They make it seem so easy. Band members take the stage and play a couple of hours for our enjoyment. We don’t think about how they got there, or what happens after the show.
Eric Weltner’s new Honky Talkin’: Tales and Travails from the Honk Tonk Trails documentary, which premieres 7 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 23, at the Southgate Revival House-Sanctuary, takes us on a road trip with several musicians to and from their gigs.
“It’s a grind,” says Weltner, a Greater Cincinnati advertising executive and filmmaker who recently moved from Newport to Gatlinburg, Tennessee. “We see these people on stage and see their personalities, and we think we know them. But they have 22 hours to deal with life, get to their next gig, and book their shows. Unless you reach a certain level, you’re doing it all on your own.”
Over the past two years, Weltner and his camera tagged along with Jerry King and the Rivertown Ramblers, based in Vevay, Indiana; Jason Ringenberg (former front man for Jason and the Scorchers); and the Royal Hounds from Nashville. He also interviewed the Morgans Mill band from Knoxville; Bobby Mackey’s wife Denise; and Morella Raleigh, owner of the Southgate House Revival-Sanctuary. He shot performances at the Southgate Revival House in Newport and at Bobby Mackey’s in Wilder just before it was closed and demolished last year.
Twenty-nine original songs are featured in the movie, including “Honky Tonk Bop” by King.
Only about 40% of the film is from concerts. The rest shows the musicians loading equipment in their vehicles and driving hundreds of miles, or talking about life on the road.
“I found it fascinating. They play up to 250 dates a year and put a lot of miles on their car — and themselves,” Weltner says.
The Facebook campaign has promoted the film with sayings such as, “There’s a lot more to the music business than music,” “A profession with more red ink than red carpets,” and “Just paying your dues isn’t a down payment on success.”
The premiere party will include performances by Ringenberg, the Royal Hounds, and King and his Rivertown Ramblers at the Southgate House Revival, 111 E. Sixth St. Newport. Tickets are $35 plus fees.
Weltner says he’s been a fan of live music most of his life. He saw Jason and the Scorchers play the Ohio University Spring Festival in 1986, when he was an OU senior. (Honky Talkin’ includes some OU student video from the festival.) Weltner first saw King and the Rivertown Ramblers at Top Cats on Vine Street in Clifton. The Columbus-area native says he frequently travels to Nashville to enjoy live music.
His first two films were about hockey, his other passion. Weltner produced International Incidents, about the old Columbus Owls hockey team in 2020, and The Mohawk Monopoly in 2023, about the 1950’s Cincinnati Mohawks championship hockey teams.
After the premiere, Weltner plans to enter Honky Talkin’ into film festivals “to see if we can garner any kind of attention from Netflix, Amazon, or other platforms,” he says.
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