‘Rock & Roll’ strikes a chord with Carter
Film tracks his bond with Dylan, other music icons
It’s hard not to feel a tad nostalgic watching “Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President.”
The new feel-good documentary (available Friday on video-on-demand platforms including Apple TV and Amazon) is a loving snapshot of the 39th president of the United States, whose warm personality and eclectic music taste made him a favorite among giants such as Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, The Allman Brothers Band, and Johnny and June Carter Cash.
Carter, 96, was especially fond of Dylan’s music. He referenced Dylan’s 1965 song “It’s Alright, Ma (I’m Only Bleeding)” during his presidential acceptance speech at the 1976 Democratic National Convention. (“I’ve never had more faith in America than I do today,” Carter said. “We have an America that in Bob Dylan’s phrase is busy being born, not busy dying.”)
Dylan makes a rare on-screen appearance in the documentary, sitting down with the film’s director, Mary Wharton, to discuss his friendship with Carter.
“When I first met Jimmy, the first thing he did was quote my songs back to me,” Dylan says. “It was the first time that I realized that my songs had reached into the establishment world. And I had no experience in that realm; I had never seen that side, so it made me a little uneasy. He put my mind at ease by not talking down to me and showing me that he had a sincere appreciation for
the songs I had written.
“He was a kindred spirit to me of a rare kind. The kind of man you don’t meet every day and you’re lucky to if you ever do.”
Carter recalls how he first met Dylan when he was governor of Georgia, an office he held from 1971-75. The singer was performing in Atlanta with his band and Carter invited him over to the governor’s mansion, where the two had a deeply personal conversation about spirituality and faith.
“Bob Dylan has been one of my best friends, along with Willie Nelson, of course,” Carter says.
“Probably he and Bob had a lot of good ideas to exchange, because they
come from entirely different places,” says Nelson, who also is interviewed in the film. “But Jimmy and I basically come from the same spot.”
Nelson has some of the more amusing anecdotes in the documentary. In his 2016 memoir “It’s a Long Story: My Life,” the country star confessed that he once smoked pot at the White House with a White House staffer.
“That is not exactly true,” Carter says, smiling. “It was one of my sons, but he didn’t want to categorize him as a pot smoker like him.”
Later in the film, Nelson recollects another occasion when he visited the White House on crutches.
“I had just been to Jamaica and got busted (for marijuana possession) down there,” Nelson says. “I was so excited to get out of jail I jumped off the porch and sprung my ankle, and then the next day I had to go see the president of the United States. It was really kind of funny. We laughed about it a lot.”
The documentary explores in broad strokes how Carter’s many musician supporters helped him garner the youth vote in 1976, giving the Democrat the cool edge over his Republican opponent, incumbent President Gerald Ford. Superstars including Diana Ross; Dolly Parton; and Crosby, Stills & Nash held court with the president, and two of his favorite artists, Paul Simon and Aretha Franklin, performed at his inauguration.
“This was the first time young people were kind of in charge,” Jimmy Buffett says. “This was really groundbreaking when you’d come out of the Nixon era. (The Carter administration) actually liked and listened to rock ’n’ roll, and we weren’t just window dressing. When we went to the White House, we were welcomed in.”
As a small-town Georgia native raised in the Baptist Church, Carter also made it his mission to showcase gospel and jazz, inviting many Black artists to perform at the White House throughout his one-term presidency.
“Particularly in the South, to have Black and white musicians playing together was not a normal thing,” Carter said in 1978, in a clip from the inaugural White House jazz festival featuring Herbie Hancock, Pearl Bailey and many others.
“I believe that this particular form of music – of art – has done as much as anything to break down those barriers and to let us live and work and play and make beautiful music together.”