Mr. Beaks Travels To BRANSON With Brent Meeske And The New Man In Black, Jackson Cash!

Every year, nearly eight million tourists pass through Branson, Missouri in search of wholesome family entertainment. For the most part, they come to see the heavy hitters: Andy Williams, Shoji Tabuchi, The Lennon Sisters and Yakov Smirnoff. But some will hop off the beaten path and explore Branson's many, many alternatives, and this is where they'll find an insanely cheery/desperate assortment of variety shows and magic acts and celebrity impersonators. This is the subculture documentarian Brent Meeske unearthed several years ago when he found himself stuck in Branson shooting a reality show that was disintegrating by the minute. He first stumbled upon a revue called #1 HITS OF THE 60'S (which could essentially be retitled SHOW CHOIR: THE MUSICAL), and realized he'd found a potential real-life WAITING FOR GUFFMAN scenario. But it wasn't until he made the acquaintance of a Johnny Cash tribute artist named Jackson Cash that he realized he had a movie. That movie is BRANSON, and it recently debuted at the Los Angeles Film Festival to deservedly positive reviews. Though comparable to any number of fringe showbiz documentaries (AMERICAN MOVIE, ANVIL! and MULE SKINNER BLUES spring immediately to mind), Meeske makes sure that the laughs aren't derived exclusively from his subjects' earnestness (which is quite the accomplishment seeing as how the performers in #1 HITS OF THE 60'S and BLAST! are all earnestness). Most of the performers in BRANSON aren't grasping for superstardom; they're just trying to find a way to make a living doing what they love in a town where this just might be attainable. These people might be incredibly quirky, but they're also kind of pragmatic. And then there's Jackson Cash, the one wild card in Meeske's deck. A veteran country musician who wound up with a voice uncannily close to The Man in Black's after getting punched in the throat by a Las Vegas drug dealer (!), Cash is the film's unruly heart and soul. Though deeply religious (many of his original songs deal directly with faith), Cash is always running up against his sinner past - much of which is written across his body in scars (I'm still wincing at the one he earned from gangrene poisoning). His most persistent demon is addiction, which gets a hold of him just as he's on the verge of crossing over into the Branson big time. Suddenly, he's skipping shows and burning bridges - and the viewer is left wondering whether this undeniably gifted misfit is going to pull it together before he's drummed out of town. That I had the opportunity to chat with Meeske and Cash the day after BRANSON's LAFF premiere should give you an idea of how things turn out in the film. But there was still plenty to talk about. So please read on as we discuss the impetus of the project, the tao of Boxcar Willie, and how you can always depend on the kindness of Jonathan Winters lookalikes. You won't get this stuff out of Shia LaBeouf, folks!

Mr. Beaks: I read that this movie grew out of a reality show you were attempting to shoot called BK AND CODY, which was about some rich guy buying a kid off of eBay?

Brent Meeske: Yes, that's absolutely true. It's a bizarre story. There was this kid named Cody. He was a self-proclaimed "hippie" who lived in a converted school bus parked on his parents' lawn. They grew tired of that and decided to auction him off on eBay. It got a lot of attention on THE TODAY SHOW and THE TONIGHT SHOW, and they got quite a few bids, including the winning bid from a guy named BK Haynes, a sixty-six-year-old millionaire who lives in Virginia. He thought he was buying the bus. When he found out he was buying something called "The Ultimate Hippie Vacation", he went along with it. So he jumped in the bus with Cody, and they were supposed to live together for a few weeks on the road. We jumped on the bus to document it - maybe for a potential reality show, maybe for a potential documentary. We didn't know where it was going to go, but I jumped on to film it. We only made it about forty-five minutes across the border from Arkansas to Missouri straight into Branson. It was Day Two when BK threw up his hands, refused to participate, locked himself in the Radisson, and the show was over; the project was dead. I was stuck in Branson with the camera crew, some gear, a few more weeks on the schedule, and decided to turn the cameras the other direction and start a documentary about Branson. It was a really lucky accident.

Beaks: I like how you just dive into the world of Branson. I've never been there, but I've read about it. And I remember when it boomed back in the '90s. The building up of Branson would seem to be quite a story on its own. Did you ever think about doing a traditional history of Branson?

Meeske: I did. We shot over 400 hours, so we explored a lot of avenues that we didn't necessarily end up following for the film, but we... I think kind of the easiest place to start... Branson kind of lends itself to this kind of GUFFMAN-esque documentary. "Look at this bizarro Las Vegas!" Fortunately, the stories were so strong that we abandoned a lot of those paths and just dove into the personal stories of the characters.

Beaks: I'm glad you said "GUFFMAN-esque". That's how I described it to someone last night. But it's very compassionate, I think, in terms of capturing its subjects' hopes and aspirations. When did you meet Jackson?

Meeske: We met Jackson at least a year into the project. For the first year, I stuck with my first show and my first characters exclusively, which was the THE #1 HITS OF THE 60'S. There are a bunch of great, great characters in that show, and I thought that would kind of be the focus of the whole film. About a year into it, nothing very dramatic was happening with the cast, so I started to branch out and explore other people and other characters. I interviewed at least fifty other people in Branson. Some of the big shots like Mickey Gilley, The Lennon Sisters and Yakov Smirnoff. And Jackson was kind of this omnipresent force. We were stationed in the Branson mall, and he was playing in the food court. We were basically camped out there filming the 60's show, and Branson's music wafted through all the time. Eventually, we took notice. He played one of his original songs, "Ghost Town", and that really caught our attention, so we started shooting his performance. Then we did a really quick interview, and that's how he became part of the story. Jackson: Well, I approached them first. I was looking for somebody to film a promotional DVD for me. Because I had just gotten there, and I didn't have enough money to do anything for somebody that might help me. And I see these guys walking around with their cameras. I asked them if they would do it, and as I remember it (to Brent), you said no. You were doing a Branson documentary, and you didn't do that thing. You were from L.A. And I thought, "Well, that's too big time for me. And I couldn't afford these guys anyway. They're top-notch." And from what I remember, he heard one of my original songs and said, "We'll make a deal with you: if you give us clearance to use one of your songs in our documentary, we'll film that promotional DVD for you." Which they did. Right? Meeske: Mm-hm. Jackson: And I still had brown hair. I hadn't dyed my hair black yet. I was just getting into the thing, and that's when it took off. I had a little DVD.

Beaks: (To Brent) So you actually bore witness to the transformation?

Meeske: Oh, yeah. We met Jackson within a few weeks, right? Jackson: I was still wearing my cowboy hat when you met me. I hadn't even started combing my hair back yet. Meeske: He had just arrived in Branson. It was just about the time you changed your name, right? Jackson: Yep. Meeske: So, yes, we did get to witness the transformation. We were there for his discovery and his whole journey into the Caravelle Theatre.

Beaks: How long was this after the fight that cost you part of your voice?

Meeske: That happened about a year before I went to Branson in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Beaks: What was your set list like before this incident?

Jackson: Just before that, I had had a gig in Bryce Canyon, Utah. That's where John Wayne used to film a lot of his movies. It's cowboy and western country, and people come from all over the world to experience the cowboy thing. So my list was doing Sons of the Pioneers, "Red River Valley", "Ghost Riders in the Sky"... all western songs. And some Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings, Merle Haggard... cowboy stuff, you know? That's pretty much the kind of stuff I was doing.

Beaks: So was there this moment where you heard yourself and said, "Holy shit, I sound just like Johnny Cash", or did someone have to point that out to you?

Jackson: I always knew that I could be an impersonator. I could sound real close to Willie, and I could sound real close to Waylon Jennings. And if I was ever going to be a tributer, I couldn't do a real good job at Waylon because that guy played a Fender guitar, and I cannot play that style. He was incredible. And I feel like if you're going to do that, you've got to do it all. My style was just like Johnny Cash. But I was afraid that I wasn't going to be able to do it because he was 6'1", okay, and he had black hair. I think maybe my features were right and my voice was definitely [right] by that time, but I was afraid I wasn't tall enough. And when Joaquin Phoenix came out with WALK THE LINE, I said, "Okay, if that guy can do it, maybe I can." So I started looking up Johnny Cash impersonators on the internet and listened to them. I listened to everyone that was being booked around the world, and... I wasn't impressed at all. Not to think I'm big or anything like that, but it just didn't seem like it would be that tough to fall into that. But what really made my mind up was I had moved to the Jackson Hole, Wyoming area with my last wife. This was six months before I went to Branson. We were living in Wyoming, and I decided to maybe go to Nashville. I was thinking maybe Branson, but no. I was so fed up with the music business that I thought, "I'm just going to settle down with my wife and get a real job. To hell with the music business." So I actually went over to a truck stop at about five in the morning - and I have a song that I've written about this - to go talk to this manager about getting a job in Cheyenne, Wyoming. I was waiting to see a certain manager there that I could talk to at the coffee counter, and while I was waiting to talk to him this great big feller next to me introduced himself as "Big Joe". And he told me his story, and how he was a rancher and always had been in Wyoming, and how he had a friend named Boxcar Willie. Boxcar Willie had a theater at one time in Branson, and this guy Big Joe looked exactly like Jonathan Winters. It spooked me. And what he had to say to me for the next five minutes changed my entire life. He told me that Boxcar Willie told him that he was a spitting image of Jonathan Winters, that he was funny and a natural comedian, and that he could have his own tribute to Jonathan Winters in Branson, and that he ought to go try it out. So he went to Branson, Missouri ten years ago. He started out making $200 dollars a night, and ended up making $5,000 a night. And he said, "Son, you sure sound like Johnny Cash, and you look like him. I think you can do it." So I packed my bags and was on my way to Branson, Missouri, and that's when the thing happened with Brent and me. And when I got there, and I recorded that song and put it on one of CDs six months later, I come to find out people were saying, "This might be the same Big Joe that Red Sovine sang about years ago in a song called "Phantom 309". He's an angel, and he helps people along the way. I believe it was really him. I really do. Because I met another gal who had moved... her family loved Boxcar Willie so much that her family from Montana was on their way to go work for him in Branson. They were coming through Wyoming in Evanston, where I met my first wife. And there was a blizzard. A complete whiteout. And they were stuck for three hours in the restaurant. And while they were waiting for the blizzard to clear, here comes this great big feller who kinda looked like Jonathan Winters with a Boxcar Willie hat on and a Boxcar Willie coat. And there was this light all around him. And he told them, "Folks, the blizzard's clearing away right now. You'll be able to get in your car and go down and meet Boxcar Willie, and everything will be alright." So they went down there, and the daughter ended up doing Boxcar Willie's train whistle when Boxcar lost his voice. She actually ended up working for him and being his mistress for quite some time. (Laughs) Meeske: What's her name? The girl that did the whistle? We filmed her, right? Jackson: Not her, no.

Beaks: How old was she?

Jackson: She was about forty or forty-five.

Beaks: Well, good for Boxcar. Brent, when you're dealing with people who are aspiring to a certain level of celebrity, is there ever a concern that they might be playing to the camera too much?

Meeske: Yeah, there is. When we started, I have to say that the first few days of interviews produced a different type of footage. I feel like they were maybe giving me their PR persona. Not Jackson, but some of the other folks. It made for some interesting footage, and we did use it in the movie; it's actually some of the funnier footage. But eventually we were able to get to know them and wear them down to where they reveal their true selves. I think that provided the real powerful footage - the emotional, true, honest footage. I think that in the process of spending three-and-a-half years there, we were able to get to the real people. But I was concerned about that. I wanted to make sure that we told real stories, and got to know the people as they really were.

Beaks: Jackson, when you were holing up in your hotel at that one point, were you just hoping that the cameras would go away?

Jackson: Yeah. I just thought I needed to focus on my sobriety. Just let it go completely and concentrate on that.

Beaks: (To Brent) How did you negotiate that? On one hand, you want to keep your distance, but on the other you've got this great story...

Meeske: That was tough. I needed the end of the movie, and Jackson and I had agreed to do one more interview. I showed up, and it was clear he wasn't in the mood. I have to say I probably forced my way in through the door and set the camera up. I think it only lasted a few minutes before he asked me to leave. But we had gotten the conclusion that we needed. That's not the end of the film, obviously; I had to fly back six months later and get the ending. But that was one of those times that was pretty uncomfortable for me. I felt like I was balancing my personal relationship with Jackson with my responsibility as a filmmaker to make sure I got that part of the story. That was one of the more difficult moments. I'm sure it was for Jackson as well.

Beaks: Having spent so much time with Jackson, did you talk to people to try and help him out a little? Or did the show get back up on its own?

Meeske: Oh, that happened on its own. I think everything that happened in Jackson's life was a surprise to me. (Jackson laughs) I just tried to stay in touch with him and the Mock family. We'd get a little notice and fly out to Branson as soon as one of these big developments would take place. So, no, I played no role in that whatsoever. I tried to remain a professional cameraman-documentarian. I followed him and let him lead me.

Beaks: Brent, how did Jack Black get involved as a producer. And what are your plans beyond BRANSON? Do you want to stick with documentaries or would you like to try your hand at a fictional narrative feature?

Meeske: When the "Hippie Vacation" thing blew up, and I shot that first stuff... we shot ten hours in three days. I came home and edited it down to about six minutes, and Jack was really the first and only person I showed it to. He responded to it immediately and jumped on based on that. He's been involved since day one. And I would love to have a career as a documentarian. I find it fascinating. I love the trip it takes you on. Like I described earlier, I love going in and filming these people's stories and not knowing how it's going to end. It's the most challenging part, but it's definitely the most rewarding. In film school, I watched a lot of non-documentary films, so... I kind of stumbled into this. But I love it. I'd be really happy doing this.

Beaks: If there was one disappointment with the documentary, it's that you never filmed Shoji Tabuchi's restrooms.

Meeske: (Laughs) You know, we never got access to Shoji. He's just too powerful. The big names turned us down: we couldn't get into Shoji, we couldn't get into Yakov... they just didn't want to be a part of it. I guess the media has been a little unfair to Branson; they've been the butt of the joke a lot, and I think they thought they had nothing to gain and a lot to lose by [going on camera]. So unfortunately we couldn't get in there. Maybe one day. (To Jackson Have you ever been in there? Jackson: No. I hadn't even heard about them. What's going on.

Beaks: Early in the film there's talk about how great Shoji's bathrooms are.

Jackson: Maybe there's a waterfall in there or somethin'.

Beaks: It seems like people are awfully proud of their bathrooms in Branson. It comes up a lot.

Meeske: Jackson had a great answer last night. Jackson: Someone asked me "What's the fascination with bathrooms in Branson?" I told them it's the elderly.

BRANSON is currently without a U.S. release date. We'll let you know when this great little documentary gets distribution. Faithfully submitted, Mr. Beaks