Everybody has heard “Twist and Shout,” “Piece of My Heart,” “Here Comes the Night,” “Hang On Sloopy,” “I Want Candy,” “Tell Him” and “Everybody Needs Somebody to Love.” But few people know what all of those songs have in common.
A documentary being screened in a sneak preview on Saturday, Dec. 17, at the Wadsworth Atheneum in Hartford will answer that riddle.
“Bang! The Bert Berns Story” chronicles the life and work of the man who wrote or co-wrote all of those legendary pop tunes and produced others such as “Under the Boardwalk” and “Brown Eyed Girl,” before dying of a heart attack at age 38 in 1967. The man dubbed “the white soul brother” was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in the class of 2016.
The documentary is co-produced by Leo Feroleto, the owner of Six Summit Gallery in Essex. It is directed by Berns’ son Brett. The movie is narrated by Steven van Zandt and features interviews with music-industry heavy hitters like Van Morrison, Keith Richards, Cissy Houston, Ronald Isley, Ben E. King and Paul McCartney, who covered “Twist and Shout” with The Beatles.
In the film, McCartney says of “Twist and Shout”: “It just came right out of the blue, like all the great rock and roll records. It just hit you between the eyes. It was like ‘what is that?'” Richards calls him “one of the greatest songwriters of all bloody time.”
It also features Betty Harris of Middletown, who recorded Berns’ “Cry to Me” in 1963. Harris, Feroleto and Brett Berns, as well as Bert Berns’ daughter Cassie Berns and musician Kenny Hamber, will be present at the Atheneum event. After the screening, Harris will sing with The Mighty Soul Drivers.
In a phone interview, Brett Berns said “the universal theme of this story is that you know the songs but you don’t know the man.
“Most people don’t know who wrote and produced songs. They associate them with performing artists and that’s understandable,” he said. “People have heard of Leiber and Stoller and Phil Spector, but [Bert Berns] is obscure even to people who know who those guys are. It’s my life’s mission to redress that historical wrong.”
The film details Bert Berns’ childhood, when a case of rheumatic fever left him with a weak heart for the rest of his life, his taking up the piano as a safe, sedentary hobby, his trips to pre-Castro Cuba to listen to the Latin rhythms in nightclubs, and his success in the music industry, where he infused those Latin rhythms into R&B songs.
The doc doesn’t shy away from Berns’ dark side. He apologetically befriended Mafiosos and at one point, used them to frighten away a competitor trying to force Berns to sign over his record label. One of those gangland associates, Carmine “Wassel” de Noia, is interviewed in the film, reminiscing colorfully about his life and friendship with Berns.
“I let the truth guide me. … I knew this would never work if it was going to be a hagiography. It was up to me to tell the story, warts and all,” said Brett Berns, who was 2-1/2 when his father died. “That element was everywhere in the music business. If you were in the music business, you rubbed shoulders with these kind of guys.”
Feroleto and Brett Berns met more than a decade ago, when Feroleto was working on Wall Street, helping film production companies team up with financiers. He liked Berns’ documentary idea and helped keep the project going. Brett Berns said that Joel Selvin’s book “Here Comes the Night: The Dark Soul of Bert Berns and the Dirty Business of Rhythm and Blues” was a strong influence on the documentary.
“Joel really taught me so much about my father’s music and my story,” Brett Berns said. “We connected the dots with each other. There were things he didn’t know that I knew, and vice versa.”
Berns has shown the film in sneak previews around the country. He said the Atheneum screening is the last sneak preview before the movie is distributed nationwide sometime next year by Abramorama. Also, early next year a musical about Bert Berns, “Piece of My Heart,” will debut on Broadway.
“My sister says in the movie, ‘All my memories of him are somebody else’s.’ I feel the same way,” Brett Berns said. “He said ‘my children will know me through my music. He knew he was going to die young.”
“BANG!: THE BERT BERNS STORY” will be shown in a sneak preview on Saturday, Dec. 17, at 6 p.m. at Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art, 600 Main St. in Hartford. A Q&A with Brett Berns, Cassie Berns, Leo Feroleto, Kenny Hamber and Betty Harris will follow, followed by a concert with Harris. The event is planned in collaboration with Queen Ann Nzinga Center and the Six Summit Gallery. $20, $18 members at thewadsworth.org or in person at Six Summit Gallery in Essex. (Call 860-581-8332 before pickup.) The event is planned in collaboration with Queen Ann Nzinga Center and Six Summit Gallery.
