New York, NY (KPI TV/ www.kpitiv.com) - KPI, an independent production company specializing in television programming, documentary films and new media content, is completing on-location concert shooting across the U.S. and
Europe for EVERY NIGHT IS SATURDAY NIGHT, a high-definition documentary that tells the unsung story of rock 'n' roll pioneer
Wanda Jackson.
The film is being produced in association with Los Angeles-based Joanne Fish who leads the production team with Vinnie Kralyevich, president and creative director of KPI. The production team follows the 68-year-old Jackson and her husband/manager Wendell Goodman as they perform in Maine, New York City, Oklahoma City, Washington D.C., honky tonks across the South, and overseas in Sweden and Finland.
Production began in June 2005 when the filmmakers documented the recording of Jackson's new CD release I Remember Elvis, on Golden Lane Records, a subsidiary of Cleopatra Records. The film will wrap production in Los Angeles with a concert by Jackson at Amoeba Records in Los Angeles, celebrating the CD release on Feb. 1, 2006. Post-production of EVERY NIGHT IS SATURDAY NIGHT is set to finish in summer 2006.
Talks with distributors are underway.
The many performers Jackson toured with, highlighted in archival footage, include: Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash and Jerry Lee Lewis. Jackson's early music has recently been immortalized on screen in the Golden Globe winning Johnny Cash movie biopic WALK THE LINE which featured her song, "Fujiyama Mama." Presley, whom Jackson dated, was influential in Jackson's choice to move from country music to the male-dominated world of rockabilly.
Another Elvis, Elvis Costello, will also be featured in the documentary, as an outspoken advocate of inducting Jackson into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Costello recently penned a letter to the nominating committee urging it to induct Jackson, who, in his words, "was standing up on a stage with a guitar in her hands and making a sound that was wild and raw as any rocker, man or woman."
"Few people know how Wanda influenced music history," said Kralyevich. "We're setting out to change that and hope this film will finally generate the buzz needed to get her inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame."
"Our film takes the audience from the very beginning of Jackson's rock 'n' roll career to present day," said Fish. "Wanda is still relevant in the music world today, and she's still rocking the house wherever she performs."
