By David DeRocco

A lot of indie film producers make huge sacrifices to bring their vision to the big screen. For Port Colborne’s Christopher Darton, pursuing a career as a documentary film maker meant sacrificing an important part of his childhood.

“I sold my comic book collection,” said Darton, who at age 46 liquidated his cherished collection to buy the gear he need to pursue a new passion as a documentary film maker. “I bought a camera, I bought some lights and basically suited myself up.”

Darton's inspired career change put him on course to completing his first self-produced documentary project, “The Way We Was: The Story of the Kendall Wall Band.”  That  2014 documentary debut told the story of The Kendall Wall Band and their 11 year residency at Toronto’s Black Swan Tavern. It was a labour of love that took Darton over 18 months to complete and gave the former screenwriter and TV show developer his first real taste of success.

Now, Darton is set to debut a second documentary based on the life story of another unsung Canadian blues hero. “Hard Working Man: The Music and Miracles of Danny Brooks” chronicles the trials, tribulations and eventual redemption of journeyman blues and Memphis-stryle R&B player Danny Brooks, a Canadian road warrior who now lives in Texas. While it may not have the pop-culture appeal of a Kardashian biography, Brooks’ story is exactly the kind of subject matter that appeals to a documentary film maker like Darton.

“My mom said to me one day, what’s so special about this guy,” said Darton, a graduate of Fanshawe’s film program. “I said he’s got that kind of Johnny Cash story, where he went from nothing, suffered through years of addiction and jail, and then kind of came out the other side. He’s 65 years old, he’s been in the music business for 40 years. He’s a survivor, still writing music, he’s out on the road every day playing prisons and playing reformatories. And he’s a pastor. He’s really playing it forward, taking all that experience and giving back. In that respect it’s an amazing story.”

Being intimately familiar with the Brooks story was one reason why Darton felt compelled to make this film; the other was the fact he could actually secure the music rights he needed to produce the film’s soundtrack.

“I’d known him for 12 years now. In those twelve years I’ve written articles on him for Maple Blues, I’ve written the liner notes for one of his albums. I’ve taken thousands of pictures of him, and I wrote the screen play for the movie version of his autobiography. It just seemed to be the logical choice. I knew the subject, but I always wanted to step into a project where I could secure the music right. That was the downfall of the Kendall Wall film. I was never able to come up with the funds to secure the music.”

Darton spent the last 20 months shooting the film in locations from Texas to Collingwood, conducting interviews with everyone from David Wilcox to members of Downchild in his efforts to accurately tell the tale. And while the life of Danny Brooks is at the heart of the film, Darton says there’s a deeper story, one that reflects the efforts of every unsung Canadian rock and blues artist to give voice to the blues north of the border. 

“In the film (Canadian singer) Cheryl Lescom says ‘by the time you reach 40 if you haven’t given up, the music’s chosen you, you haven’t chosen the music.’ It’s very true in a lot of ways. It becomes your life. There’s not a lot of people who are knocking down the doors of people like Gary Kendall, Danny Brooks, Jack Dekeyser, all these great roots and blues musicians of Canada. Some of these stories are going to be forgotten. They’re important stories. We didn’t have a Johnny Cash. We didn’t have a Muddy Waters. We didn’t have a Rolling Stones. But we had people that brought that music up to Canada and passed it on to people who made it popular. Danny’s one of those guys when it comes to roots music. He’s kind of our Solomon Burke, our Johnny Cash.”

Darton’s film makes its debut Friday, December 1^st at Lakeshore Catholic Performing Arts Centre in Port Colborne. For tickets call 905 835-2451 or email andrew.boon@ncdsb.com.