Cecil Allen Moore’s songs in ‘Buckshot’
How nine songs by Cecil Allen Moore came to be used on a movie soundtrack is the kind of thing that, well, they make movies about.
Moore, who used to go by “Peewee,” is one of the better singer-songwriters around this area. His honky-tonk sound is as honest and true as a gulp of corn liquor from a Mason jar, and it can cause the hairs on your scalp to sweat about the same.
Joshua Smith is an independent filmmaker living in California. When he went looking for music to include in his directorial debut, “Buckshot,” he stumbled across Moore’s music on Bandcamp. The movie is about a young songwriter who is more interested in being a star than in being an artist. He is then tasked with driving an aging honky-tonk singer to Nashville for what is likely his final show, and along they way he discovers what it means to make real music from an honest place.
Smith reached out to Moore and, “He sent me four of his albums. I was over the moon and fell in love with his voice, and it matched the movie. I started sticking in his music as a placeholder while I was making the movie, and then they became the songs I wanted to use.”
And not just one or two Moore originals. Smith ended up using nine.
“He is the real deal,” Smith says of Moore, “and that is kind of what the movie’s all about. It’s about a kid who wants to be a pop country singer, but doesn’t understand what it means to be authentic. He learns what it means to be a real artist.”
You can watch the trailer here: https://www.youtube. com /watch?featur e=youtu. be&v=apC3 LJbGRh0.
The movie came out last year and did fairly well on the film-festival circuit, winning five awards, including Best Feature and Best Actor (Tim deZarn) at the Culver City Film Festival. Freestyle Digital Media, an on-demand and theatrical distribution company, picked it up and released it on Tuesday.
It stars deZarn, Conor Murphy, Emily Davenport, Allan Wasserman and Frank Collison. Smith’s wife, Allyssa, produced and has a small acting part as well.
Moore and Smith have actually met only once, and that was last year when Moore was in Los Angeles for a show.
“I went to see him and to shake his hand so he’d see I was a real person,” Smith says with a laugh.
“I love his music.”