Rock
’n’ roll is a bottleneck, a continuum littered with the lives of great artists
who, for whatever reasons, just never got the breaks they deserved. Garland
Jeffreys: The King of In-Between, a new documentary that will screen as
part of Upstate Films’ Close Up series at the Orpheum Theater on July 28, tells
the story of one of the prime examples of this reality.
Raised
in Brooklyn with a mixed-race heritage, Jeffreys loved jazz singers, doo wop, R&B,
soul, and Bob Dylan as a kid and attended Syracuse University, where he was
classmates with a pre-Young Rascals Felix Cavaliere and a pre-Velvet
Underground Lou Reed, the latter becoming a lifelong friend. In 1970 he and his
Woodstock-born band Grinder’s Switch backed up the VU’s John Cale on his first
solo album, Vintage Violence (Jeffreys penned a song for it as well), and
his own 1973 single “Wild in the Streets,” included Dr. John on clavinet and became
an underground FM hit.
Jeffreys
fell in with the punk scene at CBGB during its initial mid-’70s rumblings, and his
gritty 1977 album Ghost Writer, which reprised “Wild in the Streets” (a
song famously covered by the Circle Jerks as the title track of their 1982 sophomore
album), was critically hailed. His biggest radio breakthrough came with 1981’s Escape
Artist, which featured accompaniment from members of Bruce Springsteen’s E
Street Band and Graham Parker’s band, the Rumour, and featured a hit version of
? and the Mysterians’ “96 Tears” and the storming original “R.O.C.K.” Although he’s
released several other fine albums and counts Springsteen, Reed, David
Johansen, and others as vocal admirers, Jeffreys has remained a cult “artist’s
artist.” The crowd-funded documentary was directed by his wife, Claire
Jeffreys.
Garland
Jeffreys: The King of In-Between will
be shown for Upstate Films’ Close Up series at the Orpheum Theater in
Saugerties on July 28 at 7pm. A Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys will
follow the screening. See website for ticket information.
This article appears in July 2025.
