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What music films are "must adds" to a Netflix queue?

I know there is already a thread on Alt-Country/Americana DVDs, but I am thinking more of music in general.

I am probably the last person on earth to sign up for Netflix and I am really just using that as an excuse to start a thread about great music films - documentaries or concert films.

I have "Be Here To Love Me" (doc about Townes Van Zandt) in the queue, as well as the Elvis '68 Comeback Special (yup . . . never seen it), along with several others, but I am always looking for suggestions.

So for myself and for the group - what music films are "must see"?

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Permalink Reply by Adam Sheets on January 3, 2010 at 2:23pm

Songwriter- starring Willie Nelson and Kris Kristofferson
Elvis on Tour
Bob Dylan- Don't Look Back
The Buddy Holly Story (not entirely accurate, but what the hell?)
Woodstock
Monterrey Pop- Criterion Collection edition
Any of the Austin City Limits DVDs
Johnny Cash- Man in Black: Live in Denmark 1971
Roy Orbison-Black and White Night

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Permalink Reply by Rudyjeep on January 6, 2010 at 5:46am

Big Thumbs up for The Last Waltz and The Beatles "A Hard Day's Night" - we watch them at least a couple times a year - but also The Talking Head's "Stop Making Sense" and Chuck Berry "Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll" (if only for the scene where Chuck schools Keith Richards).
Also, since we're talking music, I don't think its out of line to plug some of my favorite musicals. Foremost among them "Fiddler on the Roof", "Gigi", "The Music Man", "West Side Story" and "My Fair Lady".

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Permalink Reply by Kit Kellison on January 6, 2010 at 6:16am

"The Festival Express" was a sentimental look into 1970. The rail tour went coast-to-coast across Canada and featured the likes of The Band, Buddy Guy, Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Janis Joplin just a few months before she died. I would have been ten years old at the time, and would have just started listening to FM AOR. This is a great film for those, like me, who tasted the sixties but were too young to participate.
I understand that Ten Years After and Traffic were on the train, too, but the doc makers couldn't get their stuff released. That's a shame.

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Permalink Reply by Arty Hill on January 8, 2010 at 7:07am

New Johnny Mercer doc called "The Dream's On Me" is excellent.

Also very good:

Solomon Burke doc - "Everbody Needs
Somebody."

Carter Family - "Will you miss me when I'm gone."

Hank Williams - "Honky Tonk Blues."

Sam Cook VH-1 doc from a few years back is also great.

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Permalink Reply by Kit Kellison on January 11, 2010 at 5:09pm

Just watched a piece on CBS Sunday Morning for the second time about Johnny Mercer. What a complex fellow. I should put that on that recommendation on the queue, thanks Arty. He had a talent for the catchy lyric, but that's a right place/right time story. There's just very little mechanism today for the same type of career arc in any modern day equivalent.
He's not in the same genre really, but the most ubiquitous composer I can think of is Danny Elfman, who like Mercer, didn't have formal training. Not known so much for his lyrics, although he did write lyrics in Oingo Boingo... his TV scores have become so transparent that I wonder whether he is just on autopilot or farming out his jobs like some kind of musical Andy Warhol? My husband won't even watch anything on ABC that has that synthetisized violin sound: "bloop bloop bloop....bloop bloop bloop bloop bloop...." A long way from "Nightmare Before Christmas" and the theme to "Peewee's Playhouse." I digress...

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Permalink Reply by S.P. Gass on January 12, 2010 at 5:58am

I haven't seen Honky Tonk Blues... I did see Hank Williams: The Show He Never Gave on tv several years ago. It's not a bad movie with someone playing Hank Sr. Netflix actually has it.

Coal Miner's Daughter is a pretty good movie as is Deliverance

I even admit I liked School of Rock

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Permalink Reply by Matt Little on January 9, 2010 at 2:52pm

The Band's Visit

Subtitle Alert!!!

Not a music film per se, but a film about a band. Really, really great movie.

http://www.netflix.com/Movie/The_Band_s_Visit/70077551?strackid=26a...

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Permalink Reply by Daniel Morrow on January 18, 2010 at 11:06pm

I'll second the "Fallen Angel" Gram Parson's doc.

Also...

The Carter Family: Will the Circle be Unbroken: American Experience

Be Here to Love Me: A Film About Townes Van Zandt