STREETLIGHT HARMONIES | Official HD Trailer (2020) | MUSIC DOCUMENTARY |
From the moment this documentary begins, we’re in a world where music has the power to transport us, to take us away from the pains, the hurts, the terror. And seriously, with coronovirus raging daily, this is a story that will calm your heart. It’s the story of In the Still of the Night, Smokey Robinson, La La Brooks, Come and Go with Me, Frankie Lymon, and so much more—a time when singers didn’t need a band and a time when musicians who couldn’t afford to buy instruments took to the street corner and sang their souls out.
Doo-wop, street-corner music, the kind of harmony that just feels good. And the documentary takes us through its history while giving us the flavors of the many people who paved the way for today’s artists. It also shows the power of music to affect social mpvements. In this case, do-wop aided in ushering the Civil Rights movement.
Certainly we get do-wop’s roots through a variety of storytellers. Crystals’ Singer La La Brooks says, “When I was in gospel I learned how to hum before I learned how to sing.” The film taps into do-wop’s spiritual, blues, rock n’ roll, and hip hop history. Doo-wop is not so easy to describe, but it is easy to spot, always captured in the fresh energy, the spontaneous sound as if it was just birthed that moment.
The storytellers in Streetlight are accompanied by wonderful black and white clips of historical scenes, some old footage, some personal memories, all from different cities across the country, but many from Brooklyn, the heart of much of the music. Underscoring all the imagery is a continual music track that shows how memorable the music was and how much it coursed through the veins of the country.
Many of the narrators might be unknown names (at least to some of us), but that doesn’t mean that folks like 10 time grammy winner Claude McKnight and Rock n’ Roll fame inductee Anthony Gourdine (Little Anthony and the Imperials) don’t have a rich history. In fact, one of the charms of this documentary is that the narrators educate us, while keeping us in the spell of the Mills Brothers or the Ink Spots and not sounding a bit didactic.
The film takes us through many of the music’s motivators. “Everybody was trying to get out,” says music composer, Jeff Barry (And Then he Kissed Me). Janis Siegel, another 10 time grammy winner, says since everybody was broke: “If you wanted to make some money, you had to imitate the instruments.”
Harmony sounded better on the streetcorner, in the hallways, and in the subways. It was comraderie, and the “coming together of a bunch of guys,” singing their hearts out.
What is interesting is that the songwriters were kids writing for kids. It was, however, a new form of music. White kids picked up what the Black kids did, i.e. music is “the great uniter.” And the white kids, in particular, were Italian-Americans who often lived near the African-American communities. They took songs and spun their own version of the harmonies. Enter Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, for example.
One of the highpoints, for me, was seeing what it was like for African-Americans in singing groups from the North when they toured the South. La La Brooks as a very young teen talks about playing the South and experiencing racism–she was 13 and shocked at what she experienced–“I’m not good enough for you to like me as a person even though I’m good enough for you to like me as a performer?”
Others say they had to go to back rooms to eat; they slept on floors in backstreet motels; they couldn’t sit at counters and order; there were guns all around them and threats not to “look at white girls.” In some situations they had to sing, facing the wall; they were not allowed to sing to white people. Many never got the money they deserved for their work. But finally as the years progressed, and integration swept the country, mixed crowds were drawn to this music, and from what some of the narrators in the film tell us, lifted their spirits as they performed.
It took a while for female groups to get going, but in the late 50’s there were finally the Clickettes, the Crystals, the Blossoms, the Chantels—and many more. These were women who struggled with sexism as well as racism and still, followed their passion. The singers juggled kids and careers, and in the music business, they tell us, that for mothers, it was particularly tough touring without their children.
The documentary ends with a group sing including many “oldsters” who still have the pizazz and some young rising stars who are carrying on the doo-wop. The people who lived and breathed this music want us to remember them, to remember their power, their love for each other, their struggles, and what they gave us: the music. The final song just knocked me out, but I’ll leave it for you to discover. But I will say that final scene shows rwhy this rich legacy continues.
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Starring La La Brooks (The Crystals), Vito Picone (The Elegants), Charlie Thomas (The Drifters), Jimmy Merchant (The Teenagers), Lois Powell (The Chantels), Lance Bass, Brian McKnight. Directed by Brent Wilson.
Streetlight Harmonies will be available on demand on March 31, 2020.
