Legendary blues performer Charlie Musselwhite plays Alvin Reynolds in Martin Scorsese’s ‘Killer of the Flower Moon’.
Watch the Noise11 interview with Charlie Musselwhite:
Musselwhite plays Alvin Reynolds in the movie but a fascinating twist to the story his that Charlie’s grandfather, also called Charlie Musselwhite, lived right there in Oklahoma where the movie is set, when the actual real story was happening.
Charlie Musselwhite tells Noise11, “The thing that is interesting, a lot of people don’t know, if you read the book there is a photo of an outlaw named Al Spencer and I have Al Spencer’s rifle. It’s got notches carved in it from the people he killed. It has his named carved in it. The reason I have it is because he died in a shootout with my grandfather and my grandfather was also Charlie Musselwhite. I told Scorsese about that and he thought it was pretty far out because we were right where it all happened and here comes Charlie Musselwhite back on the scene”.
Charlie loaved working with Marty Scorsese. “He is a delightful fella. He is easy to talk to. He laughs real easy. His instructions to me were just speak my lines like I wanted to, change them if I wanted to and feel free to improvise. I had already rewritten the script. When I first got the script I thought I don’t even talk like that. It was easier for me to memorise my lines if I rewrote them. So I did. At the end I threw in “I ain’t lying”.
Charlie said that despite the dark past of the region and the story, it was a day at work on the movie. “I’d read the book and I know the story and I remember my grandfather talking about those things. I didn’t know about the murders. You don’t have time to think about all the other stuff when the camera is going. When you are filming your scene you have to focus on what you are doing”.
The soundtrack was composed by the late Robbie Robertson. Robertson met Scorsese when Marty directed ‘The Last Waltz’ for the band. He then scored Scorsese’s ‘Raging Bull’ in 1980 and worked with the director on his final project on the soundtrack for this movie. Charlie didn’t meet Robbie. “He wasn’t there when we did the movie. I didn’t see him on the set but I didn’t see De Niro or DiCaprio either. I came in for one day. Me and Jesse Plemons who is in the scene with me had trailers next to each other. He is the only actor I met. I saw some others, but I was in there and out. I wasn’t there for the whole movie”.
Charlie Musselwhite Dates Are:
Wednesday September 18th, Melbourne at Northcote Theatre
Friday September 20th, Manning Bar, Sydney
Saturday September 21st, The Tivoli, Brisbane
Tuesday 24th, September Harmonie German Club, Canberra
Thursday 26th, September Perth’s Astor Theatre
Saturday September 28, The Governor Hindmarsh, Adelaide
Tickets to all shows are on sale now via https://gerrardallmanevents.com.au/
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