My first excursion at the Nashville Film Festival was to see a film I very much wanted to see at SXSW - The Refugee All Stars. The band portrayed in the film played at that festival and have apparently received some recording contract offers as a result. No too shabby!

I have a complaint or 2 about the filmmaking, but the music is wonderful and heartfelt yet at the same time gritty, disharmonious and filled with the musicians’ strife. They remind me of the early days of Bob Marley. I rarely pull out the old songs on the first discs of my boxed set, in favor of the newer polished Marley tunes. But when I heard The Refugee All Stars, I was reminded how songs of conflict start somewhere raw and only later become slick and retrospective. They are going on tour this summer and I’m hoping to see them before they sign with a major US record label. I’m sure these talented musicians will blossom with the attention and money they stand to garner, due in no small part to the film, but I’d like to see them before they are removed from the world that germinated their music and then see how far they climb. Summer tour schedule>>