Leo Bud Welch is an 82 year old Mississippi-based Blues and Gospel musician who released his debut (!) record earlier this year, taking the blues world by storm. After decades of hard work in the cotton fields and the woods, missed opportunities and gigs in local Juke Joints and churches, Leo’s very late international success is a story that needs to be told.
Our goal is to make a feature documentary called I don’t know what you’ve come to do – The Story of Leo “Bud” Welch. The film will be a reflection upon country life in Mississippi over the past 8 decades and how it formed Leo “Bud” Welch’s music that touches so many people these days.
We will tell the story of Leo’s life – starting with his younger days, working hard in the cotton fields and playing his cousin’s guitar whenever he could. How he played his first concerts in schools and churches but couldn’t make decent money as musician at the time. How he spent decades cutting timber, but still couldn’t afford the bus ticket to Memphis when blues superstar B. B. King invited him to an audition. How he played the blues at night in the fields and woods while cutting timber for days on end.
Together with Leo, we will visit places that were and are important in his life. His birthplace, the farm he grew up on, the cotton fields and the Mississippi woods where he cut timber during the day and played the Blues at night. The two local churches Leo still plays the Gospel in every other Sunday.
We will talk to old friends, collaborators, family, his manager and discoverer Vencie Varnado (a retired US Army First Sergeant) and go on tour with Leo, both in the US and Europe.
We will talk about segregation and the Civil Rights Movement, religion, work life, American history, modernization, success, travelling and of course about gospel music and blues, and how Leo combines these two: The music of God and the music of the Devil.
To finance the movie, we’re running a crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter that’s LIVE right now. It launched September 2, 2014 and will be live until September 26, 2014. We’re aiming to raise 15.000 USD, that’s the money we need to cover our basic costs like flights, residence, rental equipment and additional crew salaries.
This is the link to our Kickstarter campaign:
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1878543847/leo-bud-welch-documentary-movie
Let’s Make This Happen!
Let’s Make This Happen Productions
Wolfgang Almer
Brunnengasse 42/232
A-1160 Vienna/Austria
+43 650 4464654
www.leobudwelchmovie.com
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