Music is joy and love and expression. The music business can be something else entirely.
Just ask Rudy Love and the Love Family.
The Loves are the focus of the “funkumentary” film This is Love, which was screened during the 2019 River Bend Film Festival. They were also special guests of the festival and performed a triumphant gig at The Goshen Theater.
Rudy Love and his kin have rubbed shoulders with big names in the music biz – the family worked with an array of Motown artists, and Rudy served as Sly Stone’s band leader and manager. They’ve also been ripped off. Big time. Through shady business practices including “credit swapping,” other artists have reaped the credit and financial rewards of Love music.
This Is Love is a bid for the Loves getting their due.
The listening party at Ignition Music Garage was broadcast live on 91.1 The Globe.
The Loves talked about their collective life and times during a Saturday afternoon “listening party” at Ignition Music Garage hosted by WGCS 91.1 The Globe, the Goshen College radio station.
“We started off when we were kids,” Rudy told his in-store and on-air Globe listeners about his family and its music. He also recounted various episodes in his career, including experiences with mafioso (“Two guys who looked like they ate cows for breakfast”), Little Richard (“He was quite the character”), and Lou Rawls, to whom he sang on the street in Los Angeles (“My daddy knew him”).
Between family anecdotes about ups and downs, the Loves’ music took center stage. It included “Good Morning Little Schoolgirl” and “Happiness.” However, Globe station manager Jason Samuel didn’t wait for the listening party to take a musical deep dive.
“I’ve listened to more Rudy Love music in the last week than I realized was recorded,” he said. “I’ve been blessed.”
The Love Family closed out the 2019 River Bend Film Festival with an unforgettable show at The Goshen Theater.
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Tickets for the 2020 Festival go on sale in July.
River Bend has screened hundreds of student, regional, and international films, averaging 50-70 per year. It has also offered workshops on lighting, acting, editing, screenwriting, visual effects, crowdfunding, and more.
The festival accepts all genres: narrative, documentary, experimental, music video, animation, student, features, and shorts. River Bend makes it a priority to highlight the work of local and regional filmmakers, and many of the films come from across the country and around the world.