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Movies based on country music songs

Country music is known for songs that tell great stories. In just a few minutes, a song can spin a tale of adventure, mystery, love or murder. It’s no wonder, then, that some film writers have been inspired to use these songs as the basis for a movie. Here are just a few examples of songs that have been developed into full-length films for cinema or television.

Kenny Rogers

Kenny Rogers has had two of his hits turned into TV movies: “The Gambler” and “Coward of the County.” Starting in 1980, The Gambler was a series of TV movies that starred Rogers. He played the role of gambler Brady Hawkes, and the movies follow Hawkes’s adventures. Reba McEntire appeared in the 1991 instalment called The Gambler Returns: The Luck of the Draw. Rogers also starred in the TV movie Coward of the County, playing the role of Uncle Matthew. In the song, Uncle Matthew tells the tale of his nephew, Tommy, and that fateful day when Tommy meets up with the Gatlin boys.

Bobbie Gentry

Ode to Billy Joe was a 1976 film that starred Robby Benson and was based on the Bobbie Gentry hit, “Ode to Billie Joe.” With a slight name change to the title, it tells the story of the character Billy Joe McAllister and provides a reason as to why he jumped off the Tallahatchie Bridge – something the song neglects to tell us.

Tanya Tucker

Kristy McNichol, Dennis Quaid and Mark Hamill starred in The Night the Lights went out in Georgia in 1981. The film was based on the 1973 Tanya Tucker cover of the Vicki Lawrence hit of the same name. Tucker had altered some of the lyrics, and the song was adapted for this movie with the tagline, “You’re never too young to learn the score.”

C.W. McCall

“Convoy” was a number-one hit song for C.W. McCall in 1975. Three years later, it inspired the movie of the same name. Kris Kristofferson, Ali MacGraw and Ernest Borgnine starred in the film, which tells the story of a trucker’s vendetta with an abusive sheriff and the other truckers that come out to support their fellow driver.

Loretta Lynn

Sissy Spacek won an Oscar for best actress when she portrayed Loretta Lynn in the 1980 movie Coal Miner’s Daughter, name after Lynn’s song from 1969. Tommy Lee Jones and Levon Helm also appeared in the biographical film. The movie notes Lynn’s trials and tribulations in life. Country artists Ernest Tubb, Roy Acuff and Minnie Pearl portrayed themselves in cameo appearances.

Glen Campbell

The “knock-out comedy of the summer” — at least that’s how it was billed in 1984, when the movie Rhinestone was released. Starring Dolly Parton and Sylvester Stallone, the song was based on the Glen Campbell hit, “Rhinestone Cowboy.” Parton plays a country singer who bets her nightclub manager boss that she can turn anyone into a country music singer in just two weeks. Stallone plays the made-over star.

Jimmy Dean

Finally, “Big Bad John,” the song that won Jimmy Dean the 1962 Grammy for best country and western movie was developed into a movie in 1990. The film stars Dean and Ned Beatty. The movie version tells the story of a young couple that elopes to escape the girl’s evil stepfather, played by Beatty. Intertwined in this melodrama is the song story of Big Bad John: John kills a man and hides from authorities by working in a treacherous coal mine. Dean plays a sheriff who pursues John.

Related:

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Dolly Parton to Bobbie Gentry: Story songs by country music women

Rear-View Mirror: For Glen Campbell it’s farewell, but the music lives on

 


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