Frequently asked Questions

ABOUT THE FILM

From harmony to heartbreak, inside the world of the early, unsung heroes of rock & roll whose voices shaped the culture that endures.

Musician/Director Kenny Vance opens a portal through the decades as we join him for a half-century tour of the close-knit community of the brilliantly distinctive young artists who defined early rock and roll.  This is Doo-Wop, the first music that united a young generation, bridging cultures.  We are backstage, on the tour bus, in the studio and on the block for this intimate quest to capture the heart & soul of that innovative sound that was lightning in a bottle.

ABOUT THE INSPIRATION

Within 5 years of discovering Doo-Wop on the radio as a teenager in Brooklyn, by age 18, Kenny Vance was on the national stage himself-- co-founding the group Jay & the Americans, producing 12 Top Ten hits, opening for the Beatles and closing for the Rolling Stones in their first U.S. performances in 1964.  After working as musical director for Saturday Night Live and movies including Animal House,  Hairspray, The Warriors  and Eddie & the Cruisers, Vance returned to performing  with  his own namesake group, Kenny Vance & the Planotones, sharing the stage with many of his idols—who became his close friends.  Decades of this camaraderie and Vance’s own backstage and tour footage inspired him to crack open the bottle that held the lightning.  Saved artifacts from the destruction of Vance’s home of 40 years in Rockaway Beach by Hurricane Sandy in 2012 inspired him to create a lasting preservation of the music and the memories.   

ABOUT THE ICONS

The CHANTELS set the bar for all groups to come. Lead singer Arlene Smith (Maybe, He’s Gone) shares how she channeled emotions surreal for a sheltered 13-year-old in an out-of-body experience to sing her soul-searing masterpiece, Maybe.

LITTLE ANTHONY & THE IMPERIALS charted hits throughout the 1960’s. ANTHONY GOURDINE and members of the original group break down the story behind their success as they banter about how their unique harmony grows organically from their shared experiences.

FRANKIE LYMON & THE TEENAGERS broke through in 1956 with their hit Why Do Fools Fall in Love. The group was an integrated group, and the first all-first teenaged band.  Original member JIMMY MERCHANT demonstrates the direct line from Duke Ellington to Doo-Wop as well as the devastation of Lymon’s departure and death, and the careers that died with him. 

WALLY ROKER, original member of THE HEARTBEATS (Your Way, One Million Years, Wedding Bells), deconstructs how the pure vibration of vocal harmony casts an unforgettable spell. 

CLEVELAND STILL of THE DUBS (Could This be Magic)-- one of the major Doo-Wop groups of the 1950’s through 1960’s --  reveals how he was ripped off by managers and producers—as was Vance—as their laughter about masks an unspoken loss.

EUGENE PITT formed The Jive Five (My True Story; What Time is It) with four school friends in 1959. By1961, they had a #3 hit with My True Story—an actual story from Pitt’s life.  In 1989, the group ushered in the MTV era, with their original doo wop anthem:  “Nick, Nick, Nick, Nick Nick, Nick-el-o-de-on”

ABOUT THE SCANDAL

Much has been written about how the early (and later) pop groups were robbed of their royalties. In Heart & Soul: A Love Story, the human side of the injustice surfaces, as the artists describe not only their emotional devastation—but how they kept, and keep, going – if not always thriving—coping and surviving.

ABOUT THE COMMENTS

‘Rock & Roll is America’s music—this film shines a light on these musicians and their place in American music history.”

--Americans for the Arts, former President and CEO Nolen Bivens

‘Heart and Soul: A Love Story, tells a beautiful piece of musical history that has widely been overlooked, including the influence of Doo-Wop era Black/Latino soul singers on Rock-n-Roll as well as many other genres. “Heart & Soul: A Love Story is inspiring and should be a must-see for not only today’s artists and music lovers, but for those who have yet to be born in the many generations to come.”

--URBANMAGAZINE.COM REVIEW

“This music was religion

The church was The Paramount

They poured their hearts into every song-- so strong

And before long, the world would know”

this doo-wop thing would grow & grow & grow…

And it lasts to this day.”

--Christopher “Kid” Reid (of Kid & Play) from his poem, From Doo -Wop to Hop Hop

Q&A with Director Kenny Vance

Why did you decide to make this film, which is the product of decades of work?

“It has been my life’s mission to honor these incredible artists. Few people today realize that early rock and roll was socially as well as musically significant, as it was one of the first genres to feature integrated talent. In this music, artists and audiences found ‘that place to be in harmony’. It was on the shoulders of young, diverse, teenaged artists that the bridge to today’s popular music- -and culture- -was built.”

Why do you think this music endures, and how does the film show that?

“Over the years, many people slipped through the cracks, but their brilliance remains as their legacy. We didn't realize the obstacles these young men and women had to endure in order to persevere and create this art. But the teenage audiences of the time saw through to the heart of it, and time has proved them right. This music lives on within us.

“And it comes full circle. When, for example, Arlene Smith of the Chantels talks about how she channeled adult emotions she had never actually experienced to sing Maybe at age 13, every kid today would get that. And then fast forward half a century andyou see thousands of kids in a festival audience go into a kind of trance when John Frusciante of the Red Hot Chili Peppers pays homage when he recreates Maybe in the same key, and they have no idea where that song came from-- the film shows how that is another kind of endurance.”

What is the film about, from your perspective?

“To me, the film is an intimate portrait of the artists who made the music, a now inaccessible window into a world that no longer exists. It is not intended to be a chronological history of 1950s music told via interviews with experts. Instead, it’s my version of a tapestry of a sub-culture of artists without any formal training, working class kids who created the sound from the ground up, starting on the streets and in subways, borrowing from Gospel, Rhythm & Blues and early Rock & Roll. Enabled by very specific adults, with their own sets of talents, they went on to have smash hits and, for some, decades- long music careers. These are chapters in a story - -a string of stories. And, together, they tell a larger story.”

What do these stories have in common?

“These are the stories of how naïve young artists, throwing themselves into their music, saw the hustle and the glitter. They saw their chance.  The money? Not so often. So the stakes turned out to be high, sometimes tragic—really an ironic contrast to the youthful hope and joy of the music.  It’s like life—how you see it when you’re young, and then how things turn out to really be. If you were lucky, you made a demo, you cut your record, they took your picture, and suddenly you were in show business.  There’s the dance steps and the iridescent gloves, but underneath all that was pure passion and there was a real commitment to the emotions.  That’s what they have in common and that’s what resonates down through the decades.”

Is there a business aspect to the film?

“Well, this homegrown music revolution sparked the American youth culture that still exists and forged the foundation of contemporary music. Unavoidably, the film is also about the birth of the independent record industry, from the point of view of the artists and also from the production side.  The tragedies and triumphs of being a professional musician. The grown men in suits who recognized and propelled the music of, basically, children -for better and/or worse. And the joy of creating and performing music that carries you along in spite of everything.”

Why did you decide to make this film now?

“There was a very specific –and personal—reason.  I had been recording and collecting backstage and tour videos for decades, without any particular purpose except to keep a living record of these very special moments and conversations.  It was like a kind of family album. Then, when Hurricane Sandy hit the New York area in 2012, my waterfront home of 40 years in Rockaway, New York, was completely destroyed.  There was literally nothing left.  However, in the midst of struggling with this devastation – my own as well as others’—I remembered that, although I lost quite a bit, including all of my career artifacts and many recordings from my home studio,  I had stored much of this video and film footage in various other places, that videographers and engineers had kept copies, and, fortunately, I had a wonderful  longtime business manager who had insisted on and had personally kept most of the signed releases, from the period when people started thinking about those kinds of things. 

So, I began the long process of locating, collecting, curating, processing and piecing together what I had.  I sat down and reviewed every minute of the footage, after converting it all to today’s technology. As I did this, the film took shape in my mind, and I realized that I had come so close to losing it, it had to be told now, because it was an important story and it was about people and music that had almost slipped away in time. I felt a love for this material, and for these people, my friends, colleagues and idols.  I also felt I owed it to them to honor them in this way, so others could see – and hear and get to know them-- as I had.”

ABOUT THE MAKERS

Kenny Vance is a multifaceted singer, songwriter, musician and music producer. Rock legend Dion DiMucci praised Vance's ability to express the "heart and soul of doo wop", and he has been dubbed the "Dylan of Doo-Wop" by the Brooklyn Paper.  Born and raised in Brooklyn, Vance was an original founding member of the influential Sixties rock group Jay and the Americans, a neighborhood group of teenagers that went on to produce 12 Top Ten records, opened for the Beatles and closed for the Rolling Stones in their first U.S. performances in 1964,  and has been inducted in the Vocal Group Hall of Fame and, individually, the Long Island Music & Entertainment Hall of Fame. . Vance’s expansive career ranges from solo and group albums to music supervision (Animal House, The Warriors, Eddie and the Cruisers) to musical director of Saturday Night Live. Currently, he records and performs with his popular vocal harmony group, Kenny Vance and the Planotones, known for their hit version of Looking for an Echo, which is now approaching 4 million YouTube hits and is often called “The anthem of Doo-Wop.”  His debut as director of Heart & Soul; A Love Story at age 80 established him as the oldest American male first-time director of a feature-length commercial documentary film.

Vance likes to quote Martin Scorsese: "If you are lucky enough at this age to make a film, make sure it is about something that counts.” 

Liz Nickles. Executive Producer, says, “This is a film that was 50 years in the making. Every frame stands on truth, and the 55 pieces of original music are filled with one-word poems that foreshadow the music and spoken voice of today. It’s a film about standing on young shoulders that were strong enough to change a culture.’

Nickles is a consultant in branding, advertising and marketing, and author of numerous articles and books, including bestselling fiction and the global award-winning nonfiction BrandStorm, about the digital marketplace. As Executive Creative Director at four major ad agencies, her work has won CLIO, ADDY and EFFIE awards.  She is an Emeritus member of the Writers’ Guild of America, West.

Bronwyn Berry is an Emmy-nominated, Peabody award-winning producer and director based in NYC. She has produced documentaries like Love, Gilda (CNN Films/Magnolia) and American Totem (Video Project), docu-series Durban Beach Rescue (Travel Channel), Wonderama (Discovery Family), Talk to Me (Sesame Workshop) and Sesame Street South Africa. Her narrative series include Gazlam, The Wild and Scandal. She is chair of the PGA East Non-Fiction & Documentary Committee and chair of the Brooklyn Bridge Park Film Committee.

Award-winning film editor Mona Davis is known for her artistry in documentary filmmaking. Her skillful editing highlights a compassionate feeling for character, complex and surprising structures, humor, musicality, and a special gift for verité storytelling. As a consultant, she assists directors and other editors with all aspects of creative documentary editing. The films Mona has helped create have won virtually every prize in the field, including: 3 Oscar nominations; 4 Emmy nominations plus an Emmy for Best Editing and the Sundance Grand Jury Prize.