John Anderson (born 1954) is an American documentary film director, producer, editor and writer. His primary subjects are rock, blues and folk musicians. Anderson often makes films about musicians he admires, such as
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...
, the American singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American Rock music, rock band that formed in Hawthorne, California, in 1961. The group's original lineup consisted of brothers Brian Wilson, Brian, Dennis Wilson, Dennis, and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and frie ...
. His interest in film-making began when he saw
Richard Lester
Richard Lester Liebman (born January 19, 1932) is an American retired film director based in the United Kingdom.
He is best known for directing the Beatles' films '' A Hard Day's Night'' (1964) and ''Help!'' (1965), and the superhero films ''S ...
’s “ A Hard Day's Night” at the age of 10. Some of Anderson's inspirations are the works of many filmmakers, including
Michelangelo Antonioni
Michelangelo Antonioni (, ; 29 September 1912 – 30 July 2007) was an Italian filmmaker. He is best known for directing his "trilogy on modernity and its discontents"—''L'Avventura'' (1960), ''La Notte'' (1961), and ''L'Eclisse'' (1962 ...
(''
Blowup
''Blowup'' (sometimes styled as ''Blow-up'' or ''Blow Up'') is a 1966 mystery drama thriller film directed by Michelangelo Antonioni and produced by Carlo Ponti. It was Antonioni's first entirely English-language film, and stars David Hemming ...
'', 1966),
Murray Lerner
Murray Lerner (May 8, 1927 – September 2, 2017) was an American documentary and experimental film director and producer.
Career
Lerner was born May 8, 1927, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania to Nacham and Goldie (Levine) Lerner. Murray's fat ...
(''
Festival
A festival is an event ordinarily celebrated by a community and centering on some characteristic aspect or aspects of that community and its religion or cultures. It is often marked as a local or national holiday, mela, or eid. A festival c ...
'', 1967) and
Jerry Lewis
Jerry Lewis (born Joseph Levitch; March 16, 1926 – August 20, 2017) was an American comedian, actor, singer, filmmaker and humanitarian. As his contributions to comedy and charity made him a global figure in popular culture, pop culture ...
(''
The Disorderly Orderly
''The Disorderly Orderly'' is a 1964 American comedy film released by Paramount Pictures, and starring Jerry Lewis. The film was produced by Paul Jones with a screenplay by director Frank Tashlin, based on a story by Norm Liebermann and Ed Haas ...
'', 1964). He is an alumnus of
Northwestern University School of Communication
The Northwestern University School of Communication is an undergraduate and graduate institution devoted to the academic study of communication arts and sciences, located on Northwestern University's campus in Evanston, Illinois, United States ...
, where he studied Radio/TV/Film and Music Theory & Composition.
Early life and education
Anderson was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1954. He spent his childhood in Rochester, New York, and San Rafael, California before moving as a teenager to Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania near Philadelphia. He started making films at that time, shooting on 8mm stock and composing and recording musical accompaniment. After graduation from
Plymouth-Whitemarsh High School
Plymouth Whitemarsh High School is a public high school in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania, US. It is part of the Colonial School District.
Plymouth Whitemarsh is a public high school in the Philadelphia region, and is accredited by the Middle ...
in Pennsylvania, he moved to Illinois where he attended
Northwestern University
Northwestern University is a private research university in Evanston, Illinois. Founded in 1851, Northwestern is the oldest chartered university in Illinois and is ranked among the most prestigious academic institutions in the world.
Charte ...
in Evanston, studying Radio/TV/Film and Music Theory & Composition. While at Northwestern, he made a series of works using film and reel-to-reel videotape as a student of Dana Hodgdon and James Benning. Anderson also edited Northwestern's humor magazine ''The Purple Parrot'' and produced a weekly radio show on
WNUR
WNUR-FM (89.3 FM) is a 7,200–watt radio station based in Evanston, Illinois that broadcasts to Chicago and its northern suburbs. It is the student radio station of Northwestern University.
History
WNUR first began broadcasting on May 8, ...
called ''Rough Cut,'' which included live recordings he made in Chicago-area folk, blues, and rock clubs. ''Don’t Blame Me'', Anderson's 1973 live recording of Chicago singer-songwriter
Steve Goodman
Steven Benjamin Goodman (July 25, 1948 – September 20, 1984) was an American folk and country singer-songwriter from Chicago. He wrote the song "City of New Orleans", which was recorded by Arlo Guthrie and many others including John Denver, ...
, was released commercially by Red Pajamas Records in 2013. Goodman's body of work includes the well-known song
Medinah Temple
The Medinah Temple is a large Moorish Revival building in Chicago built by Shriners architects Huehl and Schmidt in 1912.
It is located on the Near North Side of Chicago, Illinois at 600 N. Wabash Avenue, extending from Ohio Street to Ontari ...
John Prine
John Edward Prine (; October 10, 1946 – April 7, 2020) was an American singer-songwriter of country-folk music. He was active as a composer, recording artist, live performer, and occasional actor from the early 1970s until his death. He ...
,
Arlo Guthrie
Arlo Davy Guthrie (born July 10, 1947) is an American folk singer-songwriter. He is known for singing songs of protest against social injustice, and storytelling while performing songs, following the tradition of his father, Woody Guthrie. Gut ...
,
Emmylou Harris
Emmylou Harris (born April 2, 1947) is an American singer, songwriter and musician. She has released dozens of albums and singles over the course of her career and has won 14 Grammys, the Polar Music Prize, and numerous other honors, including ...
,
Lyle Lovett
Lyle Pearce Lovett (born November 1, 1957) Lyle Lovett Pageat Allmusic – Lovett's Genre and Styles. Retrieved February 2, 2007 is an American singer, songwriter, actor and record producer. Active since 1980, he has recorded 13 albums and relea ...
and
Jackson Browne
Clyde Jackson Browne (born October 9, 1948) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and political activist who has sold over 18 million albums in the United States.
Emerging as a precocious teenage songwriter in mid-1960s Los Angeles, he h ...
.
Career
Anderson began his career as an editor at Chicago film production/post-production facilities including Advanced Systems; Telemation; Post Effects; and IPA The Editing House. While at Post Effect, he edited ''
The Super Bowl Shuffle
"The Super Bowl Shuffle" is a song performed by the Chicago Bears football team (credited as the Chicago Bears Shufflin' Crew) in . It was released in December 1985 on Chicago-based Red Label Records and distributed through Capitol Records two mo ...
'' (1985), featuring the championship
Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears are a professional American football team based in Chicago. The Bears compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) North division. The Bears have won nine NF ...
. At the time, ''The Super Bowl Shuffle'' was the second-highest selling music video. Shortly after the release of ''The Super Bowl Shuffle'', the Chicago Bears defeated the New England Patriots at
Super Bowl XX
Super Bowl XX was an American football game between the National Football Conference (NFC) champion Chicago Bears and the American Football Conference (AFC) champion New England Patriots to decide the National Football League (NFL) champion for ...
winning the NFL Championship on January 26, 1986. Anderson was also named ''Screen Magazine'''s ''Editor of the Year'' and won a Best Editor of a Music Video International Monitor Award for the music video ''She Won’t French Kiss'' by his own band, The Cleaning Ladys. He subsequently worked as a documentary editor for
Bill Kurtis
Bill Kurtis (born William Horton Kuretich; September 21, 1940), is an American television journalist, television producer, narrator, and news anchor.
Kurtis was studying to become a lawyer in the 1960s, when he was asked to fill in on a tempora ...
at Kurtis Productions on several series, including ''The New Explorers'' (PBS), ''NOVΛ'' and A&E's ''Investigative Reports''.
In 1995, Anderson was one of the founding partners of ''Superior Street'', a Chicago video and film production studio. While there, he began his professional relationship with
Beach Boys
A beach is a landform alongside a body of water which consists of loose particles. The particles composing a beach are typically made from rock, such as sand, gravel, shingle, pebbles, etc., or biological sources, such as mollusc shell ...
leader
Brian Wilson
Brian Douglas Wilson (born June 20, 1942) is an American musician, singer, songwriter, and record producer who co-founded the Beach Boys. Often called a genius for his novel approaches to pop composition, extraordinary musical aptitude, and m ...
, leading to a series of four DVD collaborations with Wilson, beginning with ''Imagination'' (1999); ''Brian Wilson On Tour'' (2002); “ Pet Sounds Live In London” (2003), and finally, “
Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE
''Brian Wilson Presents Smile'' (also referred to as ''Smile'' or the abbreviation ''BWPS'') is the fifth studio album by American musician Brian Wilson, released on September 28, 2004 on Nonesuch. It features all-new recordings of music that ...
” (2005), the live performance platinum-selling DVD release from Warner Brothers/Rhino Home Video for which he was nominated in 2006 for a Grammy Award as director. In 2012, Anderson co-directed, co-edited and co-wrote the PBS documentary ''The Beach Boys: Doin’ It Again'' He also directed and filmed Brian Wilson's performance of the title song in the 2014 biopic '' Love & Mercy'', starring
John Cusack
John Paul Cusack (; born June 28, 1966)(28 June 1996)Today's birthdays ''Santa Cruz Sentinel'', ("Actors John Cusack is 30") is an American actor, producer, screenwriter and political activist. He is a son of filmmaker Dick Cusack, and his ol ...
,
Paul Dano
Paul Franklin Dano (; born June 19, 1984) is an American actor. He began his career on Broadway before making his film debut in ''The Newcomers'' (2000). He won the Independent Spirit Award for Best Debut Performance for his role in '' L.I.E.' ...
and
Elizabeth Banks
Elizabeth Banks (born Elizabeth Irene Mitchell; February 10, 1974) is an American actress and filmmaker. She is known for playing Effie Trinket in ''The Hunger Games'' film series (2012–2015) and Gail Abernathy-McKadden in the ''Pitch Perfe ...
.
In 2007, he founded ''Anderson Productions,'' where he continues making films such as the Chicago blues documentary ''Born In Chicago,'' featuring Nick Gravenites, Corky Siegel, Sam Lay, and Barry Goldberg and also starring Keith Richards, Charlie Musselwhite, Hubert Sumlin and Jack White. ''Born In Chicago'' premiered at the 2013
South By Southwest Film Festival
South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and conferences organized jointly that take place in mid-March in Austin, T ...
and screened at New York City's
Lincoln Center
Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (also simply known as Lincoln Center) is a complex of buildings in the Lincoln Square neighborhood on the Upper West Side of Manhattan. It has thirty indoor and outdoor facilities and is host to 5 millio ...
, Chicago's
Gene Siskel Film Center
The Gene Siskel Film Center, formerly The Film Center of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and commonly referred to as The Film Center or The Gene Siskel, is the cinematheque attached to The School of the Art Institute of Chicago. It ...
,
The Grammy Museum The Grammy Museum is any of a group of museums containing exhibits relating to winners of the Grammy Award for achievement in recording.
The museums in this group include:
*The Grammy Museum at L.A. Live, which opened in 2008 in Los Angeles, Califo ...
in Los Angeles and
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music an ...
. It has been the subject of feature articles in ''Rolling Stone'' and ''The New York Times''. The film is produced by Out The Box Records. In 2008 and Anderson received an Emmy as the Executive Producer of ''CPS Right Now!,'' a biweekly television news-magazine he created for the Chicago Public Schools, for which he also received 9 Emmy nominations.
In 2015, Anderson directed and edited ''Sam Lay In Bluesland'', a documentary about legendary Chicago blues drummer
Sam Lay
Samuel Julian Lay (March 20, 1935January 29, 2022) was an American drummer and vocalist who performed from the late 1950s as a blues and R&B musician alongside Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Paul Butterfield, and many others. He was inducted into ...
, featuring James Cotton and Iggy Pop. It aired on PBS in 2017 and kicked off the 2017 Chicago Blues Festival with a screening at the
Chicago Cultural Center
The Chicago Cultural Center, opened in 1897, is a Chicago Landmark building operated by Chicago's Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events that houses the city's official reception venue where the Mayor of Chicago has welcomed preside ...
. The film is produced by Starr Sutherland and executive produced by Michael Prussian. Anderson's latest film, ''Horn From The Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story, co''-written by him and executive producer Sandra Warren, is a documentary about the life and career of blues harmonica great
Paul Butterfield
Paul Vaughn Butterfield (December 17, 1942May 4, 1987) was an American blues harmonica player, singer and band leader. After early training as a classical flautist, he developed an interest in blues harmonica. He explored the blues scene in his n ...
. The much-acclaimed film had its world premiere at the
Newport Beach Film Festival
The Newport Beach Film Festival (NBFF) is an annual film festival in Newport Beach, California, typically held in late April. In 2022, it was announced that the festival have permanently changed its date to be held in October, as the festival beg ...
and was a ''New York Times ''Critic's Pick. Its 2018-2019 theatrical run in select cities in the United States included a screening at
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame (RRHOF), sometimes simply referred to as the Rock Hall, is a museum and hall of fame located in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States, on the shore of Lake Erie. The museum documents the history of rock music an ...
. The film was executive produced, produced and co-written by Sandra Warren and features
David Sanborn
David William Sanborn (born July 30, 1945) is an American alto saxophonist. Though Sanborn has worked in many genres, his solo recordings typically blend jazz with instrumental pop and R&B. He released his first solo album ''Taking Off'' in 1 ...
,
Bonnie Raitt
Bonnie Lynn Raitt (; born November 8, 1949) is an American blues singer and guitarist. In 1971, Raitt released her self-titled debut album. Following this, she released a series of critically acclaimed roots-influenced albums that incorporated ...
Jac Holzman
Jac Holzman (born September 15, 1931) is an American music businessman, best known as the founder, chief executive officer and head of record label Elektra Records and Nonesuch Records. Holzman commercially helped launch the CD and home video form ...
,
B.B. King
Riley B. King (September 16, 1925 – May 14, 2015), known professionally as B.B. King, was an American blues singer-songwriter, guitarist, and record producer. He introduced a sophisticated style of soloing based on fluid string bending, shi ...
,
Maria Muldaur
Maria Muldaur (born Maria Grazia Rosa Domenica D'Amato; September 12, 1942) is an American folk and blues singer who was part of the American folk music revival in the early 1960s. She recorded the 1973 hit song "Midnight at the Oasis" and has ...
,
Marshall Chess
Marshall Chess (born 13 March 1942, Chicago, Illinois) is an American record producer, the son of Leonard Chess who co-founded Chess Records.
Chess Records
Marshall worked for sixteen years with Chess Records; founded by his father Leonard an ...
,
Todd Rundgren
Todd Harry Rundgren (born June 22, 1948) is an American multi-instrumentalist, singer, songwriter, multimedia artist, sound engineer and record producer who has performed a diverse range of styles as a solo artist and as a member of the band Ut ...
,
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...
and the late Michael Bloomfield and is expected to be released commercially in 2019.
Filmography
Filmography (as Director)
Feature-length films
*''In Glorious Smell-O-Vision!'' (2019) (Co-Director)
*''Horn From The Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story'' (2017)
*''Sam Lay In Bluesland'' (2016)
*''Corky Siegel's Chamber Blues Live at Shure'' (2016)
*''Born in Chicago'' (2013)
*''The Beach Boys: Doin’ It Again'' (2012) o-Director*''Larger Than Life: A Celebration of Steve Goodman and His Music'' (2007)
*''Brian Wilson Presents SMiLE'' (2005)
*''Brian Wilson Presents Pet Sounds Live in London/Pet Stories'' (2003)
*''Brian Wilson on Tour'' (2003)
=In Production
=
*''My Friend Tiny Tim''
*''Joey Molland: Liverpool to Memphis''
*''The Manhattan Transfer Story''
Television
*''CPS Right Now!'' (2006-2008)
*''Brian Wilson's Imagination'' (1999)
Filmography (as Editor)
Television
*''The Oprah Winfrey Show'': Documentary roll-in segments (1995-2003)
*''Investigative Reports'' (1992-1995)
*''The New Explorers'' (1988-1993)
*''NOVA: Back To Chernobyl'' (1989)