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Jimmie Rodgers Wild West Runaway Train: A Medicine Show with Music, Documentaries and & Book Signings, Streaming Multimedia Events COMING TO DOWNTOWN SAN ANTONIO DURING THE JIMMIE RODGERS TEXAS MUSIC/FILM FESTIVAL SEPTEMBER 5-8, 2020
Benford Standley Producer/Director of the upcoming documentary Jimmie Rodgers Saga is planning a World Premiere beyond anything seen in the modern era of movie previews or premieres taking place at the Majestic Theater during the first annual JIMMIE RODGERS MUSIC FESTIVAL in downtown San Antonio, Texas. This initial event will flashback 90 years to the year 1929 when Jimmie Rodgers, one of the top stars of radio and records actually opened the historic Majestic Theater in San Antonio, Texas. The Jimmie Rodgers Wild West Runaway Train (WWRT) Medicine Show and Motion Picture Preview harkens back in time with a reenactment of the original RKO (Radio-Keith-Oberson) Vaudeville Tour where Jimmie was the headline act, when the vaudeville troupe opened the Majestic Theater on Houston Street, with a 4-day run and where he received 18 curtain calls at the opening show. The touring vaudeville show was part of the Keith-Albee chain and associated with the RKO (movie) Corp., and David Sarnoff who was with RKO and Pres. of RCA (Rodgers' record label), where the chain was tied to the operation of the Majestic Theater. This event, a multimedia multi-platform production will stream into cyberspace worldwide. Jimmie Rodgers aka "The Father of Country Music” the only man in history to be inducted into the Rock, Blues, Country, Songwriter and Grammy Halls of Fame, plus receive the W.C. Handy Blues Award. 2017 he'd receive the Lifetime Achievement Grammy in LA. On his plaque at the Country Music Hall of Fame it says, The Man That Started It All. It's been said that everybody was influenced by him whether they know it or not. The Jimmie Rodgers Saga documentary is currently in post-production under the direction of Joel Cox, ACE, 42+ years with and still editor for Clint Eastwood and his company Malpaso Productions. We will be shooting some of the reenactments at the WWRT Show. Interviews included in the JR Saga are with Merle Haggard, Willie Nelson, Tanya Tucker, Buck Owens, Toby Keith, Kris Kristofferson, Les Paul, David Frizzell, Aaron Neville, Ramblin' Jack Elliott, David Ball, Steve Earle, Rosanne Cash, Bobby Bare, Dickey Betts, Amos Lee and so many more. Produced and Directed by Benford Standley in association with the Jimmie Rodgers Family. The WILD WEST RUNAWAY TRAIN at the Majestic is a live musical with a digital century twist, a cow chips to computer chips vaudeville-style extravaganza combined with the preview of the Jimmie Rodgers "talkie" documentary... in Hollywood dialect "It's a medicine show meets rag opera tent show and movie preview in a vaudeville theater staging, where our MC snake doctor brings out his troupe of vaudevillians to gather him a crowd, that being our audience who will be transported through the history of the entertainment business and to a Hollywood red carpet preview of a documentary on the moving picture screen and a “kick out the footlights stage show" that will be a true integrated musical multimedia theatrical dime museum experience. The musical play with concert performances is presented in gonzo vaudevillian style with many of the cast being the actual founders of the Austin Outlaw Gonzo music scene and all presented with sound and lighting precision as a concert motion picture theatrical musical stage show like never seen before... The multimedia event will be filmed and streamed live and virtually live worldwide. Step right up “It's a really big shew! The show will be staged to film for a promotional reel and some reenactments that will go in the 2020 release of the Jimmie Rodgers Saga and the planned biopic movie. The overall project includes an online eBook, a streaming documentary and/or digital media production, and a late 2020/21 biopic feature release titled Jimmie Rodgers: The Man That Started It All. During the week we will be filming in San Antonio, Kerrville and Austin. A Multimedia-Multiplatform Digital Experimental Theater Musical and Movie Preview Beyond the cutting edge it's a digital media sword that's cutting digital media tracks streaming to the world... ACT 1- THE MEDICINE SHOW ERA - The key prop and set design will be with be a medicine wagon of a late 1880tys western town with dirt street. Enter- our medicine wagon huckster who will entertain the audience with members of our performing cast. Background screen projection adds to the set. ACT 2- THE TENT SHOW ERA - The key prop and set design will be a small stage surrounded by tent canvas to give the appearance of a old time rag-opera, canvas playhouse as they were called. The cast will again bring on the variety in ole time tent show fashion. Projection added. ACT 3- THE VAUDEVILLE ERA - We will bring the house band to the stage to back a few of the “A-list” entertainers and the pace of the show will pick up and have the feel of a true vaudeville variety show extravaganza. ACT 4- THE JR SAGA DOCUMENTARY PREVIEW - We will show the preview screening of part of the JIMMIE RODGERS SAGA Documentary Film with following Q & A with producer, cast, authors and led by historian Bobby Bridger. The birth of this production is based on the serendipity that Rodgers not only lived in San Antonio the last three years of his life, bought a house in Alamo Heights, had a weekly radio program for a couple of years and recorded in San Antonio for RCA, plus had a suite at the Gunter Hotel where the great actor and humorist Will Rogers also had a suite off and on. In 1931 Will and Jimmie teamed up to do a benefit music tour that helped save the Red Cross from bankruptcy, being it was during the middle of the Great Depression and add the historic Dust Bowl that had blown across the land with thousands dying. After a visit to the Gunter, Benford finds out that Robert Johnson who was a huge Rodgers fan had a recording session in room #414 of the hotel in 1936, three years after Rodgers' death and was produced by Don Law who would in 1951 produce Lefty Frizzell's tribute album to Jimmie Rodgers. Reading about the RKO Vaudeville Show that opened the theater the idea for the show began to develop based on the 1929 show at the Majestic where there were live performances by banjoist Mexican Troubadour Don Galvan, aka The Banjo Boy, an acrobatic group called the Seven Nelsons, Eddie Sauer and his Syncopators (jazz players) and others from the tour. Being this was the era when audiences were seeing vaudeville shows share the stage with the evolving motion picture business, William Fox, founder of Fox Movietime screened his new "sound on film" movie Follies of 1929. The film had multicolor sequence in its original release, as well as being filmed in the experimental grandeur wide screen. At this point in history we are seeing the two mediums of vaudeville and movies collide, also 90 years ago this show was benefiting a foster children program in San Antonio. This event is dedicated to Jimmie Rodgers and my
friend Merle Haggard. Since both Jimmie and Merle were
runaway kids, Merle and I dreamed some years back about
dedicating a project to runaway, homeless, missing and throwaway
children and youth in America. I am using this event to sponsor
a mini symposium at the Gunter Hotel with some State and
National leaders dealing with children and youth issues. With
the focus importantly on runaway, homeless, and those in the
cracks of sexual trafficking. All with hopes that in the spirit
of Live Aid, Farm Aid, We are The World and other events
held to draw attention and raise proceeds to help those in need.
Proceeds from this WILD WEST RUNAWAY TRAIN will go to help the
Roy Maas Youth Alternative Program of San Antonio. In
addition, we want to point to the Texas Youth Hotline,
program out of the Texas Governor’s office that has been saving
the lives of these kids in Texas and around the country since
1972. There will be much more released on this
mid-September. “We are in a Renaissance of documentaries. People are realizing that there is as much drama in what is and what was as anything the human imagination can dream up.” Ken Burns, Sept. 2018
Buffalo Benford Multimedia, LLC Benford Standley, Creator/Director/Producer westmultimedia @gmail.com
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