Back when my first movie Crossroads (1986) was produced, I remember feeling incredibly blessed to be able to bring my screenwriting and my music together.
Things have come full circle now as I find myself working with Mick Jagger and T-Bone Burnett (Last Train to Memphis). So I’ve been in a bluesy state of mind again.
Visiting in Boston with Sir Mick last summer, we got into a conversation about the early blues roots of the Stones. He told me some incredibly cool stories about when he and the very young band brought Howlin’ Wolf to London for a recording session (the proper British recording engineer kept referring to the Wolf as Howlin’ Chappie; but you have to see and hear Mick do the impersonation).
In any case, on a muggy day here during Malaysia’s rainy season, I am thinking about the rainy day in New York City, in 1983, when I wrote this following scene. Although I wrote in then (on a yellow legal pad), I had written it in my head years earlier while down and out in New Orleans, feeling bad. Broke, hungry, and far from home.
Like playing music, writing a scene can get you feelin’ good again: