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Fred J. EAGLESMITH : There ain't no easy Road : Documentary
Fred J. EAGLESMITH
Frederick Elgersma - son of an immigrant family from the Dutch province Friesland in Ontario, Canada - was ten years old when he first saw Elvis on television. 'I'm gonna do that', he cried out. That day he wrote his first song.
Thirty-five years and thousands of songs later, Fred Eaglesmith is a singer and guitarist with a substantial group of extremely loyal fans, a celebrity in the small alternative country music scene. There's not a single bar or club on the North American continent, where he hasn't performed yet, either solo or with his band 'The Flying Squirrels'.
The 'farm boy' of strict Reformed upbringing, blessed with great talent for songwriting, hasn't strayed from his roots. He is a hero for those who recognise themselves in his lyrics: about poor farmers, racing trains, ramshackle trucks and love affairs full of misunderstanding. He feels no need to become a star. Due to his intensive travelling, Fred has become an open-minded, self-willed and witty observer.
Yet he had never been to Friesland, the Dutch province that his grandfather Rintje exchanged for Canada in 1939.
In There Ain't No Easy Road we meet Fred at a windy cemetery in the Fries church village Schraard. There he talks to Onno Elgersma, who has drawn up the family tree. In half of the graves, distant relatives rest in peace. That evening he performs for a hall full of relatives. His cousins Betsy and Andries explain to him that they have the same great-grandfather. Fred hardly has time to digest all these impressions before returning to his shack at the harbour of Port Dover, on the wintry Lake Erie. The visits to friends and relatives were brief: as soon as the bus has been fixed, he's back on the road. With a broader horizon and released from a few bad childhood memories and prejudices about the Dutch.
Besides being a portrait of the musician Fred Eaglesmith, There Ain't No Easy Road is an intimate story about family ties, emigration and survival. And furthermore: full of Fred's music from the beginning to the end.
Huib Stam (1956) has been writing about film for 25 years, including ten years for the 'Volkskrant'. He has also worked for VPRO Television. In 2001 he made his first documentary Side Canal B.
There Ain't No Easy Road is his second film.
All songs were written, composed and performed by Fred Eaglesmith.
This film was funded by the Dutch Cultural Broadcasting Promotion Fund.
script/director : Huib Stam
camera : Erik Zuyderhoff
sound : Alex Booy and Mark Wessner
editor : Berenike Rozgonyi
sound editor : Mark Glynne (Peter Warnier Studio)
line producer : Hetty Krapels
production : Sara Höhner
producer : Pieter van Huystee
commissioning editor : Rein Tolsma (Fryslân Broadcasting Company)
www.pvhfilm.nl
Length: 206
Rating: 5.00 (4 ratings)
Tags: documentary huystee
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Fred Eaglesmith - Ship
Live at the Kilkenny Roots Festival Ireland. Kilford Arms. May 4, 2008. Cell-phone video recording (Nokia N95). Remixed with the soundboard audio
A tale of the lost, lonely and confused, adrift and homeless.
Ship
Lord I'm beat up and I'm broken
And my light is getting dim
Lord if you could find me
A place to land
My ship needs to come in
(Fred Eaglesmith)
Length: 258
Rating: 5.00 (1 ratings)
Tags: Indie Country Alt Gospel Soul Rock
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Fred Eaglesmith - Water In The Fuel
Fred Eaglesmith, a Canadian icon, performing my favourite song of his, Water In The Fuel, at The Great Northern Picnic in Temiskaming, Ontario on Saturday August 11, 2007. http://www.fredsnorthernpicnic.ca/
Fred went into his intro just as I was changing tapes. It starts with Kori Heppner, (sister of Ben, the opera star) laughing, I zoomed out to get the whole band: Matt Simpson (acoustic guitar, keyboards, occasional vocs) Luke Stackhouse (bass, pocket xylophone and stellar background vocals) , Kori the aforementioned souer de Ben on drums and Fred Eaglesmith, songwriter, performer, artist.
Length: 371
Rating: 5.00 (7 ratings)
Tags: Fred Eaglesmith Skumm Water In The Fuel
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Fred Eaglesmith - The Ottersum Encore
Fred Eaglesmith Live in Ottersum Netherlands. November 2007. Video: Jos Westenberg
Length: 560
Rating: 5.00 (1 ratings)
Tags: Fred Eaglesmith Alt country Grunge Gospel
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Alcohol and Pills
In this haunting hymn to fallen stars, Fred Eaglesmith does more than convey his own sorrow for the deaths of the artists at the song's focus; he also expresses our great collective loss that such spectacular talents and unique voices could be stilled forever by drugs and alcohol. Still, perhaps Eaglesmith's deeper accomplishment is to acknowledge both the continuing appeal of drugs and alcohol and the toll they extract in countless lives, without pretending (either to himself or to his audience) to have all the answers. Sometimes, it is enough to mourn, Eaglesmith reminds us, and to wonder what might have been—and still could be.
Length: 247
Rating: 4.70 (15 ratings)
Tags: Fred Eaglesmith Hank Williams Elvis Presley Gram Parsons Jimi Hendrix Janis Joplin Do It Now Foundation
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