"It was the journey of a lifetime, it's something I will carry with me for the rest of my life." Sitdown with Tamara Saviano
Guy Clark is one of the singer/songwriters, where no introduction is needed. It's through his presences, songs and tales that speak of who he was. The Texas native captured his audience through his art of storytelling. With nearly 20 albums released and a handful of songs covered by country performers like Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, Mel Tills, to name a few.
On March 18th, a full-length documentary about Clark's life and career, "Without Getting Killed or Caught," is set to premiere at this year's SXSW, all in a while, special showcases celebrating the Texas music giant by his friends, collaborators and fans with live Q&A and conversations with Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Kix Brooks, Sarah Jarosz, plus more.. (Tickets available via this link)
After last year postponement of the release, Tamara Saviano sat down for an interview via zoom to talk about the debut of the documentary "It was supposed to happen last year at SXSW, and of course it was cancelled, and we've made the decision not to put the film out last year and wait to see if we could get back into SXSW again." Continuing, "Not knowing whether there would even be any kind of festival, but it was important to me that if we could get in that we debut at SXSW, because of the Texas connection and everybody in our film is from Texas and we made out film largely in Texas. So, that was important for us. So, I'm thrilled that it worked out." Co-produced with Paul Whitefield and co-written with Bartt Knaggs, Saviano and her team worked on the project for nearly 6 years to reach their designated goal. "It was a difficult project in many ways, much more default than I thought it will be going in. If I had known how difficult it would be, I would not have done it. So there is a big sigh of relief, but we're also very proud of the film."
On March 18th, a full-length documentary about Clark's life and career, "Without Getting Killed or Caught," is set to premiere at this year's SXSW, all in a while, special showcases celebrating the Texas music giant by his friends, collaborators and fans with live Q&A and conversations with Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Kix Brooks, Sarah Jarosz, plus more.. (Tickets available via this link)
After last year postponement of the release, Tamara Saviano sat down for an interview via zoom to talk about the debut of the documentary "It was supposed to happen last year at SXSW, and of course it was cancelled, and we've made the decision not to put the film out last year and wait to see if we could get back into SXSW again." Continuing, "Not knowing whether there would even be any kind of festival, but it was important to me that if we could get in that we debut at SXSW, because of the Texas connection and everybody in our film is from Texas and we made out film largely in Texas. So, that was important for us. So, I'm thrilled that it worked out." Co-produced with Paul Whitefield and co-written with Bartt Knaggs, Saviano and her team worked on the project for nearly 6 years to reach their designated goal. "It was a difficult project in many ways, much more default than I thought it will be going in. If I had known how difficult it would be, I would not have done it. So there is a big sigh of relief, but we're also very proud of the film."
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The concept of making a documentary about Clark's career happened while Saviano was working on Clark's biography under the same title, "Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark," published in 2016 via Texas A&M University Pressing. Saviano comprehensive research on Clark's work and life gained significant success in the music world, which led to her receiving The Belmont Award for best music writing in 2016 at the International Country Music Conference. However, when the idea writing a book about Clark's career, she was not sure what his reaction might be "I talked to Guy first, and he said, I'm in, right away! And that surprised me. I didn't think he would be interested." to her surprise Clark was ready to talk "I said, OK, I'm going to come back in two weeks with my first list of questions. And if I don't feel like you're opening up to me, we'll just scrap the whole idea, and he said, OK, that's fair." As planned, Savanio arrived two weeks later at Clark's house, with questions, a tape recorder and the assumption anything can happen. "So I came back two weeks later, and the first question I asked him was about the turquoise ring that he wore. That's in pretty much every picture you see of him." (Insert picture) continuing, "He told me that story, which, of course, has to do with Susanne sister Bunny, who at that time was Guy's girlfriend who committed suicide. So that told me all I needed to know that he was willing to open up and go down this rabbit hole with me." Building up the book, Clark was cooperative. Adding Clark was never reluctant to help her, "He was never hesitant. Two days after Susanna died, he gave me all of Susanna's diaries without ever reading them or listening to the tapes. So he let me dig through every corner of his house."
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Susanna Clark, Guy's wife, was a renowned songwriter herself and painter, whose artwork has previously appeared on album covers like Guy Clark's 1975 influential debut Old no.1, Willie Nelson's Stardust and Emmylou Harris Quarter Moon in a Ten Cent Town. Together with her husband, Guy and Susanna created a haven for artists in their Nashville home throughout the 1970s. Susanna was a muse to a generation of songwriters and storytellers like Townes Van Zandt, Steve Earle and Rodney Crowell. As a songwriter, her songs were covered by Kathy Mattea, Emmylou Harris, Miranda Lambert, among many others while her first national songwriting hit was "I'll Be Your San Antonio Rose." covered by Dottsy. |
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Operating as Guy's PR and building a friendship with both, ultimately working on a project where there is a personal attachment only pushed Saviano forward to honour both Susanna and Guy Clark "My relationship with them is what drove me to keep going and not give up, because I really wanted to honour them, and Guy trusted me with his story. So I really wanted to get this film finished." According to Saviano, the making of the film was the easiest. Yet, she continued to push forward and make her vision come true, "Making the film was difficult all along, I think any other filmmaker would agree, it's really difficult to make a film and then add on top of it that going back in time to the 60s and 70s." Unlike nowadays, we can capture nearly every minute of our lives with our phones and telling the story of 3 trailblazers, Guy, Susanna and Townes Van Zandt, who barely took photographs, was quite a struggle. "Finding images that went with the story was difficult, because Guy, Susanna and Towns they weren't taking pictures and filming everything the way we do now with our phones." Instead, the team decided to use a visual artist Mel Chin who was friends with all 3 in the 70s. Chin bought the story to life with his drawings. "Mel Chin was friends with Guy and Townsend Susanna back in the 70s, and he is now a world-renowned artist. But we asked him to kind of go back in time and use those simple drawings that he had done back in the 70s to illustrate those scenes in our film." continuing, "it was just difficult to piece together every segment and write a script that could tell the story in 90 minutes."
Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek was one of many appearing in the documentary alongside Clark's friends that include artists like Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Verlon Thompson and Terry and Jo Harvey Allen. However, Spacek role was a little different from the rest. Known for her Academy Award role as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miners Daughter, the Texas native narrated Susanna Clark's voice. "One day, my husband and I were just having breakfast, and all of a sudden, I just had this lightning bolt in my head. I yelled out loud, Sissy Spacek, as Susanna! Paul was looking at me like, What are you talking about? And I just had this gut feeling that she had to be Susanna. So I went, and I bought her autobiography that day. And while I was reading it, I found out that Sissy and Susanna grew up one hundred miles apart in East Texas." While the dots were indeed connecting for Saviano, she found out Spacek had recorded an album while in Nashville during the filming. To her surprise, the credited producer was Rodney Crowell. "So I called Rodney, and Rodney said, not only did I produce that album, there's a Susanna Clark song on that album! There were just all these connections. And it just I think, you know, that it was like a lightning bolt coming from Susanna Clark telling me that Sissy needed to be her in the film." with the full-circle moment, bringing Sissy on board was not part of the plan was to have Susanna's niece narrate the artist's voice "It wasn't part of the plan. And we actually were going to use Susanna Clark's niece to do the narration. But it worked out beautifully. We were really happy that Sissy. We took her to the studio, and she just became Susanna before our eyes. It was really wonderful."
Award-winning actress Sissy Spacek was one of many appearing in the documentary alongside Clark's friends that include artists like Rodney Crowell, Steve Earle, Verlon Thompson and Terry and Jo Harvey Allen. However, Spacek role was a little different from the rest. Known for her Academy Award role as Loretta Lynn in Coal Miners Daughter, the Texas native narrated Susanna Clark's voice. "One day, my husband and I were just having breakfast, and all of a sudden, I just had this lightning bolt in my head. I yelled out loud, Sissy Spacek, as Susanna! Paul was looking at me like, What are you talking about? And I just had this gut feeling that she had to be Susanna. So I went, and I bought her autobiography that day. And while I was reading it, I found out that Sissy and Susanna grew up one hundred miles apart in East Texas." While the dots were indeed connecting for Saviano, she found out Spacek had recorded an album while in Nashville during the filming. To her surprise, the credited producer was Rodney Crowell. "So I called Rodney, and Rodney said, not only did I produce that album, there's a Susanna Clark song on that album! There were just all these connections. And it just I think, you know, that it was like a lightning bolt coming from Susanna Clark telling me that Sissy needed to be her in the film." with the full-circle moment, bringing Sissy on board was not part of the plan was to have Susanna's niece narrate the artist's voice "It wasn't part of the plan. And we actually were going to use Susanna Clark's niece to do the narration. But it worked out beautifully. We were really happy that Sissy. We took her to the studio, and she just became Susanna before our eyes. It was really wonderful."
Kicking off the virtual screening events starting at the 28th with Rodney Crowell and Saviano herself hosting a live Q&A. One of the people, however, who caught our attention was Kix Brooks, who will be hosting a showcase on April 25th. With Brooks background in mainstream country music not necessarily as similar as the scheduled guests who are predominantly from the singer/songwriter/ Americana scene, "Well, we did that intentionally, Kix Brooks is a big Guy Clark fan, and I've known that for a long time and we wanted to make sure that people that are more tuned in the mainstream country had a chance to see the film and knew about our film because Guy and Susanna [Clark] wrote songs that ended up being recorded by more mainstream artists." adding "We just felt like we wanted to make sure that audience was served, and Kix seem like the perfect person because he hosts this radio show "American Country Countdown", which is nationally distributed in the US, so it just seemed like he was a good fit." in fact, Brooks was all in when he was approached "We reached out and asked him if he would be interested and he immediately said yes! We're happy to have Kix. "
Both Kix Brooks and Steve Earle's dates are timed especially for Europe audiences - Tickets available via this link
Today, Saviano is not worried about expectations instead she's excited to share the last 6 years of hard work with the world "I don't really have an expectation in mind. It's our way to really kick off the film release and involve guys, friends and people that were influenced by Guy and a lot of us." Despite it not begin the premiere they've planned for "Having not been vaccinated yet, so we're still going to be home for a few months, so it was like let's try to do something in this in-between time when a lot of people still are stuck at home and they can watch the film and see this discussion from their home." Yet, there is a horizon. Saviano and her team recently had announced new dates for in-person screening, starting with May 19th at Austin's Laguna Gloria, which would be the 6th anniversary since Clark's passing, "The timing just ended up it wasn't planned to be that way, but the Austin Film Society got in touch with me and they wanted to do this event. And it's going to be an outdoor event at this beautiful sculpture garden in Austin called Laguna Gloria." adding, "It just so happens that guy's friend, Terry Allen, who's the sculptor, has a sculpture at Laguna Gloria, and they have an amphitheatre there. So we thought it would be a fun, safe way to have our first in-person screening." Praising The Austin Film Society for their continued support, "It just seemed like a great way to kick off the real-life celebration I'm looking forward to it. That'll be our first know. Maybe we'll even be able to hug people by then. Who knows exactly how goes." When asked if there are musical surprises in place, "We don't have anything specifically planned, but we are talking about that, yes, that's very exciting."
While the question of whether the film will be available on-demand, it then the answer is yes "We're going to have it available on-demand on our own website. So anybody in the world can go to our website and buy a ticket and watch it on demand. We don't have all the particulars." Further adding, "I don't know if we're going to have like a one-day rental or two-day rental or we don't have that worked out yet. But it will be available worldwide on our website on demand to watch. We'll do that this year and then maybe next year, depending on how it's going," When asked if the film will ever join any streaming services, "For the first year, I don't want it to get lost in the black hole of Netflix or Amazon. You go there, and there's just so many thousands of things to watch, and I don't want to do that. I want people to be able to find our film specifically and just be able to go to our site and watch it."
Concluding our conversation about the highlight of directing, producing and writing a film for the first time, Saviano said, "I think the biggest one is just my time with Guy, between the book and the film at the same time produced a tribute album on him. In between all of that, I was over at Guy's house several times a week, and we worked, we worked a lot.
But sometimes, I would just go over there and sit at the kitchen table with him, and he would drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, and we would just talk about life. When I look back on it, those are the things that I take away as the highlight is just that time sitting with Guy. Working on the film too, when we went out and shoot."
Co-produced with Shawn Camp and herself, This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark ended up being nominated for a Grammy on the year of its release in 2011 while winning Album of The Year at The Americana Music Association Awards "He was really proud. And he loved the record. So I think it was a very beautiful record." Yet, unlike the book and documentary with Clark's involvement, Saviano made sure his input was included at the same time not overly influence the concept project, "I was trying to make my own art with this album, in this book and the film, I didn't want Guy to influence it. I wanted him to cooperate but not really influence it. But he did. I mean, I brought as we were recording the tracks he would listen to when he made comments for sure. You know, it was fun. It was it was great." Reflecting on her favourite memories about the documentary, including the filming process in Texas, "We shot in Texas, we went to Guy's hometown of Rockport, we went to Luckenbach, and we shot in Austin, that was really fun like it was fun with the crew and all that, so that I have good memories of that. And, of course, interviewing Guy's friends was fun. So it wasn't all work. It was there were moments that were truly fun." returning to Guy "While still working on the film, I knew that he wasn't going to be alive for the book to come out. He was quite sick. So he really extremely generous about just opening his heart to me, opening his life to me, and it was the journey of a lifetime. It's something I will carry with me for the rest of my life."
But sometimes, I would just go over there and sit at the kitchen table with him, and he would drink coffee and smoke cigarettes, and we would just talk about life. When I look back on it, those are the things that I take away as the highlight is just that time sitting with Guy. Working on the film too, when we went out and shoot."
Co-produced with Shawn Camp and herself, This One's for Him: A Tribute to Guy Clark ended up being nominated for a Grammy on the year of its release in 2011 while winning Album of The Year at The Americana Music Association Awards "He was really proud. And he loved the record. So I think it was a very beautiful record." Yet, unlike the book and documentary with Clark's involvement, Saviano made sure his input was included at the same time not overly influence the concept project, "I was trying to make my own art with this album, in this book and the film, I didn't want Guy to influence it. I wanted him to cooperate but not really influence it. But he did. I mean, I brought as we were recording the tracks he would listen to when he made comments for sure. You know, it was fun. It was it was great." Reflecting on her favourite memories about the documentary, including the filming process in Texas, "We shot in Texas, we went to Guy's hometown of Rockport, we went to Luckenbach, and we shot in Austin, that was really fun like it was fun with the crew and all that, so that I have good memories of that. And, of course, interviewing Guy's friends was fun. So it wasn't all work. It was there were moments that were truly fun." returning to Guy "While still working on the film, I knew that he wasn't going to be alive for the book to come out. He was quite sick. So he really extremely generous about just opening his heart to me, opening his life to me, and it was the journey of a lifetime. It's something I will carry with me for the rest of my life."
Now with the documentary set to be out soon, what is next for Saviano? "I want to put this film out, and then if possible, I'd like to take a little break and just sort of think about what's next. But I just turned 60, so I'm heading into this different part of life. I really want to think about what I want to do, because the time now seems so precious, so, so much more precious. Hopefully, I have a lot more left, but at my age, I'm starting to feel like, oh, I should really pay attention to how I want to spend my time but I feel very youthful, and certainly there are lots of things that I hope I get to do in the future."
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Tamara Saviano is a creative consultant specialising in the following fields of production, directing , writing, music business consultant, public relations agent and creative leadership coach. She has written and published 2 books including her memoir The Most Beautiful Girl: A True Story of a Dad, a Daughter and the Healing Power of Music that landed in Chicago Review of Books as Best Books of 2014 list. As well as a music biography on the legendary Texas singer/songwriter Guy Clark Without Getting Killed or Caught: The Life and Music of Guy Clark.
As a producer, Saviano has co-produce 2 Grammy-nominated albums, including, Kris Kristofferson’s The Cedar Creek Sessions in 2016 and This One’s For Him: A Tribute To Guy Clark and Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster that won the Grammy in 2004. in 2006 Saviano teamed up with late Randy Scruggs, son of renowned Banjo picker Earl Scruggs, on The Pilgrim: A Celebration of Kris Kristofferson. Meanwhile in 2014, Saviano joined forces with Jimmy LaFave, on Looking Into You: A Tribute to Jackson Browne and in 2017, Saviano co-produced Red Hot: A Memphis Celebration of Sun Records with Luther Dickinson as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital. For more information about Tamara visit the following link.. Check out Without Getting Killed or Caught website via the following link.. |
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