Wilmington is back on the big screen today, as the feature film “Tammy” hits theaters nationwide.
Locals will recognize some sights—and sounds—in the Melissa McCarthy comedy, which filmed in the area in 2013. Snows Cut Park, Blue Post Billiards, Blue Clay Road and Winnie’s Tavern are featured, as is Spring Lake Park in Boiling Spring Lakes, among several other locations used for the movie.
But another local ingredient on full display in the film can not only be seen, but heard, as well.
Possum Creek—known to patrons of the Satellite Bar and Lounge for its weekly bluegrass jams every Sunday—is featured in the film and on its soundtrack. Along with frequent collaborator “Big Al” Alex Hall, the band recorded four songs for the film—two of which made the soundtrack cut—and appear as the house band of “Blue Post Barbecue,” named after its location: Blue Post Billiards.
Mandolin player Jones Smith, who makes up one-third of the revolving-member three-piece, said the opportunity came by chance while doing what they do every Sunday evening: pickin’ and grinnin’ and jamming at Satellite, where the crowd included McCarthy one night during filming.
“We’re down there playing every Sunday like we always do, and there’s a lot of fun people dancing, hootin’ and hollerin’ and it’s a great time. We get done, and the bartender’s like, ‘Oh! Melissa McCarthy was here tonight!’ And I’m like, ‘Who is that?’ And she’s like, ‘She’s that girl from that show and that movie.’”
Smith might not have known who McCarthy was, but he would the following week, when the “Bridesmaids” star returned with more movie folks in tow and approached the band about being in the movie.
“Melissa McCarthy herself, along with Rob Cowan, the producer, comes up to me and says, ‘Hey, you want to be in our movie?’ And I said, ‘Yeah, when?’”
“Tuesday,” he was told—meaning two days later—to which Smith said he replied: “Oh, okay! Well, what are you looking for?”
What they wanted, he said, was a five-piece band, prompting Smith, Hall and bassist Ben Chontos to recruit fellow players Joe Baxter and Sean Gould. With little time to rehearse, the expanded version of Possum Creek arrived at EUE/Screen Gems Studios to record the four songs: Otis Redding’s “Hard to Handle,” bluegrass traditional “John Henry,” and two of Hall’s original songs.
“Keep in mind, they already had a band planned,” Smith said. “They did have another band chosen. But after seeing us and our energy up there, they decided they wanted us.
“The other band was in contract, had stuff recorded. They paid those guys what they had to pay them, and they got us,” he said. “And they really seemed to like us. I think for the scene, we were more of a genuine thing and not too goofy. We weren’t going to try to steal the show.”
The originals weren’t included on the movie’s soundtrack, though one of them, “Love Somebody,” is featured in the film. But the covers are on the soundtrack, the first of which, “Hard to Handle,” kicks off the compilation.
Click here to listen to clips from the soundtrack
And beside both titles is the name Possum Creek.
While the band is excited about the exposure, Smith said he is most proud of how the band—and bluegrass, in general—is presented in the film.
“We were real proud to be able to represent Wilmington and represent North Carolina banjo-fiddle music in such a way and positive light in this movie,” Smith said. “Everybody wants their music in a movie, but most of the time when you hear banjo-fiddle music in the movies, it’s either a period piece, like a Depression film or a Civil War movie, and it’s poor mountain people or it’s a car chase scene trying to get away from the crazy rednecks, or they have banjo music when you walk into the hillbilly bar.
“Well, this wasn’t a hillbilly bar where there were scary rednecks and they were all making fun of that kind of thing. This was a cool bar, and the music that was being played was modern and relevant and fun and wasn’t tongue-in-cheek and wasn’t insulting for backwoods people. This was putting it in a very positive and modern, relevant light, which doesn’t always happen when you put string-band-type music in the movies,” he said.
“So I think that was, to us, a real win, a real score—not only for us,” he said, “but for the tradition—the living, growing tradition—that we represent.”
Smith said he is equally proud that the band on-screen represents the same scene that McCarthy happened upon at Satellite that Sunday. While the songs are not what the band typically plays—he said “Hard to Handle,” famously covered by The Black Crowes, had never been played by the band before recording it—Smith said the scene that was filmed at the Blue Post is what takes place on a weekly basis in Wilmington.
“Really, the experience they were portraying in there of us getting up there and jamming some high-energy-type, string-band, bluegrass, banjo-fiddle music—that’s what happens at the Satellite every Sunday,” he said. “People come out and dance, and it’s all sorts of different kinds of people. And that’s what we’re all about.”
“Tammy” is showing at Carmike Cinemas and the Regal Mayfaire cinemas in Wilmington. The rated-R film’s trailer, which features Possum Creek and several area locations, can be viewed here.
Click here for the film’s official website.
Jonathan Spiers is a reporter for Port City Daily. He can be reached at (910) 772-6313 or [email protected]. On Twitter: @jrspiers
