Way Off Broadway Sensation To Make Splash on SilverScreen with Ray & Bob'!'!'!'

Hey folks, Harry here... A week prior to the Texas Film Hall of Fame - I was already living the high life from my mobile ass mover. On Congress Avenue in the shadow of the State Capitol at the State Theatre a play was having its glorious debut here in Austin, Texas. Now I know, if it doesn't open in the Apple first, what's the point? Well... This play, in the way south burrough of the Entertainment world was the sort of entertainment that somehow, someway grabs the attention of those in far off territories... even those in L.A.

It was called A RIDE WITH BOB: FROM AUSTIN TO TULSA and was a bouncing baby of Ray Benson, Asleep At The Wheel and Anne Rapp. Now, I've know Ray Benson for a few years now and in all that time he's constantly bent my ear about a Bob Wills biopic. The last time was in a tent in back of a Krispy Kreme donut opening a couple years back. He told me that Anne was working on the script. Anne? yeah, Anne Rapp - the script supervisor on everything from THAT THING YOU DO! to THE AMERICAN PRESIDENT to GRAND CANYON to THE COLOR PURPLE to PLACES IN THE HEART. And recently she's been writing for Robert Altman on DR T & THE WOMEN & COOKIE'S FORTUNE! Well Ray and her have been working on a Biopic based on Bob Wills for a couple of years... hammering at it, knocking away at it. But really... who wants to do a musical Biopic... there's no money in that. Specially musical biopics that mix jazz, blues, swing and country. Heh. Now, Bob Wills' 100th Birthday was pressing and Anne and Ray decided to adapt their feature screenplay into a stage production. And they decided to do this on the quick. The scheduled 6 performances at the State Theatre, and no sooner than it was announced, than it was sold out.

You see, the cast was made up of ASLEEP AT THE WHEEL - 9 time Grammy winners and a cast of 30 or so others. Pops and I were dying to attend. Western Swing and Bob Wills are a particular fetish of ours. We used to own a ton of Bob Wills memoribilia like his band boxes, posters (movie & music) and a couple of costumes. When the play started the entire place went nuts. People dancing in the aisles, hell, if a helicopter flew above, I'm sure the building was swaying. The audience called the cast back on stage for encores of music from the play and damn if it wasn't the absolute bee's knees. I so wanted an excuse to write about it here... but even though Ray Benson has appeared in film and done music for it. Even if Anne Rapp is a produced talented as hell screenwriter... It wasn't really AICN material... yet.

Now - today, I'm popping about the SXSW festival when a source came up to ask me if I heard what the lowdown was on Ray's Bob Wills movie. Now, I have to say, my ears perked instantly, played dumb and asked the bird what she heard aflutter. Turns out she went to the last show on Sunday and spotted Lawrence Kasdan in serious talks with Ray Benson about turning Anne and his BOB WILLS script into film. Now, personally Kasdan doing this is just too good to be true. So I ring up Ray Benson to see what the lowdown is and guess what? Before I had 2 sentences of small talk out, Ray... butsting with glee sings about Larry Kasdan wanting to make the film... and a couple of companies trying to wrench the script and project rights out of Ray and Anne. Now, this sort of thing happens all the time in the theatre scene on the coasts, but here in Austin? Not so often. But it just goes to show ya how exciting this place where music, theatre and film live and breathe. Bob Wills was an astonishingly influential musician... and given the wild success of not only RAY, but O BROTHER, WHERE ART THOU... their music, those films. I'm telling ya, I expect to hear good news about this anytime now. Just you wait and see!