COWTOWN BALLROOM...SWEET JESUS!

Kurt Kloeblen The Sun 5/13/09

Tony Ladesich sums up why the Cowtown Ballroom concert hall was a flashpoint in Kansas City's history from 1971 to 1974.
"I would say it was the last time things seemed possible," Ladesich said. "Cowtown Ballroom came at a point in history when the promise of the ‘60s teetered out into the vapid shallowness of the 70s. It really was a tipping point. The summer of love, the hippie ethos filtered in from the coasts and happened here a little later."
Ladesich and Joe Heyen have created a documentary about the concert hall called "Cowtown Ballroom ... Sweet Jesus!" The story chronicles the hall and the culture of the area in the early 1970s.
The documentary opens this week with a cast and crew screening party Thursday and a reunion party Friday at the former ballroom, 31st Street and Gillham Plaza in Midtown.
The film starts a two-week run May 22 at the Tivoli Theater, 4050 Pennsylvania. Heyen will be present for all the Tivoli screenings.
Heyen and Ladesich said there are many reasons why people have such an affinity for a concert venue that lasted all of four years, one being the music.

Artists who played the venue include Van Morrison, Frank Zappa, Linda Ronstadt, Steve Martin, the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band, Steve Miller, Alice Cooper, BB King, Foghat, Brewer and Shipley, Ravi Shankar, Seals and Crofts, and Arlo Guthrie.
"Cowtown Ballroom was a roomful of people ready to have a good time listening to music," John McEun of the Nitty Gritty Dirt Band says in the film's trailer.
Cowtown Ballroom's fans came from all over the metro area, Heyen and Ladesich said, from suburb kids to University of Missouri-Kansas City students to hippies.
"Kansas City had really good weed, and it wasn't quite heroin or blow yet," Ladesich said. "People still believed in being good to each other. When these traveling musicians came through, their nostalgia was only two years old. It was a feeling that had happened just two or three years ago.
"When they came to Kansas City, they felt the love and they felt the vibe. They thought, ‘We can come back here a lot.'... Bill Shapiro, in movie, said this was a hippie joint and the hippie ethos was still out there."
Heyen, who grew up outside of Kansas City, came to just one show at the Cowtown Ballroom, but his recollections of his trip remain vivid and partially inspired the making of the film.
"It's strange, I remember it so well," Heyen said. "I admit up front I drove down with my girlfriend and went to Volker Park and did a couple hits of acid. So why would I remember that show? I don't know. She doesn't remember it that well. I was there one night and I remember certain things exactly right."
In making the film, one of the pinnacles for the crew came while interviewing BB King.
Heyen set up the interview with King's tour manager and the crew was informed they would have just five minutes to set up and five minutes for the interview. After being told they could not get to the tour bus area at Uptown Theater, the crew finally made it onto the bus and started to set up their equipment.
"We've got a job to do, so let's get in and get out. We walk in and the very first thing Joe said is, ‘Thank you Mr. King, we'll be out of your hair in five minutes, I promise,'" Ladesich said. "(King) said, ‘You don't hear nobody hurrying anybody up, do you?' So we're setting up, in our frantic thing, and nobody really talking to him. He said, ‘Don't nobody want to meet BB King?' ... We got shooting and he talked for 25 minutes. He was amazing ... he's just the nicest guy."
Heyen and Ladesich have worked together on the film for almost two years, with about 15 months dedicated to shooting and the rest dedicated to editing, of which Ladesich handled the duties.
While Ladesich spent 16-hour days editing the film and "going slightly insane" in the process, Heyen said he has taken over the work of promoting the film and trying to find places to show it.
The film already has secured acceptance in a few film festivals and has applications in for others. A DVD will be for sale when the film is released in theaters.
After its run at the Tivoli, Heyen said he would like to pair the film with music at a few metro area locations to "create that feeling of community that existed at Cowtown."

To find out more, visit www.cowtownbr.com.