell’s Angels as security.  It proved to be the recipe for disaster.  Scuffles between the Angels and audience members consistently broke out near the stage, and at one point Jefferson Airplane’s lead singer Marty Balin was knocked unconscious when trying to intervene.  Things only got worse from here.  During the Stones’ performance, “Sympathy For The Devil” was interrupted by clashes.  Mick and Keith stopped, told the audience to relax, and started the song once again.  It was during “Under My Thumb,” however, that tragedy ensued.  Immediately after the song finished, a Hell’s Angel stabbed a member of the audience to death.  This single moment has since been the definition of the end of the peace and love generation.

But the Maysles Brothers documentary is more than that single moment, despite it tying the whole documentary together.  At the beginning, we see our filmmakers with Charlie Watts and Mick Jagger, listening to a radio DJ comment on the event and the tragedy which ensued.  You will never see The Rolling Stones, especially Jagger, so full of regret and shock.

From the beginning, the viewer is painfully aware that Gimme Shelter is not an enjoyable viewing experience.  After all, its climax is the stabbing death of an innocent audience member.  At the same time, we’re provided with some great music, some of it quite celebratory, recordings from Madison Square Garden that would ultimately find its way onto the live album Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out.  Viewers were also given their first taste of some of the tracks that would end up on Sticky Fingers, with some of the film set during mixing sessions at Muscle Shoals studios in Alabama.

Gimme Shelter is by no means an enjoyable film, but one that is entirely appropriate given the subject matter.  It is a testament to the power of a documentary that something so tragic can be presented in such a pure form. (ADM)


5. I Am Trying To Break Your Heart (Sam Jones, 2002)




Subject: The making of Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, and the drama that surrounded it.

When Sam Jones first began filming I Am Trying the Break Your Heart, he was only planning to document the process of a band (Wilco) making an album (Yankee Hotel Foxtrot).  What he captured instead was a thing of extraordinary beauty, soul-crushing sadness, and ultimately rock and roll redemption.  It’s an instantly classic film about the volatility of the creative process that also reveals the dirty truth about the marketing of art.  Not bad for a first feature.

On the surface, the documentary (shot in gorgeous black and white) details Wilco's attempts to make their fourth album.  But the entire process becomes a microcosm for band and corporate politics, as well as the eternal struggle between art and commerce. 

Having been born from the ashes of alt.country pioneers Uncle Tupelo, Wilco had already released three increasingly ambitious records, the last of which had taken great strides away from the band’s country roots.  The band’s label (Reprise, owned by corporate giant Warner Brothers) had given them the money and freedom to write and self-produce the follow-up.  Things get off to a fine start, and despite some occasional artistic differences here and there between singer Jeff Tweedy and multi-instrumentalist Jay Bennett, the band is clearly in a good place creatively.  Over the course of the next months, they climb out on several limbs, even jumping up and down a bit, challenging themselves and finally making an epic, sprawling, difficult, artsy (I’m running out of clichés here), and brilliant LP. 

Then, everything starts to fall apart.  After submitting the album, the Corporate Behemoth hates the record, which it considers unmarketable, and they ask for changes (namely the inclusion of a hit single or two).  The band, playing the artistic integrity card, refuses.  And in a devastating blow, the label drops them like they’re hot (and not in the good, Snoop Dogg sense).  Left with a completed masterpiece of an album that they’ve slaved over but can’t release, Wilco begins to crack under the pressure.  The tiny artistic differences between Tweedy and Bennett grow into giant chasms.  In one sequence, after Tweedy clears up a misunderstanding over how he wants the intro to “Heavy Metal Drummer” to go, Bennett insists on fruitlessly explaining (apparently for nearly half an hour) what he thought Tweedy originally meant.  Tweedy leaves and throws up, partly due to migraines and partly due to the preceding stress. 

The communication breakdown between the two is portrayed with raw honesty by Jones, and while it is sometimes uncomfortable to watch these two former friends and partners talk past each other, it is also a perfect expression of the perils of ego in art.  Both have valid, though increasingly incompatible, visions for the direction of the band.  Tweedy wants to explore, and Bennett wants to rock.  Tensions that might have been buried in the wake of a successful album release can no longer be contained as the band fights to stay alive.  When Bennett finally departs (or is fired, depending on who’s telling the tale), it is clear that all parties are moving on.  Jones could have easily demonized one of the men, but he refuses to take sides, allowing us to decide for ourselves. 

The struggles between the band and the record company go right to the heart of the nature of treating art as a commodity.  How do you put a price on self-expression?  What’s the going rate for inspiration?  The dirty secret of the recording industry—that the quality of art will always take a back seat to financial concerns—is central to I Am Trying to Break Your Heart.  Even after the issue is settled in Wilco’s case, the disquieting truth that the industry will likely not change for the better hangs there, staring at the viewer in stark black and white.

It’s this depth of subject matter that makes the film so absorbing, and so accessible, even for those who may be unfamiliar with Wilco’s work.  Fans of the band will enjoy it for obvious reasons, but as a study of the creative process, of the politics of corporate greed, of the incongruity of equal partnership and competing egos, any lover of great cinema should find something meaty here to chew on.

Of course by now, the ultimate fate of Yankee Hotel Foxtrot has become a modern rock legend.  After touring and waiting for a resolution that wouldn’t come for the better part of a year, Warner pays Wilco their contracted fee and (in an unprecedented move) gives them the album’s masters.  In a move that a Hollywood screenwriter wouldn’t ever be allowed to get away with, Wilco ends up selling the record to (Warner subsidiary) Nonesuch Records for more than twice what they’d already been paid.  The album won critical praise, sold scads of copies, and won awards.  It’s gratifying to see Wilco literally make Warner Brothers pay.  I Am Trying to Break Your Heart reminds us that in those rare instances when art actually triumphs over commerce, however briefly, it’s a glorious thing to behold. (RB)


6. Monterey Pop (D.A. Pennebaker, 1968)




Subject: The Monterey Pop Festival, June 16-18, 1967

In the late 1960s, the United States hosted an eclectic lineup of the era’s best artists for a three-day music festival that evoked the spirit of the “love generation.” 

And then there was Woodstock.

The Monterey Pop Festival, held from June 16-18, 1967 featured approximately two dozen acts.  Some artists who would go on to achieve iconic status experienced their first mainstream American performance at Monterey, including the Jimi Hendrix, who wowed the audience by lighting his guitar on fire, Big Brother and the Holding Company, which featured a young Janis Joplin, and bands like The Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane, who were relatively unknown outside of San Francisco at the time.  It also gave the opportunity for bands like The Who, who had yet to achieve major success in America, the opportunity to showcase their own brand of rock ‘n’ roll.  The festival also included performances by Simon & Garfunkel, Otis Redding, The Mamas and the Papas, The Byrds, and many others.

1968’s Monterey Pop, directed by D.A. Pennebaker (Don’t Look Back) was a 79-minute montage of the festival.  In other words, the fifteen performances and twelve artists the film shows us are only a small percentage of the entire performance.  It isn’t chronological either.  But the film succeeds simply through its existence.  The pivotal performances are there; Janis Joplin’s incredible take on “Ball And Chain” with Big Brother and the Holding Company, The Who’s destructive “My Generation,” and Jimi Hendrix’s take on “Wild Thing,” which ended with his famous guitar-burning sequence.  There are some things here you can’t script – like Mama Cass’s jaw-drop reaction to Janis Joplin, or a predominantly white “hippie” audience grooving to Otis Redding and Booker T. and the MGs.

But Monterey Pop is no doubt propelled on our list by the recent Criterion release The Complete Monterey Pop, which boasts three discs and a slew of unreleased performances.  Disc 2, which contains the entire sets by Otis Redding and Jimi Hendrix are notable and include some great festival rarities not found elsewhere, like Hendrix’s take on “Like A Rolling Stone.”  But it is Disc 3 which gives us a look at some of the artists at the festival who go ignored by the original Monterey Pop, such as The Association, The Byrds, Buffalo Springfield, Laura Nyro, The Blues Project, and Electric Flag.  It also gives us additional performances by Simon & Garfunkel, The Mamas and the Papas, and The Who, which are arguably better than those used in the original film.

Pennebaker succeeded at presenting the audience a variety of styles and performances in Monterey Pop, but one wonders if he was once again given 80 minutes to work with, would he have focused on a much different sequence.  Luckily those of us left hungry for more (and in some cases, much more) have the fantastic Criterion DVD to enjoy. (ADM)


7. Concert for George (David Leland, 2003)




Subject: A tribute concert to George Harrison held exactly a year after his death.

On November 29, 2002, exactly one year after the death of George Harrison, a tribute concert was held at London’s Royal Albert Hall in his memory.  Tickets were made available to the public, and Harrison’s widow Olivia and son Dhani joined Eric Clapton and Jeff Lynne in preparing a lineup of some of Harrison’s closest friends, collaborators, and mentors.

David Leland’s concert film, released a year later in a limited theatrical engagement, is little more than a recording of the concert, but Leland goes in deep, sharing the emotion of the event with us.  From a special piece composed for Harrison by his mentor Ravi Shankar to solid rock ‘n’ roll performances by Paul McCartney, Ringo Starr, Tom Petty, Billy Preston, and others, Concert For George is one of the best tribute concerts committed to film.

The soundtrack of the evening was entirely songs that George had written and sung with The Beatles and a solo artist.  Jeff Lynne delivers an emotional rendition of “Give Me Love (Give Me Peace On Earth),” Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers rock out with “Taxman,” and Paul McCartney gives us the rare treat of singing a solo Harrison song, “All Things Must Pass.”

Part of what was so incredible about this concert was that the lineup did not reek of celebrity.  Aside from the big stars Clapton and McCartney, who were both there with good reason, many of the night’s performers were lesser known acts, like Joe Brown, Gary Brooker, and Jools Holland.

One of the night’s biggest highlights came when Jeff Lynne joined Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers for a rendition of the Traveling Wilburys “Handle With Care,” a song that remains a part of the Heartbreakers set into their current tour.

But Concert For George isn’t all about the music.  The concert is a tribute to the many sides of George Harrison.  An almost completely reunited Monty Python (the only surviving member who didn’t show was John Cleese) appeared.  Harrison had been an early supporter of the comedy troupe, even making a cameo appearance in Life of Brian.

A beautiful film that is sure to become a modern classic in the field of rock ‘n’ roll documentaries (ADM)


8. Buena Vista Social Club (Wim Wenders, 1999)




Subject: Ry Cooder goes to Cuba and makes music history.

American Ry Cooder took a chance on his country’s government policy when he traveled to Cuba, but he went with a mission, one well-documented by Wim Wenders in this beautiful film of triumph and inspiration.

Cooder traveled to Cuba with the hope that he could bring several aging musicians out of retirement to perform some music together.  What resulted was not only this film, but a modern classic of an album, 1997’s Buena Vista Social Club, which a chunk of this film documents the making of.

When I say retirement, I don’t mean your father who plays golf every day.  Buena Vista Social Club introduces us to vibrant men who are truly ancient.  Less than 10 years later, many of these musicians, including (at the time) 90-year-old Compay Segundo, are no longer with us, but thanks to the efforts of Wenders and Cooder, we are left with this recent time capsule that has already become ingrained in film and music culture.

Wim Wenders was an ideal filmmaker to helm the film portion of this journey.  It was Cooder who provided the slide guitar soundtrack of Wenders’ most popular film, Paris, Texas.  But the film goes far beyond the great music.  Wenders follows aging musicians like Ibrahim Ferrer and Omara Portuondo into their neighborhoods and daily routines, showing that for these now-celebrities, life was rather simple, well into their old age. (ADM)


9. Woodstock (Michael Wadleigh, 1970)




Subject: That other, more famous festival.  1969’s Woodstock.

Woodstock is the perfect example of a documentary that is loved and appreciated simply because it exists.  It is an extremely flawed film, full of gimmicky techniques like split-screen effects and sound trickery, but in the end, it does exactly what it sets out to do.  It shows us the Woodstock festival, not just as a concert, but as an experience. 

Like Monterey Pop, Woodstock features a lineup of musicians that has rarely been topped, including Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young (in their second ever performance), The Who, Jimi Hendrix, Joe Cocker, Jefferson Airplane, Santana, and Sly & The Family Stone.  Woodstock is slightly better at presenting a cross-section of the festival, but leaves out many crucial performers like The Band, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and even Janis Joplin.

But unlike Monterey Pop, the focus of Woodstock extends far beyond the performance.  Parts of the film were shot in the midst of the audience of 400,000, during meditation exercises and nude romps through mud.  Wadleigh allows us to live vicariously through the people who were at the festival, even decades later.  He makes sure to show us a lot more than the music. 

Woodstock effectively shows it all; from the masses of people arriving at the festival to its aftermath, something sorely lacking from Monterey Pop.

Side Note: At 184 minutes, Woodstock is one of the longer (if not the longest) documentaries on this list, and in the years since expanded director’s cuts have also been released.  (ADM)


10. Standing In The Shadows of Motown (Paul Justman, 2002)





Subject: The unsung heroes of Motown Records, session musicians The Funk Brothers.

There is very little in music that is as universally appealing as Motown.  You have to look pretty hard to find someone who doesn’t recognize the opening bass and guitar notes of  “My Girl” by the Temptations, who can’t sing the chorus to “Tracks of My Tears” by Smokey Robinson,” or who hasn’t danced around a living room to “I Heard it Through the Grapevine” by Marvin Gaye (or Gladys Knight).  Its appeal stretches across age, gender, and race lines; next time you’re at a wedding reception, write down the first song that gets everyone on the floor (the Chicken Dance doesn’t count).  Chances are it’ll be a Motown tune.  It’s simply some of the best written, best performed, most influential music of the last half century. 

But chances are also quite good that while many of us can name the singers of those Motown songs you love, most are probably not able to name the musicians who played on those timeless records, even though the same backing band played on all of them from 1959 to 1971.  These unsung heroes of the Motown sound recorded more number one hits than the Beatles, Elvis Presley, the Beach Boys, and the Rolling Stones—combined.  They were called the Funk Brothers, and their story is the subject of the wonderful documentary Standing in the Shadows of Motown.

Shadows explains how these remarkable musicians, chosen by Berry Gordy to be the permanent session players on every Motown track, became the backbone of 60s Soul and R&B.  Most of the band members were jazz sidemen, struggling to make a living in Detroit night clubs before coming to Motown.  In the Hitsville USA studio (dubbed “the Snakepit” by the band), they worked with every artist on the Motown roster to create that indelible sound.  However, as the film sadly points out, while the singers and the label made money hand over fist, the Funk Brothers themselves continued to struggle for pay, moonlighting in the same Detroit dives the played in before they had become the most successful hit machine in the world.  The disconnect between the band’s incredible accomplishments and the utter lack of recognition they’ve received over the years is the bittersweet theme that weaves throughout the film.  And yet Standing in the Shadows of Motown is an immensely enjoyable and entertaining film, full of lighthearted, humorous anecdotes and affectionate emotion among band members.

Entertaining as it is, the film is also highly informative.  We get to see the tiny, cramped studio (which originally had dirt floors) where the music was first created.  We discover that the Funk Brothers were an integrated band (unbeknownst to most of the world at the time), who both embraced and epitomized the true spirit of Civil Rights.  We watch stunned as archival footage shows bassist James Jamerson playing all those complicated, impossibly fast bass lines with one finger. We hear how it took three different drummers and a tambourine player to create that fabulous drum part for “Heard It Through The Grapevine.”  We learn that the most memorable arrangements, riffs and rhythms were not necessarily written by the composers; most were improvised in the studio by the band.  We also get to mourn the fact that these musical geniuses labored most of their lives in utter obscurity, not even receiving a credit in the liner notes of most releases.  In one of the film’s most poignant sequences, guitarist Robert White shyly discusses that he created that glorious guitar riff at the beginning of “My Girl,” easily one of the most recognizable guitar parts in the world.  And yet, for decades, until he died, no one would believe him when he said so because he wasn’t a Temptation. 

Produced and directed by Paul Justman, Shadows attempts to set the record straight about the Funk Brothers, succeeding beautifully.  Justman has real passion for his subject, and it comes through in every frame.  Fittingly, after seeing it, I find it impossible to hear Motown music without thinking of the Funk Brothers.  Though there is excellent narration (courtesy of Andre Braugher), Justman wisely lets the band members—and their music—speak for themselves. The film is largely composed of interviews with the surviving Funk Brothers, deftly edited with archival photographs of the band in its prime, a few very effective reenactments, and (best of all) footage from a Funk Brothers reunion concert.

The songs from the reunion concert are spread throughout the film, with vocal duties performed by Ben Harper, Joan Osbourne, Chaka Kahn, and Bootsy Collins (among others).  At first, it’s puzzling that these (let’s be honest) mostly second-string singers would be chosen.  It’s not that they’re inadequate; actually they all sound fantastic (Joan Osbourne is especially surprising in her soulful rendition “What Becomes of the Brokenhearted”).  But by the film’s end, the wisdom of this decision is clear. With all due respect to the singers, the music is what made these songs so memorable.  Without the rock solid grooves played (and often composed without credit) by the Funk Brothers, there would have been no Motown sound.  To paraphrase a line from the film, you could have Deputy Dog singing on some of those tracks, and they’d still be great.  Even Bootszilla can’t screw up “Do You Love Me?”

Standing in the Shadows of Motown should be required viewing for any music fan.  It’s deeply satisfying, succeeding both as a righting-an-unknown-wrong documentary and a killer concert film.  It honors the richly deserving Funk Brothers (both living and dead) by demonstrating just how vital their contribution to music has been, both at the height of 60s soul and today. (RB)