Most days the only activity you’ll find around the barracks at the corner of Berman Road and Iron Mountain Road is from an occasional mockingbird, but back in October 2006 it was a different story. There were trucks and cameras, lights and sound equipment, and young soldiers and Jeeps everywhere. But hang on, these soldiers were wearing metal helmets and canvas rucksacks – no Kevlar or synthetics anywhere and that Jeep was at least 50 years old.

Such was the scene during the filming of the movie “Honeydripper” that will be premiering this week – February 8th, 2008 in Birmingham, Huntsville, Greenville and Montgomery. McClellan played a small, but important part in the filming and several locals were cast as extras.

Honeydripper has been nominated for two NAACP Image Awards: Outstanding Independent or Foreign Film, and Outstanding Writing in a Motion Picture.

Plot summary: Iconoclastic filmmaker John Sayles, in his 16th feature film, uses the rhythms of the citizens of Harmony, Alabama to immerse the audience into the world of the Jim Crow south. It’s a fable about the birth of rock n’ roll-a quintessentially American subject, but with a fidelity to time and temperament that is unusual in an American director.

It’s 1950 and it’s a make or break weekend for Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover), the proprietor of the Honeydripper Lounge. Deep in debt, Tyrone is desperate to bring back the crowds that used to come to his place. He decides to lay off his long-time blues singer Bertha Mae, and announces that he’s hired a famous guitar player, Guitar Sam, for a one night only gig in order to save the club.

Into town drifts Sonny Blake, a young man with nothing to his name but big dreams and the guitar case in his hand. Rejected by Tyrone when he applies to play at the Honeydripper, he is intercepted by the corrupt local Sheriff, arrested for vagrancy and rented out as an unpaid cotton picker to the highest bidder. But when Tyrone’s ace-in-the-hole fails to materialize at the train station, his desperation leads him back to Sonny and the strange, wire-dangling object in his guitar case. The Honeydripper lounge is all set to play its part in rock n’ roll history.

For more information, visit:

www.honeydripper-movie.com or

www.honeydripperhuntsville.com

Honeydripper Radio – a 24/7 radio station featuring a music selection inspired by the film.

2/1/2008