Agent Palmer

Peter Jackson already took on one impossible theatrical endeavour, by bringing the Lord of the Rings to life in live-action. To do so, hard decisions had to be made about what made it in, and while I am still sore about Tom Bombadil not making the cut, I do understand.

With The Beatles: Get Back, Jackson has undertaken a similar task. Fans of Tolkien are as knowledgeable about their passion as Beatles fans are.

Tom Petty is iconic with, and that’s without the Heartbreakers or Traveling Wilburys. On his second solo album, 1994’s “Wildflowers,” Petty cemented himself as a legendary singer-songwriter. While he already was an icon to most of us after eight albums with the Heartbreakers and another two with the Wilburys, this removed all doubt.

“Somewhere You Feel Free” is a documentary with some modern interviews peppered in.

There are biographies and autobiographies that are about what a person did and how they achieved their particular brand of expertise, success, or celebrity, and then there are the ones that are about who that person really is.

The Real Frank Zappa Book is one such autobiography. You read this book and you don’t understand all of the important dates or instances of this or that which led to the Frank Zappa you know, but you do understand who he is. This isn’t as much of a history book as it is a philosophy book, it’s Frank’s philosophy, and he doesn’t pull any punches.

If you have been listening to The Palmer Files podcast or following me on Twitter, then you know I am interested in the process. I love figuring out how it’s done, how to do it better, how to create and recreate. I’m intrigued by all of it, and “It All Begins with a Song” is absolutely about the process.

It’s the story of Nashville as the songwriting capital of the world, but it’s also about the process of songwriting, which is applicable to any and all creative endeavors. For this reason, every creator should watch this documentary.

“On the evening of July 25, 1965, Bob Dylan took the stage at Newport Folk Festival, backed by an electric band, and roared into his new rock hit, Like a Rolling Stone. The audience of committed folk purists and political activists who had hailed him as their acoustic prophet reacted with a mix of shock, booing, and scattered cheers.

It was the shot heard round the world—Dylan’s declaration of musical independence, the end of the folk revival, and the birth of rock as the voice of a generation—and one of the defining moments in twentieth-century music.”