BANG! the BERT BERNS STORY Narrated by Stevie Van Zandt PRESS NOTES
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Presents BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY Narrated by Stevie Van Zandt PRESS NOTES A film by Brett Berns 2016 / USA / Color / Documentary / 95 minutes / English www.BANGTheBertBernsStory.com Copyright © 2016 [HCTN, LLC] All Rights Reserved SHORT SYNOPSIS Music meets the Mob in this biographical documentary, narrated by Stevie Van Zandt, about the life and career of Bert Berns, the most important songwriter and record producer from the sixties that you never heard of. His hits include Twist and Shout, Hang On Sloopy, Brown Eyed Girl, Here Comes The Night and Piece Of My Heart. He helped launch the careers of Van Morrison and Neil Diamond and produced some of the greatest soul music ever made. Filmmaker Brett Berns brings his late father's story to the screen through interviews with those who knew him best and rare performance footage. Included in the film are interviews with Ronald Isley, Ben E. King, Solomon Burke, Van Morrison, Keith Richards and Paul McCartney. LONG SYNOPSIS Music meets the Mob in this biographical documentary, narrated by Stevie Van Zandt, about the life and career of Bert Berns, the most important songwriter and record producer from the sixties that you never heard of. His hits include Twist and Shout, Hang On Sloopy, Brown Eyed Girl, Under The Boardwalk, Everybody Needs Somebody To Love, Cry Baby, Tell Him, Cry To Me, Here Comes The Night and Piece of My Heart. He launched the careers of Van Morrison and Neil Diamond, and was the only record man of his time to achieve the trifecta of songwriter, producer and label chief. Filmmaker Brett Berns brings his late father’s inspirational story to the screen through interviews with those who knew him best and rare performance footage. Included in the film are interviews with Ronald Isley, Solomon Burke, Ben E. King, Van Morrison, Keith Richards and Paul McCartney. Born in the Bronx during the Great Depression to Jewish immigrants, a bout with childhood rheumatic fever damaged Berns’ heart – creating a sense of urgency and instilling a relentless and impassioned drive to make the most of his life. His love for the Mambo took him to Havana before the Cuban revolution, where he converted a whorehouse into a nightclub and ran guns for Castro’s rebels. Upon his return to New York’s Brill Building / 1650 Broadway milieu, Berns began a meteoric seven-year run that saw him bring Latin rhythms into Rock and Roll and become one of the founding fathers of Uptown Soul music. Atlantic Records made him their staff producer in 1963 and he formed his own BANG Records label in 1965. Berns was also the first American producer to work in London during the British Invasion. He infused his songs with autobiographical lyrics and produced hundreds of sessions. His ambition was so great that, from the age of 31 to 38, he created 51 pop chart hits before succumbing to his damaged heart on December 30, 1967. The Bert Berns saga is not just another feel-good immigrant son’s success story. It is also the harrowing tale of a fighting Jew who surrounded himself with some of the most feared men in the Italian mafia and fought epic battles to maintain control over his destiny. Following his untimely death, Bert Berns was blackballed by the industry he helped to create and whitewashed from its history books. Fifty years later, his legacy has been resurrected through a multi-media effort that includes the critically- acclaimed biography Here Comes The Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm & Blues; the Broadway-bound musical Piece of My Heart which premiered Off Broadway in 2014; and the documentary BANG! The Bert Berns Story – all of which cleared the way for Bert Berns’ induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2016. 2 DIRECTOR’S STATEMENT By Brett Berns I made BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY because this extraordinary untold story needed to be told by the people who worked alongside my father as he created his vast and unique body work. Bert Berns was one of the greatest music men of the twentieth century, yet he was also the most obscure. His death at a young age, combined with the neglect of powerful figures intent on burying his legacy, caused him to virtually disappear from the history of rock and roll. It thus became my life’s ambition to champion my father. I was only two years old when my dad died in 1967. Knowing that his rheumatic heart would take his life, he would tell my mother, “my children will know me through my music.” In tandem with my sister Cassandra, I set out to learn the meaning of this riddle and what we discovered was a revelation so great that it called for historical revision. For buried beneath the sands of time was a unique canon of music and a story greater than fiction. My greatest personal realization was that only through the telling of his dramatic life story would my father be recognized for his part in our musical history. He had been so utterly forgotten that only a multi-media barrage would make people take notice of this lost icon. Leading the way was Joel Selvin’s epic biography Here Comes The Night, followed by the hit Broadway-bound musical Piece of My Heart. Now BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY completes the trilogy. I began interviewing subjects for the film nearly a decade ago. Being a first-time filmmaker, I partnered with seasoned veterans and spared no expense on production. I personally conducted every interview and learned the fundamentals of editing. One door opened the next, and the greatest legends of rock and roll fell into the project along with a number of characters never before seen on film. It wasn’t until world-class editor and director Bob Sarles joined the project that the film truly took flight. A brilliant documentary filmmaker, Sarles reshaped the film, brought his best people on board to conduct B-roll and re-creation shoots, orchestrated animations and graphics, and used Joel Selvin’s biography as the bedrock for the film’s narration. Legendary musician and actor Stevie Van Zandt’s narration brings the voice of Bert Berns into the film. What began as a passion project designed to introduce the world to Bert Berns has evolved into both an important historical document and an inspirational example of how to live life with courage and create art with passion, love and collaboration. With my father entering the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year, my greatest ambition is to share BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY with the world. 3 BANG! THE BERT BERNS STORY TEAM BIOS BRETT BERNS (Co-Director, Producer) Brett Berns is the son of legendary songwriter and record producer Bert Berns. Graduate of the University of Virginia and veteran of the Israel Defense Forces Paratrooper Brigade, Brett has devoted much of his life to raising awareness of his late father's legacy. He is lead producer of the Broadway- bound musical Piece of My Heart – The Bert Berns Story, which ran Off-Broadway in 2014 at The Signature Theatre. And he has spent eight years producing BANG! The Bert Berns Story. Brett lives between New York City and Malibu with his wife and three children. BOB SARLES (Co-Director, Editor) Bob Sarles is a documentary filmmaker and Primetime Emmy nominated film + television editor based out of San Francisco and Los Angeles. He previously directed and edited Sweet Blues: A Film About Mike Bloomfield, Fly Jefferson Airplane, John Lee Hooker: Come And See About Me, Feed Your Head: The Psychedelic Era and Soulsville. Sarles directed films that are exhibited at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, the EMP Museum in Seattle and the Stax Museum of American Soul Music in Memphis. Sarles was a producer and editor on VH1's Behind The Music. He co-edited the Peabody Award winning documentary series Moon Shot, the acclaimed ABC documentary The Story of Fathers & Sons, three of the first four seasons of the MTV's ground breaking unscripted television series The Real World, and a number of unscripted television series produced for many major networks. Bob Sarles has edited award winning music videos for top rock, rap and country artists, including ZZ Top's Legs and Green Day's Longview. He has cut television spots for Nike, Reebok and Miller Beer for directors including James Cameron and Barry Sonnenfeld. From 1995 through 2015 Sarles produced and edited a number of artist tribute films for the annual Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Induction Ceremony. As an assistant and apprentice editor Sarles worked on major feature films including Dirty Rotten Scoundrels, Henry & June and the Oscar winning The Right Stuff. Sarles is currently editing the documentary film Mata Hari - The Naked Spy and is in production on a documentary film about American satirist Paul Krassner. STEVIE VAN ZANDT (Narrator) Steven Van Zandt is an acclaimed musician, producer, songwriter, international DJ, activist, director, actor and member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He is a founding member of Bruce Springsteen’s E Street Band, co-producing the band’s seminal albums The River and Born in the U.S.A. and is a well-known musician in his own right. Along with recording and performing with his band Little Steven and the Disciples of Soul, he is also a critically acclaimed producer for many artists. Steven has twice been honored by the United Nations for his political activism, most notably for his anti-apartheid project Sun Cit" which led to the downfall of the South African apartheid regime and release of Nelson Mandela.