Wilco’s Jay Bennett rocks his own documentary from
directors Gorman Bechard & Fred Uhter
WHERE ARE YOU, JAY BENNETT?, a feature-length documentary on the renown multi-instrumentalist and recording studio savant, will have its BluRay and pay-per-view release on April 19th, 2022 from MVD Entertainment, and four days later a very special Record Store Day release featuring the film on DVD along with Bennett’s last two albums Kicking at the Perfumed Air & Whatever Happened I Apologize available for the first time on vinyl.
As a member of Wilco, Bennett was a large part of the genius behind their three seminal albums. He joined the band prior to the recording of their second album, Being There, and subsequently co-wrote most of Summerteeth and Yankee Hotel Foxtrot with Jeff Tweedy (and has been called the sonic architect of both albums). Bennett was also instrumental in the recording of the Mermaid Avenue/Woody Guthrie sessions with Billy Bragg, and went on to a critically acclaimed solo career before dying tragically at the age of 45.
WHERE ARE YOU, JAY BENNETT? is one of the most intimate portraits of a musician ever filmed. Using a mixture of audio interviews with Jay, never-before-seen performance footage, animation, and extensive interviews with those who knew him best, directors Gorman Bechard and Fred Uhter give an extraordinary account of this fascinating artist’s life. We get a no-holds-barred history of how Jay Bennett helped create one of the greatest rock trilogies of all time, and an honest look at the other side of the narrative that had been created in the media once Bennett had been asked to leave the band.
“At the time of his firing, Jay’s behavior was cast in a negative light. But there are always two sides to every story.” Bechard explains. “In this film, we show just how instrumental Jay was to Wilco’s brilliance. How Bennett and Tweedy together truly were one of the greatest collaborative teams in rock history, but also how they were both perfectionists who needed to push boundaries. Ultimately, that was simply not sustainable in a band setting.”
The 104-minute film, funded completely through KickStarter, is an insight into a piece of American musical history exploring Bennett’s life, his influences, his art, his obsessions, his vices, music, recording, and, of course, Wilco and their unfortunate split.
“The animation by Ed Gendron brings to life these amazing interviews with Jay,” Uhter says. “To be able to hear his voice, to have Jay himself tell his side of the story, talk about how records were made, and what role he played… it’s a priceless piece of music history.”
Bechard is the filmmaker behind 2011’s COLOR ME OBSESSED, A FILM ABOUT THE REPLACEMENTS, which The Village Voice called the “rock version of Rashomon,” and Rolling Stone dubbed one of “The Seven Best New Music Documentaries of the Year.”
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