“Music Sung Blue” stars Hugh Jackman and Kate Hudson as real-life Milwaukee couple Mike and Claire Sardina, who made an area identify for themselves with their Neil Diamond tribute act Lightning & Thunder. Licensing using Diamond’s music would usually be job primary for Emmy-winning music supervisor Trygge Toven (“Fallout”), however on this case, Pearl Jam singer Eddie Vedder improbably paved the best way.
“It’s loopy, however I imagine Eddie initially helped get Neil on board with the documentary facet to get the rights,” mentioned Toven, referring to the 2008 Lightning & Thunder documentary, additionally titled “Music Sung Blue,” that impressed author/director Craig Brewer to remake the story as a song-packed characteristic movie.
For the scripted model, producer John Davis secured the licensing rights by calling in a giant favor — from his mother. “The story I’ve been advised is that John’s mom knew Neil Diamond, so he requested her to get his blessings. I nonetheless needed to clear the non-Neil Diamond songs, however the remainder of it was taken care of earlier than I obtained concerned.”
With the music rights secured, the movie’s Memphis-based government producer/composer Scott Bomar reserved studio time at the close by Sam Phillips Recording Service after monitoring down Nashville guitarist Richard Bennett, who’d toured with Diamond for 18 years and knew the songwriter’s repertoire in and out. “When [Richard] got here in and performed on all the Neil Diamond songs, it was unimaginable,” Bomar mentioned. “Each guitar half gave the impression of a file. I attribute a variety of the nice suggestions we’ve been attending to what Richard contributed.”
Bomar, who had beforehand labored with the actors to determine the proper key for “Candy Caroline,” “Holly Holy,” “I Am, I Mentioned,” “Cherry Cherry,” and different Diamond classics, then supervised a crew of Memphis musicians, together with a three-piece horn part, to file recent preparations of the Neil Diamond catalog, often impressed by the songwriter’s 1971 double album “Sizzling August Nights.”
With the backing tracks in place, Scott traveled to Los Angeles’s Village Recorders. There, he produced Kate Hudson belting out nation hits “Strolling After Midnight” and “Candy Desires,” since Claire had been a Patsy Cline impersonator earlier than becoming a member of forces with Jackman’s Mike. Bomar recalled, “Kate got here in very warmed up as a result of she’d just lately made her album ‘Wonderful’ and had performed a few festivals. Not simply anybody can do justice to a Patsy Cline music, however Kate has pure vocal potential and a pure really feel. She’s actually obtained it.”
Subsequent, Hudson, Bomar, Toven, and director Brewer joined Jackman at SST Recording in Weehawken, New Jersey, the place Michael Imperioli had already laid down his vocals because the film’s resident Buddy Holly impersonator. “Michael performs guitar, and he’s actually good,” Bomar mentioned. “He’s obtained his personal band in New York.”
In New Jersey, Jackman, who’s been singing professionally since showing in “Oklahoma” on the age of 25, moved by way of his solo numbers, together with the title music, with minimal fuss. The large problem got here in reworking Diamond’s songs into duets. Bomar mentioned, “At first of this venture, one of many issues Craig tasked me with was, ‘We now have to get Claire (Kate) in there with Hugh singing these songs as a lot as potential.’ The primary one I went to was ‘Candy Caroline.’ That’s the massive hit everyone is aware of so let’s have a look and consider it as a duet. When I learn the lyrics, I’m like, this music works good as a duet! Hugh can take this verse, and Kate can take that verse, after which they’ll sing the choruses collectively.”
As soon as filming started, Jackman and Hudson sang reside on set to the “prerecords” piped in by way of in-ear listening units. Bomar and his crew captured the vocals with hidden lavalier microphones and a growth mic. Toven mentioned, “Hugh and Kate had to understand how they sang within the studio, however they are totally singing. That’s all the time one of the simplest ways to do it, I imagine, as a result of in case you’re simply mouthing alongside, you’re gonna see that.”
Nailing large feelings whereas tethered to millisecond-specific precision isn’t any simple activity, Toven mentioned. On set, “Craig’s watching the efficiency, Scott and I are there to ensure the guitar half is sensible, that the background drummer is proper, and their mouths are proper for what they’re singing. All these components must match.”
To make the move between dialogue and musical efficiency seem seamless, Scott needed to intensively prep the actors. “I made fairly just a few movies proper right here the place I’d get a guitar out and file myself enjoying,” Bomar mentioned, talking from his house in Memphis. “I’d ship the movies to Hugh and to Michael Imperioli so they may research what the fingers are purported to appear to be, to a tee. Similar with Kate. I’d level the digital camera to present the place the 2 fingers ought to be on the keyboard. Hugh had a guitar on set all of the time, Kate had a keyboard in her trailer — we had been always working to get them to a spot the place they felt good about what they had been doing on display with the music. It wasn’t like we made the music, gave it to them, and mentioned, ‘Good luck.’”
The homework paid off in considered one of Bomar’s favourite sequences, early within the film, when Mike’s (Jackman) strumming an acoustic guitar and singing “Cherry, Cherry” in Claire’s lounge. Hudson/Claire plunks just a few notes on the funky upright piano to echo the music’s iconic bass riff. Then, she shifts to an affordable digital keyboard, and collectively they segue into “Play Me.” Bomar mentioned, “Once I watch the film with an viewers, that appears to be one of many sequences that folks react to the strongest as a result of it has a lot emotion.”
Within the remaining combine, Jackman and Hudson’s vocals usually emerged as a “hybrid” of reside on-set performances and in-studio singing, Bomar mentioned, relying on which takes greatest captured the guts and soul of the onscreen second. As for Jackman’s potential to channel Neil Diamond’s persona, Bomar mentioned, “Solely Neil can do Neil, proper? I imply, there’s just one Neil, however I feel we obtained as shut as we might.”
And apart from, as Jackman’s “Mike” proudly insists all through the film, he doesn’t consider himself as being a Neil Diamond impersonation. “It’s an interpretation.”
“Music Sung Blue” is now in theaters.
