ARKANSAS WEEKLY REVIEW

Rob Grace from the ARKANSAS WEEKLY recently gave me a heads-up that he had written about SONG SUNG BLUE for next week's issue. Check it out:

ARKANSAS WEEKLY

January 8, 2009

by Rob Grace

There’s always been something appealing, yet quirky, to me about Neil Diamond. I can’t quite put my finger on it. There was an element of cheese in his mid-1970s look: open, big collared shirts; the scarves and sequins he sometimes wore; and, of course, that big hair that only Elvis probably envied. In fact, in his prime, Diamond was pegged as the “Jewish Elvis.”

However, unlike Elvis, Diamond wrote (and still writes) most of his songs, and though the ones the veer into schmaltz make me want to drive off a cliff (prime examples: “You Don’t Bring Me Flowers” and “Heartlight,” a song about E.T. for heaven’s sake!), the man has an impressive library of tunes that can still thrill a listener like me: “Sweet Caroline,” “Cherry, Cherry,” “Shilo,” “I Am…I Said,” and my personal fave, “Forever in Blue Jeans.” Sure, they’re pure pop – ditties that quickly please and nothing more.

Mike Sardina would definitely disagree with my assessment of Diamond. Slightly trivializing Neil Diamond would likely be blasphemous in his book, somewhat akin to a person degrading Bruce Springsteen in my book. Sardina, a Vietnam veteran from Milwaukee and almost a mirror image of Diamond in both looks and sound, he supported himself through his musical talents, playing in bands around Milwaukee. His nickname was Lightning. 

In the late 1980s, he met a pretty singer named Claire who could belt out Patsy Cline and ABBA covers like no other Mike had ever heard, and to top things off, there was some electricity immediately apparent between them. To state the obvious: Lightning struck and found his Thunder. That’s the stage name Claire chose when the two decided to perform as a duo. And there they were: Lightning and Thunder (because, after all, lightning comes before thunder) performing at fairs, parties and clubs throughout Milwaukee and Chicago -- Mike channeling the spirit of Diamond in almost eerie replication, and Claire doing her ABBA and Cline material with a gusto that would impress the most jaded audience.

A few years later, a filmmaker named Greg Kohs came across Lightning and Thunder’s act at, of all places, a Harley-Davidson event. Intrigued by the incredibly positive reaction of the crowd of bikers, Kohs decided to turn his video camera loose on the career of Lightning and Thunder as they paid their dues, lived their lives off the stage and raised Claire’s sometimes rambunctious two kids from another marriage. It’s captured all in Kohs’ documentary, Song Sung Blue, which has been playing at film festivals across the country for the past few months.

The camera catches the homegrown celebrity status that envelops Mike and Claire in the early to mid-1990s, and in one glorious scene, we see the point when Lightning and Thunder play “Forever in Blue Jeans” in front of 30,000-plus people – their biggest audience – with Pearl Jam’s Eddie Vedder on back-up vocals. Vedder had heard about the local celebrities when his band made a stop in Milwaukee and invited them onstage. It would’ve been the highlight of Lightning and Thunder’s career.

Then…

Then one day tragedy hit. A runaway van slammed into Mike and Claire’s house, pinning Claire against the porch, resulting in the partial amputation of her leg. Gigs came to a standstill during her recuperation. Painkillers, overdue bills and painful frustration accumulated. The potential of making a living off-stage for Lighting and Thunder came knocking at their door. And answering that door meant the abandonment of their passion and dreams in show business.

Song Sung Blue takes an agonizing look at the hard knocks Mike and Claire endure as their lives are drastically changed, not just by Claire’s accident, but by other health issues, their crumbling finances, their strained relationship with the two kids and the disturbingly stubborn decision by Mike to pin all of their hopes on the unlikely resurrection of Lightning and Thunder. 

The film is also a love story because even through the heartache and disillusionment, Lightning and Thunder still stand by each other as the years drag by. More surprises, both painful and joyous, reveal themselves through the film, and in an incredibly touching way, Vedder even figures back in their journey. The night Lighting and Thunder caught the attention of Kohs was a blessing. Emotionally raw and uncomfortable it may be at times, the ultimate joy of Song Sung Blue is witnessing the love these two have for each other on the rough path life takes them.

Unfortunately, viewing Song Sung Blue is somewhat of a tough thing these days. It doesn’t have a theatrical or DVD distributor, meaning the only place you can likely catch it is at a film festival that is screening it. I found out about the movie by reading Roger Ebert’s website where the critic gave it favorable review and was puzzled why a distributor had yet to pick it up. I e-mailed Kohs, and he kindly loaned me a DVD of the film when I expressed interest in writing about the movie.

I’m hoping Song Sung Blue finds its way into theatres because there’s no doubt the movie will touch many people. It’s a film that belongs in the company of the great documentaries of the past ten or twenty years.

***

By the way, after Neil Diamond saw the film, he gladly allowed Kohs to utilize his music (as performed by Lighting and Thunder) in the movie.