It’s been a month since the AMAUK held their annual Americana Fest. We mentioned the awards here but mopping up our coverage our reviewer attended a screening of director Joel Fendelman’s film Finding Lucinda which was followed by a Q&A session with the movie’s star Avery Hellman interviewed by Siobhan Maher Kennedy.
This film centres around Avery Hellman who started off by playing in a Lucinda Williams tribute band, and now performs as Ismay. There are a lot of early clips of Lucinda and also Avery talking to people who had roles in Lucinda’s early career. But it is a film that is as much about Avery as well as Lucinda, and we get to find out how Lucinda has inspired Avery’s musical development and sustained her in coping with her self-doubt about her ability as a singer and songwriter. This thread is satisfyingly explored, especially in Avery’s conversation with Mary Gauthier who said in response to a question about how you get to the next level “there are no levels, only a blank page.”
We see Lucinda playing live before the success of ‘Car Wheels on a Gravel Road’, and also being interviewed on TV at around that time, memorably about how her father (the poet Miller Williams) critiqued her early lyrics. Lucinda is not interviewed by Avery in the film. They did consider ending the film in this way, but I’m glad they didn’t because it left us to decide for ourselves what Lucinda might say. It was fascinating to hear from people involved in the recording of Lucinda’s first album of traditional blues, folk and country standards. Avery was loaned the tape of an unreleased original song called ‘Spin’ recorded at this session, and when she played it to Buddy Miller (who played ‘Car Wheels on a Gravel Road’), he was amazed at how much it sounded like her later material. He said “she came out fully formed.”
We also get to see Avery on the family farm musing about her life and music, and there are some great scenes with lambs. She does a little bit of singing and guitar strumming, but only just enough to establish her credentials.
In response to a question from Siobhan after the screening about whether making this film had made her a better song writer, Avery answered that it “made her reflect on her lyrics.” Avery performed a showcase set with a band in her guise as Ismay later that evening, so we were able to judge for ourselves. Some of her songs reflect her farming influences in a quirky way – ‘The Shearer and the Darby Ram’ and ‘Stranger in a Barn’. There were also songs about horses and other animals, and to be fair there were songs about human relationships.
Not many people have seen the film because it has only been shown at a few screenings, and even Lucinda hasn’t seen it yet. There are plans to make it available for purchase, and we will be sure to let you know. But in the meantime, you can watch the trailer at https://www.findinglucindafilm.com
