Earlier this year, you will remember that I played a role in helping Sidemen: Long Road To Glory run a very successful Kickstarter campaign that raised over $200,000 to pay for the final rights and clearances, and to move the film into its next step, that of distribution and being brought into theaters around the country.
Well, as many of you now know, Abramorama, the company that brought us The Beatles 'Eight Days A Week' in 2016 and the Grateful Dead documentary, 'Long Strange Trip' this year is now bringing Sidemen to big screens with its premiere happening on August 18 in New York (see listings below).
Sidemen: Long Road To Glory is an intimate look at the lives and legacies of three legendary bluesmen; piano player Pinetop Perkins, drummer Willie ‘Big Eyes’ Smith and guitarist Hubert Sumlin, all Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf sidemen. The film captures some of the last interviews and final live performances, before their deaths in 2011. The historic live shows are accompanied by performances and personal insights from many of the blues and rock stars these legendary musicians inspired including; Bonnie Raitt, Gregg Allman, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, Tim Reynolds, Shemekia Copeland, Robby Krieger, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, Joe Perry, Joe Bonamassa and Johnny Winter.
Abramorama is the preeminent theatrical distributor of music films in the US today and recognized for the consistent high quality of its work on award winning feature films. An innovator in the focused, personalized form of film distribution and event cinema, Abramorama provides invaluable alternatives to filmmakers and content owners. An industry leader in marketing and promotion, Abramorama continues to trail-blaze exciting new pathways for filmmakers to find their audience. Over the course of more than 15 years, Abramorama has successfully distributed and marketed hundreds of films, including Ron Howard’s Grammy award®-winning The Beatles: Eight Days A Week – The Touring Years; Amir Bar-Lev’s Long Strange Trip – The Untold Story of the Grateful Dead; Corbett Redford and Green Day’s Turn It Around: The Story of East Bay Punk, John Scheinfeld’s Chasing Trane – The John Coltrane Documentary; Brett Bern’s BANG! The Bert Berns Story; Jill Campbell’s Mr. Chibbs; Tomer Heymann’s Mr. Gaga; Dawn Porter’s Trapped; Kim A. Snyder’s Newtown; Charles Ferguson’s Time To Choose; Asif Kapadia’s Senna; Neil Young’s Greendale; Cameron Crowe’s Pearl Jam Twenty; Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story Of Anvil; Banksy’s Academy Award®-nominated, Exit Through the Gift Shop; the surprise indie hit Awake: The Life of Yogananda; Laurie Anderson’s astonishing New York Times critics’ pick, Heart of a Dog, Showtime’s National Board of Review Winner Listen to Me Marlon and Draft House Releasing’s 2016 Documentary Academy Award®-Nominee and IDA Best Documentary Winner The Look of Silence. Abramorama is a founding partner of The Seventh Art Stand program, an act of cinematic solidarity against Islamophobia, that ran in more than 50 theaters across the United States in May of 2017.
This historic documentary that lovingly looks at the lives, careers, and legacies of Pinetop, Hubert, and Willie is in my humble estimation one of the greatest movies ever made about the blues, and it will leave you remembering why we love the blues and perhaps a bit teary-eyed. It, as is the movie itself, a testament to perseverance. The movie and these men both saw things through to the end, and at the end of the road there is glory to be found.
Filmmaker Scott Rosenbaum (and in an effort to be transparent and with full disclosure, Scott is a dear friend) has done what many thought could not be done. He took an intended concert film that was meant to be an homage of sorts to The Last Waltz, and in the wake of his three subjects' deaths in rapid succession (all three died within eleven month in 2011), he turned the film full circle into a celebration of the legends' lives with tremendous contributions of so many of the rock and blues superstars who were influenced by their greatness. Future generations will owe him a tip of their hats, as do we.
It's with no small sense of satisfaction that I compel you to get out an enjoy this film. You can thank me later.
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