MVD Entertainment Group will be bringing the Aussie documentary filmmaking team of Greg Carey and Wade Jackson’s very personal film, Waiting: The Van Duren Story, to the DVD marketplace on Aug. 5.
Memphis-born singer-songwriter Van Duren had his first shot in 1975 when Chris Bell bailed out of Big Star, and for a brief moment it looked like he might get the replacement gig on guitar, but then Big Star went bye-bye.
With a taste for it, Van Duren soldiered on and with Big Star’s drummer, Jody Stephens, he began recording some of his own music and shopping it around … enter former Rolling Stones promoter Andrew Loog Oldham, who saw potential in the young musician.
One thing led to another and by March of 1978 Van Duren had his debut album, “Are You Serious?” — released through fly-by-night label, Big Sound Records. It was a hit … Van Duren was set, rock star!!
This is where it gets tricky. Van Duren started work on a second album, Big Sound Records was absorbed by another label and the material from Van Duren was rejected, the second album vanished. End of story.
Van Duren went on with various bands and did a number of collaboration albums, but never the solo stuff again. And then in something of a Spinal Tap-twist, the lost album, “Idiot Optimism,” surfaced in Japan in 1999 and would have remained a foot note if not for its “discovery” in 2016 by the aforementioned Greg Carey and Wade Jackson (a music composer for Australian television shows), who loved what they heard and decided to get to the bottom of what really happened way back then, which set them on a two-year odyssey and the resulting film festival debut of Waiting: The Van Duren Story in November of 2018.
Not only did the pair piece together the real story, but they accomplished a whole lot more with their interviews and hard work. The music, the story and the people involved, including Van Duren are all here … and now you can enjoy the mystery trip on DVD from MVD Entertain Group on Aug. 5.
Bonus features include video sessions with Andrew Loog Oldham (Rolling Stones), Jody Stephens (Big Star) and Terry Manning (Ardent Studios), plus behind-the-scenes footage.
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