I remember when I became a fan of Van Duren. While listening to the radio on the way to work, the death of Alex Chilton was announced in March 2010. This led me to become a Big Star fan, and eventually I went into a rabbit hole that led to Van Duren. Born on August 25, 1953 in Memphis Tennessee, his life was changed when he saw The Beatles on The Ed Sullivan Show in 1964.
Van Duren
For the rest of the 1960s, he was in several bands, and travelled in the same orbit as Big Star. He was friends with Chris Bell and Jody Stephens. In fact, he auditioned to replace Chris Bell in 1974. Although he was not hired, Big Star was crumbling anyway, and he joined forces a year later with Chris Bell and Jody Stephens in The Baker Street Regulars. By 1975, his star seemed to be rising, and he was managed by Andrew Loog Oldham, former manager and producer of the Rolling Stones. A skilled musician and excellent songwriter, he was being compared to Paul McCartney.
Whenever an artist is being compared to luminaries such as McCartney (a household name) and said artist doesn’t become a household name, the question is, what went wrong? As this documovie illustrates, the answer is fairly mundane. Becoming a famous recording artist requires several elements to be successful: distribution, promotion, the backing of a major recording label, and Van Duren didn’t have any of these.
This is not to shortchange the artist: if anything, Van Duren seemed to be a fully evolved artist by the time he recorded his debut album, “Are You Serious?”. But the major record labels did not sign him. He did have Andrew Loog Oldham as his manager, who was friends with Dr Thomas Cavalier (a.k.a. Doc Cavalier). Big Sound Records, a record label founded by producer Jon Tiven and Cavalier, was interested, and Tiven told him that he could record an album if he could travel to New York. But there was no advance. He had to sell his bass guitar to get the money for a plane ticket. Once there, he lived in an efficiency apartment in Greenwich Village, where Tiven lived, and from there, they commuted to Trod Nossel Studios in Wallingford, Conneticut.
Duren recorded “Are You Serious?” in 1977, and the album was released in 1978. The album was a critical success. It contains well-crafted power pop songs, and shows the influence of artists such as The Beatles while being original. But commercially, “Are You Serious” left something to be desired. Doc Cavalier may have been a good producer, but he didn’t know how to distribute an album outside of Connecticut. And Big Sound Records didn’t have a distribution deal with any of the major labels, which meant that sales were going to be low.
In spite of it, “Are You Serious?” was released internationally. London Records, a subsidiary of Decca, released it as “Staring at the Ceiling” (different title, but all the tracks are the same) in 1978. And in 1999, it was released on Air Mail Recordings in Japan. Van Duren and his band were touring, and his songs were being played on over 100 radio stations. What Van Duren lacked in sales he made up for in momentum. Perhaps his next album would be his breakthrough.
But alas, his second album would not be released. He immediately started recording the follow-up LP, and arguably, this album was even better than the previous one. But the situation took a turn for the worst when Doc Cavalier and people working for him became Scientologists. [In fact, Van Duren was the only individual who didn’t convert to Scientology.] Recording for the album was complete in early 1980, but Cavalier claimed that he didn’t have money to release the album. Rather, he said, Van Duren should be able to provide the working capital to press the album and print sleeves. He asked Van Duren to get a loan, and the collateral would be sales of the LP. Rather wisely, Duren declined, and walked out of Trod Nossel.
Van Duren was still unknown, and now, due to the unreleased album, he had lost momentum. His band was forced to be a covers band just to survive. But by 1981, Duren had formed a new band, Good Question. By 1986, Good Question was signed to Sur Records, a Memphis-based label, who released “Thin Disguise”, their first (and only) LP. This album contained “Jane” and “Catcher in the Rain”. But again, commercial success evaded them. Still, Good Question would remain together through the 1980s and 1990s.
In September 1999, Van Duren had a stroke, and lost ability on the right side of his body. For a time, he couldn’t hold a pic, but eventually recovered. He teamed up with Tommy Hoehn and released two albums: “Hailstone Holiday” (1999) and “Blue Orange” (2002). This collaboration may have yielded fruit if Hoehn hadn’t died of cancer in June 2010.
Fast forward to 2016: Two Australians (Wade Jackson, Greg Carey) discover Van Duren, and think his music is awesome. As much as they like his mucis, they are perplexed that Van Duren is not famous. Never having made a movie, they go to America to make a documentary about Van Duren. They also discover than Van Duren doesn’t have the rights to his songs and try to get these rights back.
Along the way, they travel to Conneticut to Trod Nossel Studios, to Memphis, home of Van Duren himself, and to Japan, the home of Air Mail Records, which released Van Duren’s first two albums. They meet with Van Duren, and get back the rights to his songs.
Overall, this is a good movie, even if it doesn’t tell anything that hadn’t been revealed previously. It tells Van Duren’s story with interviews conducted with people who were close to Duren: his brothers, Jody Stephens, Jon Tiven, his ex-wife, and Chris Bell’s sister, who owns a club where Van Duren performs. This gives some perspective to Van Duren’s story without really revealing anything new. To tell the truth, Van Duren hasn’t been a recluse; he’s still actively pursuing the career of a musician, albeit in relative obscurity. The two filmmakers do a good job of telling a story, even though it’s their first movie.
In summation, I’d say this movie is worth the $5 I spent to purchase it on Prime Video. A worthy documentary in the same tradition of “Big Star: Nothing Can Hurt Me”, this movie is recommended to anyone who is a fan of the Memphis power pop movement from the 1970s.
Here’s the playlist for 12-18-2022, in which I talked about the Van Duren documentary, played the rest of the Top 25 for 2022 and played King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard for the live segment:
Hour 1
The Kinks, “Destroyer” [Give the People What They Want (1981)]
Big Star, “Don’t Lie to Me” [#1 Record (1972)]
The Pretty Things, “Private Sorrow” [S.F. Sorrow (1968)]
The Rolling Stones, “Scarlet” [Goats Head Soup Deluxe Edition (1973/2020)]
Hoehn and Duren, “Black Little Book” [Blue Orange (2002)]
Thor, “Donner & Blitzen” [Christmas in Valhalla (2018)]
Trans-Siberian Orchestra, “Christmas Eve/Sarajevo” [Christmas Eve and Other Stories (1996)]
The Brian Setzer Orchestra, “Jingle Bells” [Christmas Rocks: The Best of Collection (2008)]
Buster Poindexter and His Banshees, “‘Zat You, Santa Claus?” [The Ultimate Christmas Album (2008)]
Run DMC, “Christmas in Hollis” [Walk This Way (The Best Of) (2010)]
Billy Squier, “Christmas Is the Time to Say I Love You” [A Rock ‘N’ Roll Christmas (1995)]
Top 25 of 2022 (part three)
Red Hot Chili Peppers, “These Are the Ways” [Unlimited Love (2022)] #14
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizaard, “Mycelium” [Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms and Lava (2022)] #13
Hour 2
Megadeth, “The Sick, The Dying…and the Dead!” [The Sick, the Dying…and the Dead! (2022)] #12
Van Morrison, “Dangerous” [What’s It Gonna Take? (2022)] #11
Chuck W. Chapman, “Sadie Hawkins Slam Dance” [Burn It Down (2022)] #10
Goo Goo Dolls, “Yeah, I Like You” [Chaos in Bloom (2022)] #9
Tedeschi Trucks Band, “Last Night in the Rain” [I Am the Moon: IV Farewell (2022)] #8
Here’s the playlist for the 12-11-2022 show, in which I talked about screening the Van Duren documovie, and ran overtime (but played Christmas at the Patti):
Here’s the playlist for 12-4-2022, in which I notably did not play a tribute to Wilko Johnson, have Anthony Gomes as a featured artist, but did play the Top 25 (part one) and Christmas at the Patti (part one):
Hour 1
The Clarks, “I Want You Bad” [Rewind (2015)]
The Kinks, “Give the People What They Want” [Give the People What They Want (1981)]
Van Duren, “Oh Babe” [Are You Serious? (1978)]
Thor, “Gonna Have A Rockin’ Christmas” [Christmas in Valhalla (2021)]
The Toms, “Fake Christmas” [Fake Christmas single (2007)]
New Music Express
Richard Dawson, “The Tip of an Arrow” [The Ruby Card (2022)]
White Lung, “Hysteric” [Premonition (2022)]
White Lung, “Under Glass” [Premonition (2022)]
The Flashcubes, “Get the Message” [Get the Message single (2022)]
Hour 2 – New Music Express, continued
Dazy, “Out of Body” [Outofbody (2022)]
Dazy, “Deadline” [Outofbody (2022)]
Madness, “House of Fun (Live at the London Palladium 2021)” [The Get Up! (2022)]
Madness, “Our House (Live at the London Palladium 2021)” [The Get Up! (2022)]
Top 25 of 2022 (part one)
Nick Frater, “Dancing with a Gertrude” [Aerodrome Motel (2022)] #25
The Beths, “Expert in a Dying Field” [Expert in a Dying Field (2022)] #24
Librarians with Hickeys, “Ghost Singer” [Handclaps and Tambourines (2022) #23
Richard Barone, “Riki Tiki Tavi” [We All Shine On: Celebrating the Music of 1970 (2022)] #22
Jane Aire and the Belvederes, “Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache” [Jane Aire and the Belvederes (1979)]
Elvis Costello, “Penelope Halfpenny” [The Boy named If (2022)] #21
Nick Frater, “Buggin’ Out” [Buggin’ Out single (2022)] #20
Johnny Johnson and the Bandwagon, “Breaking Down the Walls of Heartache” [Breakin’ Down The Walls Of Heartache: 1968-1975 (1968/2008)]
Bull and the Matadors, “The Funky Judge” [Beg, Scream & Shout! The Big Ol’ Box Of ’60s Soul (1968/1997)]
Hour 3
The Three Wise Men, “Thanks For Christmas” [Thanks for Christmas single (1983)]
Ray Stevens, “The Annual Office Christmas Party” [Christmas Through a Different Window (1997)]
Stan Freberg, “Christmas Dragnet/Yulenet (Part 1/Part 2)” [The Very Best of Stan Freberg (1953/1998)
Live segment: Christmas at the Patti
Flying Aces, “Welcome to the Party” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
Ducks Deluxe, “Boogaloo Babe” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
The Jets, “My Way” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
The Jets, “Jambalaya” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
Plumb Crazy with Dave Edmunds, “Jingle Bells/Run Rudolph Run” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
Help Yourself with Deke Leonard, “Mona” [Christmas at the Patti (1973)]
Alex Chilton, “The Happy Song” [1970 (1985)]
Update (12-10-2022): The archive of the show had some PLP. I’ve replaced it with a better version.
