A Conversation with Chuck Brodsky  (continued)

CB: Okay. Well, the Radio movie comes out Friday, officially, and I guess it's going to be released in 2,000 theaters across the country on opening night, which is pretty huge.

PM: Come on!

CB: Although they've been showing sneak previews around the country to generate some interest, the actual premiere is this Thursday, and that's in South Carolina, and I'll be going, and I'll be singing the song at it.

PM: You must be stoked out of your mind, right?

CB: Totally.

[laughter]

CB: It's amazing.

PM: Wow. So how did this happen? Let's take it from the top, for people who may not know of the song or even the movie.

CB: Okay.

PM: I mean, you'd have to be living in a cave not to have heard about the movie. But a lot of people don't watch TV.

CB: Well, Radio is now 57 years old and he has Down Syndrome, an incredibly long time for somebody with Down Syndrome.

PM: Wow.

CB: But 40 years ago, I guess, as a teenager, he was riding his bike around town and saw the football practice going on, at Anderson High School. He stopped to watch. Now, people don't frequently imitate behavior of other people around them. But he was imitating the coach, with his hand gestures and yelling at players. And the coach called him over. I guess maybe at first the coach might have thought that some kid was making fun of him. But then it was clear that Radio had Down Syndrome.

Anyway, the coach befriended him on the spot, and made a place for him as the water boy for the team. Radio would travel with the team on the bus for road trips. And that led to the coach picking Radio up in the morning on his way to school, bringing him in for the day with him, looking after him.

And then, over time, Radio was given more and more freedom, and in time it came to pass that the entire school took to him. And these days he just roams freely and drops in on classes when he wants to. He wants to be like everybody else. So if kids are taking a test, he pulls out a box of crayons and a piece of paper and he thinks he's taking the test, and he just scribbles. They've now made him a full-fledged coach, so he dresses up in the same clothes that all the other coaches wear, the khaki pants, the shirt with his name embroidered on it, "Coach Radio." He's on the sidelines, and he's yelling at players.

PM: Unbelievable.

CB: All the fans are calling him, and he's waving to everybody and high five-ing people. And he's just celebrated. He's a big man on campus. And it's such a beautiful real-life situation. And all of the people involved are just down-to-earth, regular people.

PM: Wow. And so these film makers, through either hearing your song or reading the Sports Illustrated article, or both, got wind of the story, and the idea to do a film. Is that how that went?

CB: It was actually from the same Sports Illustrated article I read back in '95, '96, that my father clipped out and mailed to me. And it just moved me so deeply. I knew this story needed to be spread, it was so special. I just couldn't bear to have it end, you know, when people throw the magazines away.

PM: Right.

CB: And I did my best to tell the story in song.

PM: And you done dang good.

CB: Thank you. I feel like the honor is mine, the privilege is mine to take that story around and touch people with it.

And amazingly enough, Mike Tollin, the director of the movie, read the same article, had the same response that I did, what a wonderful story to be spread. And he decided he needed make this movie. But it took many, many, many years to come to fruition.

A movie isn't like a song that you can just sit down and write in a number of hours. He had to pitch this to various film companies. He got a couple of bites. People had it on hold--Warner Brothers, Paramount, they held options on it for a year or two at a time, and dragged their feet. And finally, Sony took the option and said, "Let's go." And they hired Mike Rich to write the script, who had written the script for The Rookie. And they got high profile actors, and they turned this into a big budget, major motion picture.

PM: Wow. So how did Tollin and company hear your song, "Radio"?

CB: I think it was Coach who put us in touch. But this is an amazing story, too. Coach had told Mike about me, and told me about Mike, and wanted us for meet or get in touch. So he gave me Mike's office number, and I phoned one day. I got Mike's secretary, asked for Mike, and she put him on. And I said, "Hi, my name is Chuck Brodsky," and I was about to say, "a singer/songwriter from North Carolina." He cuts me off. He says, "Chuck Brodsky, Letters in the Dirt. Richie Allen was my favorite baseball player, too. We listen to your CD all the time in the office."

PM: Un-f***in-believable.

CB: It was un-f***in-believable. [laughs] So, soon after that I had a gig in L.A., and Mike came out to it and we met.

PM: A nice guy?

CB: Very, very nice guy. This blows my mind and will probably blow yours too: Mike, Gary Smith--the guy who wrote Sports Illustrated article--and myself all grew up in the same neighborhood in Philadelphia.

PM: Oh, my God!

CB: We're all huge Philly fans. Mike even got a little private in-house internet list going during baseball season, for about ten people, including the three of us, Gary, myself, and him. And so day-by-day somebody--every day somebody posts a comment on the game in '94, or whatever.

PM: My understanding was that things went back and forth, whether or not they were going to be able to use the song in the movie. But it seems to be coming your way, is that right?

CB: It's a done deal now, it's in, and it made the soundtrack CD.

PM: God, that's great.

CB: Films like these have a separate music department that is completely independent of the director and the producer--

PM: Really? Completely independent of the director?

CB: Yeah. So Mike actually had no say whatsoever, other than to tell them he really would like it in there. But it was not his decision. And they didn't make the decision until close to the last minute.

PM: Holy jeez, who would have thought that it was completely independent of the director?

CB: Yeah.

PM: That's insane. I mean, the soundtrack disc, okay. But whether or not it gets in the movie itself?

CB: Yeah. That was not his doing.

PM: Wow! Well, it's just wonderful that not only does it get in the movie, but it gets on the soundtrack. You know, I even heard a rumor at one point that you might get a walk-on. Did that happen?

CB: That happened.

[laughter]

PM: Let's hear about that.

CB: Well, Mike invited me to come in and be part of the final scene of the movie. It's a beautiful idea: the actors are replaced by the real Coach and the real Radio.

PM: Wow!

CB: A banquet scene. It's actually a re-creation of a real banquet that happened this past summer, where the coach was given an award, a Lifetime Achievement Award by the governor of South Carolina. So in this scene in the movie, they have the actually governor of South Carolina presenting the real coach with the same award.

PM: Unbelievable.

CB: And Gary Smith, the author of this Sports Illustrated article, is seated to my left. Radio's Special Ed teacher, whom I also know, is seated to my right. And the scene is full of people. All the extras used in the scene were people from their real lives or associated with them. I thought that was a very nice touch.

PM: It's unbelievable.

CB: My family saw a sneak preview. And I'm not going to see it until the actual premiere on Thursday. They told me that I'm very visible in the scene. And they even freeze the frame and hold it there for a while, so I'll be just to the left of Coach.

PM: Oh, that's amazing! Well, you're very photogenic. They ought to get a good shot.  continue

print (pdf)     listen to clips     puremusic home