’Til Things Are Brighter: Johnny Cash & Friends February 25, 2011

Event: “’Til Things Are Brighter: Johnny Cash & Friends” Guest curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare 1940s, 1950s and 1960s TV shows, feature film clips and Soundies featuring the immortal Johnny Cash (on the eve of his birthday) and the cult artists of country and rockabilly. Films include “Star Route- A Salute to Johnny Cash” (1962 and earlier) with live performances by and tributes to Johnny Cash and the Tennessee Two, and a complete episode of “Ranch Party” (1957), the Tex Ritter-hosted syndicated TV show featuring live performances by the top talent of C&W and rockabilly. Select performances from other “Ranch Party” episodes will also be screened on video. Plus, 1940s C&W Soundies and feature film musical clips by honky-tonker Cowboy Copas, western swinger Spade Cooley, the real king of western swing Bob Wills, cowboy yodeler Jimmy Wakely and more!
Date: Friday, February 25, 2011 at 8:30PM
Venue: Oddball Films, 275 Capp Street, San Francisco 94110
Admission: $10.00 RSVP Only to: 415-558-8117 or [email protected]
Web: http://www.oddballfilm.com/oddballftp/Johnny_Cash_PR.pdf

"’Til Things Are Brighter”
Johnny Cash & Friends
Screens at Oddball Films

On Friday, February 25, Guest Curator Pete Gowdy and Oddball Films present an evening of rare 40s, 50s and 60s TV shows, Soundies and musical clips featuring the late, great Johnny Cash plus other legends and the forgotten artists of country music and rockabilly. Showtime is 8:30PM and admission is $10.00. Seating is limited so RSVP is preferred to: [email protected] or 415-558-8117.

Highlights Include:

Star Route: A Salute to Johnny Cash (B+W, 1962, with earlier performances)
Star Route was a syndicated TV show hosted by cowboy film star Rod Cameron and featured a house band with Glen Campbell, guitar wizard Billy Strange and the (mostly grown up) Collins Kids. The salute to Johnny Cash episode features Johnny and the Tennessee Two performing Big River, Come Pickin’ Time, Cry Cry Cry, Five Foot High and Rising, I Got Stripes, and the spiritual God Has My Future Laid Away. The Collins Kids, Glen and the band also have their way with I Still Miss Someone, Luther Played the Boogie and a medley of Cash hits.

Ranch Party (1957)
Ranch Party, hosted by the laconic Tex Ritter and filmed in Compton, CA, featured some of the hottest country and rockabilly artists of the day, backed by the stellar house band (led by wizard of the strings Joe Maphis) and regulars The Collins Kids. Guests include Bonnie Guitar, Sons of the Pioneers, Hank Penny, and features a great Collins Kids performance and an acrobatic duet with Joe Maphis and Little Larry Collins.

Frontier Frolic (B+W, 1946)
The true “King of Western Swing” Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys host and play on this musical short with guests. Some hot pickin’ with Bob and the boys plus guests The Modernaires, The McKinney Sisters and Pat Starling. Includes a sing-along “San Antonio Rose”!

Plus! Soundies of Jimmy Wakely, clips of Spade Cooley, Cowboy Copas, performance video clips culled from other episodes of “Ranch Party” including Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Patsy Cline, Bobby Helms, Merle Travis and more incredible double-neck guitar picking with Joe Maphis and the Collins Kids and more!

About Soundies:
Soundies can be considered the precursors to music videos. Produced during the years 1940 to 1946, Soundies were made to be seen on self-contained, coin-operated, 16mm rear projection machines called Panorams. They were located in nightclubs, bars, restaurants and other public places. Eight Soundies, featuring a variety of musical performances, were generally spliced together on a reel that ran in a continuous loop. The Panoram, a complicated and unique machine, later served as the basis for the RCA 16mm projector.

Soundies were produced by various companies such as Minoco and RCM Productions, headed by FDR's son James Roosevelt, Sam Coslow a song writer and Herbert Mills, a pioneer in the development of arcade music machines. In order to achieve the widest possible distribution, Soundies covered the gamut of musical styles from country and western to Russian balalaika music, tenors singing Irish folksongs, the big band swing music of Stan Kenton and Tommy Dorsey and jazz Greats, Fats Waller, Count Basie, Duke Ellington and Nat King Cole.

A Soundie reel sometimes included cheesecake segments--striptease, burlesque routines or shots of women in bathing suits--specifically intended to attract wartime military personnel on leave. Appeals for war bonds and other patriotic messages ("We're All Americans", "When Hitler Kicks the Bucket", "The White Cliffs of Dover") were included. Soundies often starred little known performers who later became famous, such as Alan Ladd, Cyd Charisse, Doris Day and Ricardo Montalban, as well as performers on their way down. Many African-American performers like Dorothy Dandridge, Louis Armstrong and Stepin Fetchit, who were largely absent from mainstream films except in minor roles, were featured. -From the UCLA Film Library Web Site
Curator Biography:
Pete Gowdy (aka DJ Chas Gaudi) is host of San Francisco’s Shellac Shack, a weekly 78 rpm listening party and a DJ specializing in vintage sounds: soul, jazz, country, punk and new wave. A graduate of the Vassar College Film Program, he is an associate producer of Marc Huestis Presents, the long-running movie legend tributes at the Castro Theatre.

About Oddball Films
Oddball films is the film component of Oddball Film+Video, a stock footage company providing offbeat and unusual film footage for feature films like Milk, documentaries like The Summer of Love, television programs like Mythbusters, clips for Boing Boing and web projects around the world.  
Our films are almost exclusively drawn from our collection of over 50,000 16mm prints of animation, commercials, educationals, feature films, movie trailers, medical, industrial military, news out-takes and every genre in between. We’re actively working to present rarely screened genres of cinema as well as avant-garde and ethno-cultural documentaries, which expand the boundaries of cinema. Oddball Films is the largest film archive in Northern California and one of the most unusual private collections in the US. We invite you to join us in our weekly offerings of offbeat cinema.

Official Website: http://mim.io/6a62e