Evento

Film: The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes - Premiere!

Friday 05.14.2010, Doors at 7:00 PM, Starts at 7:30 PM, Ends at 10:30 PM, $7 / $5 for SPACE Members, All Ages
NOTE: Please arrive 15 minutes before the film begins to ensure a seat.

The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes is a documentary film that tells the story of Maine musician, record producer, and Bluegrass Pioneer, Al Hawkes. In 1956, Al founded the Event Records label with his wife Barbara and partner Richard Greeley. Al began recording musicians from New England and the Canadian Maritimes. From the late 1940s through the 1950s, he created some of the most highly regarded country, Bluegrass, and rockabilly recordings - including songs by Dick Curless, Lenny Breau (as a teenage guitar virtuoso), Curtis Johnson, Hal Lone Pine and Betty Cody, Don Stover, and the Lilly Brothers. Many of these artists were on the verge of national stardom, and many ultimately chose to not follow the path to Nashville but instead remained up north, creating a distinct regional sound on a distinctly independent label.

Through this film, we learn not only Al's personal story but that of rural New England music of the post-war era. As a teenager, Al built a small pirate radio station to broadcast the music created by his neighbors, recordings that survive today and provide a window into the aural traditions of the time. In the film, Al describes falling asleep to nightly AM radio transmissions from West Virginia and Cincinnati, which entwined with the sounds he heard performed around him in New England. So began a kind of cross-cultural exchange in which Al recorded country music by New England musicians, and the musicians travelled south to play on high-watt stations whose signals bounced off the ionosphere and transmitted their music throughout New England and eastern Canada.

The Eventful Life of Al Hawkes features photographs and archival recordings of music from 1950s-era New England, many never shared before. As Al works to save the thousands of recordings he has made in the past sixty years, we learn how vital our musical history is to understanding the culture of our region.

This film tells the story of how country music came home to Maine.