{"id":1355,"date":"2015-04-28T18:22:04","date_gmt":"2015-04-28T18:22:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cherscholar.com\/cherblog\/the-wrecking-crew-movie\/"},"modified":"2023-02-20T08:20:42","modified_gmt":"2023-02-20T15:20:42","slug":"the-wrecking-crew-movie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cherscholar.com\/cherblog\/2015\/04\/the-wrecking-crew-movie\/","title":{"rendered":"The Wrecking Crew Movie"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Crew\"<\/a>I went to see The Wrecking Crew<\/em> movie again at my local art theater in Albuquerque. It was a big hubbub there on Saturday night with oldies fans and press coverage. I sat next to a grizzled old DJ who lamented that Frankie Avalon, Bobby Rydell and Chubby Checker were not yet in Cleveland\u2019s Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He admitted it was very political.<\/p>\n

Before the movie ran, pics of the wrecking crew artists flashed on the screen. One was Cher at the Hollywood Bowl. I wasn\u2019t able to find it online but the man in the row behind me said, \u201cso beautiful!\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Sonny_cher_concert\"<\/a>Denny Todesco, the director, called all the movie's hardcore fans "wreckies." He said he started working on the movie in 1996 when his Dad Tommy Todesco was diagnosed with cancer. Nineteen years later, the movie is getting theatrical release. Todesco used Kickstarter and donations to pay off the crazy $500,000 in licensing fees for all the music in the film.<\/p>\n

Afterwards, we had a Q and A with Denny and Marty Cooper. They talked about the Jack Nitzsche song "Lonely Surfer<\/a>."<\/p>\n

Denny Todoesco said the only criticism anyone had about \u201cSnuffy Garrett\u201d was that he wouldn\u2019t let the musicians fix mistakes or do it better once Garrett felt he had a take he felt was sell-able.<\/p>\n

When I saw the movie at the Arclight in LA many years ago, Todesco said he couldn\u2019t get Leon Russell for an interview. Someone in the audience said, \u201cI can get you to him.\u201d Leon is in the new cut wearing a pinstripe suit and twirling a cane around like the New Orleans mafia. Todesco said he never could get Tom Petty, Max Weinberg or Bonnie Raitt and said he didn\u2019t know if this was them or \u201ctheir people\u201d who were impenetrable. But he got Cher early on it sounds like! I was worried new Leon Russell footage would deplete the Cher footage in the movie but she\u2019s still prominently in there.<\/p>\n

Todesco mentioned an interview he had done for the Mark Maron podcast. If you're interested in more about The Wrecking Crew, it's really good.<\/p>\n