Re: [Harp-L] re: harp movies

[Colin Epstein <colin@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

I heard that Cooder covered most if not all of Maccchio's "playing,"  if 
I recall an old  Guitar Player interview correctly.  Cooder even 
complained about having to sync up to scenes where Macchio was just 
moving the slide around without any real clue to where it should go...  
Cooder also said he did almost all of Macchio's side of the "duel", 
except for Steve Vai playing the fancy classical stuff that trips up the 
Devil's player, who was played by Steve Vai, amusingly enough.  Of 
course the interview or my memory could well be inaccurate, but what 
Macchio's character plays definitely has that very distinctive Cooder 
slide sound.

To get back to harp content:  Along with Juke Logan and Frank Frost, the 
one and only Sonny Terry played on Crossroads too.  The lovely 
guitar/harp duet at the end of the film is Cooder and Terry playing some 
very nice stuff.  I owe that film for introducing the young know-nothing 
I was at the time to Terry's amazing work.

Also on the subject of harmonica movies, Sergio Leone's "Once Upon a 
time in the West" has Charles Bronson playing a gunfighter named 
"Harmonica" cause he plays one all the time.  It's definitely not 
Bronson doing the playing, as his miming and the track don't match at 
all, but the plaintive wailing that Ennio Morricone scored for the 
harmonica is pretty cool all the same.

Another fun case of an actor obviously not playing what he's "playing" 
is Chow Yun Fat in the great Hong Kong action flick "The Killer."  His 
contemplative hit man occaisionally plays sad tunes on a chromatic harp, 
and it's just Chow wiggling the harp aimlessly with some music laid in 
way after the fact.

--
Colin

Jp Pagán wrote:

> at the risk of turning this into guitar-l... it seems
> Arlen Roth coached Ralph Macchio on his guitar scenes
> for "Crossroads" and even played some?all?most? of the
> duel himself, with Macchio "finger-synching" over it
> (according to Roth). Ry Cooder, who did the score, was
> supposed to play the Devil's guitarist, Jack Butler,
> but they dropped him at the last minute and put Steve
> Vai in instead (i guess he looks more evil?). 
>
> harp content - John "Juke" Logan plays harp on the
> score, and Frank Frost appears in the juke-joint scene
> (i can't recall if he plays much though.)
>
> i'm not sure what other movies would be good harp
> films, but there was some harp on the recent Scorcese
> "Blues" series.
>
> it's really a shame no one's made a movie of the early
> Muddy/Rogers/Walter days (hint hint). i wonder who
> could play Walter?... ;)
>
>  --Jp
>
>
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