Post by LS on Jan 23, 2004 15:59:40 GMT -5
A Musician Brings Howlin' Wolf to the Screen
by Rafer Guzmán<br>January 23, 2004
You may have seen Joe Lauro playing bass for Long Island's popular roots-Americana band The Lone Sharks. But Lauro is also a film producer and a music historian who runs the Greenport-based Historic Films Archive.
Recently, he's been combining his interests by making music documentaries. His latest project, a DVD called "The Howlin' Wolf Story," will screen Tuesday night at Huntington's Cinema Arts Centre.
Lauro, who grew up in Massapequa Park and now lives on Shelter Island, says the film was made for about $75,000, a shoestring budget by any standard. Lauro's official title is producer, but he wound up doing a little bit of everything: "I'm doing some interviews, I'm holding the mike - we all multitask on these low-budget projects."
The film does at times have a makeshift feel: One tracking shot of Wolf's old Chicago neighborhood was filmed through a car windshield (you can even see the bird droppings). But Lauro and crew did plenty of legwork, interviewing not just music historians but also Wolf's daughters, several sidemen (including guitarist Hubert Sumlin and tenor sax player Sonny Williams) and acquaintances such as Marshall Chess (son of Leonard Chess, who co- founded the famous blues label Chess Records).
Lauro also scavenged for old Wolf footage, raiding his own library and the Alan Lomax Archives in Manhattan. Lauro knew that Lomax, the legendary music historian, once filmed Wolf playing with fellow blues pioneer Bukka White. Lauro also knew that Lomax had used two cameras - and the second one had been lost.
"Well, I found it," Lauro crows. At the time, though, he kept his mouth shut, as director Martin Scorsese was also hunting for footage for his television series "The Blues." "Man, it was a fight keeping it away from the Scorsese people," Lauro says. "I just kept saying, 'I don't know where it is.'"
Another discovery: Rarely seen footage of Wolf's only U.S. national television appearance, with The Rolling Stones, on a 1965 episode of the ABC television show "Shindig." It's amazing to see a youthful Mick Jagger and Brian Jones humbly credit Wolf for inspiring them to play music.
Lauro's next projects (if money permits): documentaries on the folk-rock group The Byrds and the eccentric R&B musician Dr. John, a sometime Amagansett resident. "We were going to do Fats Domino, but Fats demanded a big cash payment," says Lauro. "He's an old-time guy, and he understands cash."
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.
by Rafer Guzmán<br>January 23, 2004
You may have seen Joe Lauro playing bass for Long Island's popular roots-Americana band The Lone Sharks. But Lauro is also a film producer and a music historian who runs the Greenport-based Historic Films Archive.
Recently, he's been combining his interests by making music documentaries. His latest project, a DVD called "The Howlin' Wolf Story," will screen Tuesday night at Huntington's Cinema Arts Centre.
Lauro, who grew up in Massapequa Park and now lives on Shelter Island, says the film was made for about $75,000, a shoestring budget by any standard. Lauro's official title is producer, but he wound up doing a little bit of everything: "I'm doing some interviews, I'm holding the mike - we all multitask on these low-budget projects."
The film does at times have a makeshift feel: One tracking shot of Wolf's old Chicago neighborhood was filmed through a car windshield (you can even see the bird droppings). But Lauro and crew did plenty of legwork, interviewing not just music historians but also Wolf's daughters, several sidemen (including guitarist Hubert Sumlin and tenor sax player Sonny Williams) and acquaintances such as Marshall Chess (son of Leonard Chess, who co- founded the famous blues label Chess Records).
Lauro also scavenged for old Wolf footage, raiding his own library and the Alan Lomax Archives in Manhattan. Lauro knew that Lomax, the legendary music historian, once filmed Wolf playing with fellow blues pioneer Bukka White. Lauro also knew that Lomax had used two cameras - and the second one had been lost.
"Well, I found it," Lauro crows. At the time, though, he kept his mouth shut, as director Martin Scorsese was also hunting for footage for his television series "The Blues." "Man, it was a fight keeping it away from the Scorsese people," Lauro says. "I just kept saying, 'I don't know where it is.'"
Another discovery: Rarely seen footage of Wolf's only U.S. national television appearance, with The Rolling Stones, on a 1965 episode of the ABC television show "Shindig." It's amazing to see a youthful Mick Jagger and Brian Jones humbly credit Wolf for inspiring them to play music.
Lauro's next projects (if money permits): documentaries on the folk-rock group The Byrds and the eccentric R&B musician Dr. John, a sometime Amagansett resident. "We were going to do Fats Domino, but Fats demanded a big cash payment," says Lauro. "He's an old-time guy, and he understands cash."
Copyright © 2004, Newsday, Inc.