Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President: Music-Themed Doc on 39th President a Star-Gazer’s Delight

By Kim Hughes

Rating: B+

In what is both a fresh storytelling tactic and a highly entertaining look at the 39th president of the United States, director Mary Wharton’s Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President considers the renowned humanitarian and politician not through his myriad achievements but through the lens of the company he keeps.

Luckily for Wharton and for us, much of the company Carter kept during his tenure as both president and governor of Georgia happened to be very famous, quotable musicians: Gregg Allman, Bob Dylan, Nile Rodgers, Paul Simon, Bono, Jimmy Buffett and, most notably, Willie Nelson, who fêted Carter as he accepted the Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo in 2002.

Of course, Carter the statesman is a key component of Carter the person, so while Wharton provides multiple (though not especially revealing) interviews with all the above — including the taciturn Dylan and the now-deceased Allman, plus Carter himself, still astonishingly spry at 96 — we are also reminded of Carter’s success on the Camp David Accords.

But the political stuff feels like a sidebar to the main story, which spotlights Carter’s many marquee shindigs at the Governor’s Mansion in Atlanta, and later, the White House. Perhaps most illuminating is the breadth of Carter’s interest; country and gospel seem obvious given his southern upbringing, but he was also knowledgeable and deeply invested in jazz and rock.

Carter actively promoted jazz and players like Dizzy Gillespie while calling out the racism that often diverted the music from the mainstream. “I remember Charles Mingus,” Carter recalls of a touching scene where he met the acclaimed bassist, by then confined to a wheelchair by the ALS that would eventually kill him.

“I just said something about how I appreciated what he had done for our country and our people and for me personally with his music.” Mingus looked like he was going to cry.

The implication, of course, is that Carter was a bridge-builder, a humanist, and utterly ambivalent about labels in the way only a savagely brilliant tactician and former naval officer who comfortably scanned publicly as an aw-shucks peanut farmer could be.

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Not that he had an agenda but the optics of these celebrity associations were amazingly beneficial for Carter. It’s fair to say he created the modern template for merging music with politics to create a more accessible, friendlier campaign, a tactic since leveraged by everyone from Bill Clinton to (perhaps less successfully) George W. Bush.

Wharton has gathered some dynamite footage: Allman and then-wife Cher attending a dinner at the White House (including anecdotes about comically misused finger bowls), Carter introducing the Allman Brothers in concert, seemingly unlikely Carter champion Hunter S. Thompson singing his praises, staunch Republican actor John Wayne welcoming the Democrat to office and pledging fealty to the new Commander in Chief.

And was there ever a more celebrity-friendly White House? Paul Newman, Warren Beatty, John Lennon and Yoko Ono, Muhammad Ali, Diana Ross and Aretha Franklin are among those captured. In one of the film’s giddiest episodes, Crosby, Still and Nash just show up at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue but are granted an audience with Carter nevertheless.

The film briefly loses its way near the end when, in a moment of apparent forehead-slapping, the filmmakers remember that Rosalynn Carter was by Jimmy’s side in almost every frame and thus is deserving of the spotlight too. This “yay Rosalynn” segment feels forced and unnatural.

Still, Wharton’s film benefits from exceptional timing, which may not be accidental. Carter’s diplomacy and decency, his easy smile and comparatively youthful veneer contrast dramatically with the current American president and his secretive, self-aggrandizing, circled-wagons administration.

Carter’s White House, with its free-wheeling 70s vibe and drop-in visits from Dolly Parton, Luciano Pavarotti, and Willie Nelson in blue jeans and sleeveless t-shirt seem positively Edenic by contrast, casting Carter in an even sunnier light than usual. Works for me.

Jimmy Carter Rock & Roll President. Directed by Mary Wharton. Featuring Jimmy Carter, Willie Nelson, Nile Rodgers, Jimmy Buffett, Bob Dylan, Bono, and Paul Simon. Opens October 29 at Toronto's Ted Rogers Hot Docs Cinema and in virtual cinemas nationwide via this link.