Video Premiere: Charles Ellsworth “Max & Geraldine”

Charles Ellsworth — “Max & Geraldine”

Americana Highways is hosting this video premiere of Charles Ellsworth’s song “Max & Geraldine,” a song from Ellsworth’s new album Honeysuckle Summer out now on Burro Borracho Records.

The video was directed and edited with cinematography by Neil Larson.  In addition to Charles Ellsworth, characters in the video are Rae McKenzie as Geraldine and Jaron Call as stoner friend w/van.  This is an exuberant video short that captures the liveliness of Charles Ellsworth’s songwriting that’s especially evident in this exuberant love song.

“Max & Geraldine” is a uniquely American love story, but the theme of determination powered by love is universal. Geraldine’s diagnosis leads them both sacrificing comfort and proximity in order to just get by, but their love is the motivation and driver throughout. Around the time I was finishing my Film Degree in Salt Lake City, the Paper Mill that my Stepfather had worked at for 25 years shut down and laid him and all of his coworkers off. He was just a few years away from being able to retire, and all of a sudden he was thrust into the job market for the first time in all the years I’d known him. He moved to North Dakota to haul toxic sludge in a tanker across that frozen wasteland and spent the better part of 2 years away from my Mom, lonely, cold and miserable. When he finally found work back in Arizona and was driving back to live at home full time I could hear the sound of relief and joy in his voice. Something about watching one of the strongest men I’d ever met be kept afloat by his love for my mother hit me hard, and I think I was pulling from that well when I wrote ‘Max & Geraldine.’ To make the music video I leaned hard on the talents and imagination of my friend Neil Larson of SideShed Studio in Salt Lake City. I brought him an overly complex music video treatment that he was able to help me cut down to something more manageable that would let us lean on the resources we had available; a cool van, a talented actress (Rae McKenzie), some pretty convincing police lights, and the beautiful Utah landscapes. What we ended up with is the video for “Max & Geraldine.” — Charles Ellsworth

Link to order: https://charlesellsworth.bandcamp.com/album/honeysuckle-summer

Find further interesting music coverage here:  Key to the Highway:  Dan Baird