A Q&A with Sam Jones, director of Lost Songs: The Basement Tapes Continued

Are there any parts of the story that you wanted to tell that didnt quite make it into the documentary?

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Absolutely, and I think that happens with every documentary and every film, really. There was a whole giant story that we spent a lot of time on about the whole bootleg industry that sprung up, because The Basement Tapes was the first bootleg. Dylan has always been this guy that has mystified his fans with all the unreleased stuff that has never seen the light of day, and this has been going on since back then, in the sense that people like Dylan and Neil Young, and [other artists] that would make whole albums but not release them.

Everyone thought Dylan had sparks coming out of his brain (and) could write 20 songs a day. This whole industry sprung up around this one record called The Great White Wonder. When you look into that story and how the music got taken out of the hands of the record labels and put in the hands of fans for the first time and that method of delivery changed, that to me was a fascinating story. We went out and interviewed all the main players in the bootleg history, and sadly in the end it was probably a two-minute, 30-second little chapter in the film.

I think also as a documentary filmmaker, you had your bets and at the beginning, you say okay, well theres this fascinating bootleg story,” but then you find out also that theres this really fascinating story about this woman, Rhiannon Giddens, happening in the present. You start having to make these choices as to what you give weight to. In the end, I felt like I didnt want this to be a historical film as much as I wanted it to be a film about the creative process. And its a balance thing. Our first rough cut had a lot more history and a lot more recreations and Basement Tapes stuff in it. That slowly changed over some editing.

I noticed that you gave a lot of camera time to Rhiannon, Marcus, Taylor and a lot of the people who were newer to the industry in that position where people know their names, but theyre still not Elvis Costello or T Bone Burnett.  What stories were you trying to tell there?

A good story [involves] the classic elements of conflict and discovery and an arc of growth. I think that in those characters you mentioned, Marcus and Rhiannon and Taylor, they are younger and they were probably much more intimidated, honored and much more in the moment about this because it was a newer, more visceral experience for them than someone like Elvis Costello, whos been in the studio and made 30 records. I dont think in your 60s or your 50s that you can be changed as radically by an experiment like this as someone like Taylor Goldsmith, who still is just so excited about the songwriting process and the mystery around songwriting, or someone like Rhiannon Giddens, who really is a self-proclaimed baby songwriter. I found their stories more interesting because it was new to them.

I think for a viewer to follow a story, they would much rather have someone not teaching them and telling them how to do something, but if they can go along for the ride with somebody, thats much more interesting. And in the case of Elvis Costello, he got the lyrics and had some time to sit with them and he created a whole bunch of demos. And Jim James works very fast, he got the lyrics and started finding old snippets of recordings he had, and he started making demos. But Marcus Mumford, I felt, was extremely brave going into this and the same with Rhiannon Giddens. Both of them were extremely brave, and they both sort of followed the spirit of the project, which they were under the impression was going to be more of a collaboration.

So they came in unprepared with the idea that they get to sit down and write a song with Elvis Costello, or they get to sit down and write a song with Jim James. Whereas some of these other people I think approached it a little bit more like an experienced songwriter would, which is Okay, if collaboration happens, thats great, but Im not going to go in unprepared because weve got our two weeks in the studio and Im going to do my thing and Im not going to get out of my routine.Once you get set working in one way, you know, Elvis Costello is not a guy thats going to walk in and say, Okay, what should we do today?because he probably has more experience of how often a scenario like that is resolved in disaster and nothing coming out of it.

For Marcus to go in there and not really have anything prepared, that was true balls; and I feel the same way with Rhiannon. And she may have come in thinking, Oh, the idea of this is were supposed to collaborate, and so Im not going to prepare.And I think that that made their connection with the material much more flexible, and it made their stories much more exciting to me.

Have you considered the possibility of a follow-up with some of the artists?

I think the film is sort of a nice little thing thats in the present. The thing I like about this film is that there were no real exit interviews. I didnt go back to any of them after we edited it and say, What story are we missing?and I like that. I like that its its own little encapsulated story. I havent really considered a follow-up.

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