CINEMA SPOTLIGHT
HONEYDRIPPER
by Brittany Hogendorn
PG talks with Director John Sayles about Honeydripper, the guitar’s
place in history and its role in times of change
Sonny walking into
Harmony, Alabama
looking for work and,
hopefully, a spot to
play his guitar.
John Sayles is a busy man with the release of
his recent movie, Honeydripper. His 16th film
explores the dynamic nature of the South in
the 1950s, when people returning from the
war discovered communities dealing with
long-simmering conflicts over race and morality. The story is set in Harmony, Alabama,
where Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover) owns the
Honeydripper Lounge. To bring larger crowds
back into his bar, he is forced to transition
from the boogie-woogie and blues music that
once dominated popular culture to the newest trend in music: the guitar. Purvis barely
puts together enough money to hire the
famous Guitar Sam, a musician that gets the
town thinking about the Honeydripper again,
but when Sam doesn’t show, Purvis recruits
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the drifter and electric guitar-owning Sonny
Blake (Gary Clarke, Jr.).
Sayles did a tremendous amount of homework for the film. The independent director, whose only for-hire work was for Bruce
Springsteen, spoke with Premier Guitar about
the guitars used in the movie, guitarists that
inspired the film, directing guitarists Keb Mo’
and Clarke, Jr., and the role of music during
times of change.
On your website you talk about using film
to tell very important stories. Why did you
tell a story about a guitar?
Honeydripper really came out of this long
relationship I have with American music. I
have this feeling that we integrate, we move
across racial and ethnic lines in music before
anything else. Before people are really ready
to look each other in the eye, they’re listening
to each other. So music has been really important to American culture.
When I grew up, I listened to Top 40 radio
and didn’t ask any questions. In my mid-teens I started realizing that rock n’ roll came
from some place. That got me thinking about
what it was for the players when that solidbody electric guitar showed up – that little
bit of technology allowed the guitar player
to take the stage from the piano guy. All of
a sudden, you’ve got this guitar and more
