The American Epic Sessions

''The American Epic Sessions'' is a documentary film in which an engineer restores the fabled long-lost first electrical sound recording system from 1925, and twenty contemporary artists pay tribute to the momentous machine by attempting to record songs on it for the first time in 80 years. The film was directed and co-written by Bernard MacMahon and stars Nas, Alabama Shakes, Elton John, Willie Nelson, Merle Haggard, Jack White, Taj Mahal, Ana Gabriel, Pokey LaFarge, Beck, Ashley Monroe, Los Lobos, The Avett Brothers, Bettye LaVette, Rhiannon Giddens, Raphael Saadiq, Edie Brickell, Steve Martin, and others.

The film employed a diverse line-up of performers both ethnically and musically to represent the breadth of cultures that were first given a national platform through the invention of this recording machine. It also explored the extent to which the recordings made on it in the 1920s influenced and inspired contemporary music.

Development

The film involved a decade of work restoring the machine, which was pieced together from spare parts scattered across the globe, in order to better understand the origins of modern recording technology, and the influence the machine had on world culture. The machine would go on to put sound on motion pictures. The recreation of a live 1920s-style recording session, explored the essence of what makes a great recorded performance.

The film resulted in unexpected insights into how sound recording was developed and perfected and its impact on how musicians communicate on recordings today. MacMahon filmed the live performances like a Hollywood musical in single unedited takes to focus on the music, the sound the machine produced, and the impact it had on the artists performances. The technical aspects of the recording were covered in sequences interspersed throughout the film where, with rigorously filmed tracking shots and extreme close-ups using a macro lens, the viewer could observe and understand the inner workings of the machine.

The film received widespread acclaim for its direction, musical performances, sound and cinematography. The film won the Discovery Award and the Audience Award at the Calgary International Film Festival, was nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award, Bernard MacMahon and Allison McGourty were nominated as Breakthrough Talents by the British Academy Film Awards and won a Grammy Award for the Alabama Shakes performance of “Killer Diller Blues”.

Film synopsis

The film's title sequence begins with a series of cards announcing that “In 1925 the invention of electrical sound recording revolutionized the phonograph industry. In 1926 this equipment was taken across America to record rural music for the very first time – blues, gospel, Cajun, country, Hawaiian, Native American and more…Only a few of these machines were made, and none are known to have survived. All the musical performances in this film are live. The audio you hear is taken directly from the discs it was recorded to, with no editing or enhancements.” Thereafter a series of contemporary musicians enter an exact replica of a 1920s recording studio and record songs live onto a single microphone attached to the first electrical recording system and a pulley-driven disc cutting lathe.

Their performances are filmed in single takes. Some of the performers are seen arranging their songs and Elton John is seen actually writing his song live on camera. These scenes are interspersed with interviews with engineer Nicholas Bergh explaining how the machine works, its cultural and technological importance, how the 1920s field recording sessions were organized and the observations of the contemporary performers participating. Some of the artists’ performances are prefaced by ethereal scenes where the camera explores the dark corridors of the empty studio, accompanied by the recordings that were made on the machine 90 years ago distantly playing in the background, while the camera zooms in on framed portraits of those long-deceased musicians hanging on the walls of the studio. These ghostly scenes are followed by a contemporary artist covering the same song.

Numerous potentially fatal disasters befall the machine during the sessions including the pulley cable that holds the weight breaking, which Jack White repairs at an upholstery shop, the amplifier overheating and blowing up during an Avett Brothers recording and a fraught 13 take session where Beck's 12-piece choir battle with an overdriven and distorting microphone. To capture the eclecticism of a 1920s recording session, a very diverse selection of artists is seen participating in the film, from Hispanic performers like Ana Gabriel and Los Lobos to Hawaiian steel guitar bands like The Hawaiians and Cajun acts like The Lost Bayou Ramblers, pop singers like Elton John, rock and roll groups like Alabama Shakes and Jack White and hip hop artists like Nas. The film culminates with the last filmed performance of Merle Haggard and Willie Nelson, recording a song Haggard has written for the film, “The Only Man Wilder Than Me” followed by a cover of Bob Wills’ “Old Fashioned Love” closing the film with the lines; “Although the land may change to sea, There'll be no change in me, I've got that old fashioned love in my heart.”

Origins

MacMahon stated that the idea for the film was born out of a desire to understand on a practical level how the pivotal 1920s recordings were made, “you can only truly appreciate history, and understand why things were done the way they were done, by actually going out and doing them yourself.” Two initial sessions were filmed at the producers' expense prior to the commissioning of the films by the BBC
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