In a round about way, those four lads from Liverpool who took the music world by storm in the 1960s are coming to the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival.
The 30th festival kicks off on Thursday, Nov. 6, and while the final day, Sunday, Nov. 16, won’t exactly be Beatlemania, it will have some akin to it: Fredamania.
Kathy McCabe of Baltimore and part-time resident
of Gulf Shores since 2004 is bringing the film she produced, “Good Ol’
Freda,” about Beatles secretary and fan club president Freda Kelly to
the GulfCoast along with the film’s star, good ol’ Freda herself.
Freda Kelly, at 17, became the Beatles secretary
and president of the official Beatles Fan Club. She is, longtime friend
McCabe says, the only person employed by the Beatles from beginning to
end of the madness that was Beatlemania.
Since its release in March of 2013 at the South
by Southwest Film Festival, McCabe and Freda have been touring almost
nonstop for screenings all over the world in what McCabe affectionately
has dubbed Fredamania.
On a beautiful fall afternoon overlooking Raley’s
Bayou in Orange Beach, McCabe recounted the story leading up to the
film, from her own infatuation with Beatles’ music, to meeting friends
in Freda’s circle, to becoming friends with Freda herself.
And years of not talking about the Beatles. The
whole thing exploded on the eve of the film’s release for Freda, McCabe
and Director Ryan White, when “Good Ol’ Freda” became the first
independent film to ever receive permission to license four actual
Beatles songs from the original masters.
Two screenings will be shown during the 30th Annual
Frank Brown Songwriters Festival at one of Freda’s favorite places she
visited on a trip here a couple years ago, the Flora-Bama.
After each screening on Nov. 16 and Nov. 17 in
the Bama’s main room, Freda will take questions from the audience and
sign copies of the DVD. Screenings will start at noon both days.
Those screenings, McCabe says, are the absolute
best because Freda has enchanted crowds everywhere she has been since
the film went viral in 2013.
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