Taylor Hackford

I mean, a big part of Johnny's story, and it's really the turning point of his life and obviously the turning point of my documentary, is that Johnny got left on the side of the road when it comes to music.

He was driving a senior citizen bus to make a living in the mid-'80s, and all of a sudden Keith Richards and Taylor Hackford come into his life.

Hackford's directing a film about Chuck Berry, Hail Hail Rock and Roll.

And Keith Richards insists to Hackford, well, if there's anybody that deserves to be in this film, it's Johnny Johnson.

He played with George Thorogood.

You know, just band after band, musician after musician, wanted to play with this guy.

And it all happened because He appeared in that Taylor Hackford film.

And Keith Richards, you know, there's a great story.

Turns out, so are they.

Helen's been with Oscar winner Taylor Hackford for 40 years, while Pierce and wife Keeley Shay have been going strong for 32.

I've said a number of times, it's solving problems, because there's always problems.

You're just solving one problem after another problem.

He's on the road.

He gets an opportunity to write a song for the soundtrack for a Taylor Hackford film.

He's like, I want to do it, but I don't produce on the road.

Who does he call? But your father.

It was like Ray Sharkey and Peter Gallagher.

But it was directed by Taylor Hackford, who had done Officer Gentleman and a bunch of other movies.

But he and also we're like one of our favorite albums was Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell.

you gotta you know it's like the scenario is important the setting is important because it's like we're in the west end of Hartford and it's like Hartford is like inner city I'm a Dominican American kid he was he's black and we're like talking about like the importance of Dio's vocals and it's just like it was a magical moment so we like agreed that night we're like okay tomorrow saturday morning let's let's get together and do something and he we didn't have recording equipment he was recording songs with two boom boxes just playing like recording something live and then playing it back and then recording it with the other boom box back and forth so it was just like you know by the time we were done with the song it was like it was all hiss but but uh but what i remember the most was his uh uncle who who eventually was part of the whole band that we were in he was a bit the bass player and uh he heard our demo and he was just like oh my god you sound exactly like St. Paul.

give? Sure, but it depends on who you're working with.

There's a lot of directors have very strong ideas about what kind of music.

Some even come with like, oh, I like these five songs and I want to integrate them and so on, you know, and others have no idea.

Others hate score, so they don't want you to temp score.

That's quite interesting in a way because it's also suggesting that he was kind of leaving you alone for that whole first cut and the whole figuring everything out.

He wasn't sort of hovering at your shoulder saying, you know, try this, do that.

Talk to us about the difference of directors from that version to someone who's sitting there every day.

Have you worked with all of those or –

I think that's right.

The movie was a monster, like had no hits as a star after that, had his chances, worked some interesting directors, even like Christopher Guest and others.

But nobody went to see his movies.

But then he just kind of pivoted.

who directed an officer and gentleman do you know offhand

uh i do not know offhand officer in a gentleman is taylor hackford yeah i'm not sure oh he also did um ray and devil's advocate and i guess officer and gentleman is kind of his biggest thing

okay

but yeah