Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President
Republicans may have Elvis and Nixon in the White House, but Democrats have Jimmy Carter and Bob Dylan in the Georgia Governor’s Mansion, an encounter that one of the participants remembers as life-changing. (That would be Dylan.) It’s just one of countless remarkable relationships detailed in Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President.
Don’t be put off by the title that sounds like a Saturday Night Live sketch. This well-paced documentary is an excellent primer on Carter and his presidency, seen from the angle of his many connections with singers and musicians of all sorts. Carter counts Willie Nelson, Trish Yearwood and Garth Brooks, and Gregg Allman as personal friends, and they are just a few of the nearly two dozen interview subjects in the movie.
Veteran music doc filmmaker Mary Wharton artfully blends a deep trove of archival footage and photos with fresh interviews — including a couple with Carter and one with his son Chip — and recent peeks inside Carter’s Plains, Georgia, home. The film describes how fund-raising concerts and celebrity-led rallies during the 1976 presidential campaign, such as Jimmy Buffet flying to Carter’s rescue in Portland, Oregon, helped get Carter elected, and how he cultivated his musical connections in the White House and after.
Along the way, Wharton also reminds viewers that Carter’s was perhaps the last — if not the only — successful grassroots campaign for president, and how grace and humanity can be wielded to exercise the office’s power. Carter’s first words as president were to thank Gerald R. Ford, and he was paralyzed by the Iranian crisis in part because he didn’t want to put the hostages’ lives at risk.
Carter was a history-making politician in part because he was a Southerner who spoke out for racial justice and stood up to white supremacists, and his musical connections reflected his egalitarian convictions. One wonders what he thinks of the nation’s recent backsliding on these principles, and of the specter of an African-American musician running political interference for a race-baiting presidency. But that’s not the kind of documentary this is. Politicians outside Carter’s inner circle are not interviewed. Comparisons to current or recent office-holders are by implication only.
What’s evident throughout is that people dearly love this man for his innate goodness, and that his humility is backed by a toughness and determination that his demeanor disguises. There hasn’t been a lot of joy associated with the White House for quite some time, so it’s quite moving to see so many purely celebratory, politics-free moments unfold as part of one man’s presidency.
This is also a music documentary, of course, so expect fine clips of performances from the Allman Brothers, Charlie Daniels, Dylan, Buffett, Dizzy Gillespie, Lorretta Lynn, Bono, and many others — plus an uninterrupted verse from Aretha Franklin, whom one dare not reduce to snippets. There’s much to enjoy here, and history has rarely been so enjoyable to recapture, if only for 95 minutes.
Grade: A. Not rated, but PG equivalent. Now available to rent via fineartstheatre.com and grailmoviehouse.com
(Photo: Greenwich Entertainment)
