Most American country music bands and groups find it difficult to break through the glass ceiling that is the Nashville recording industry. But it's infinitely harder for a band that comes from a country where English isn't exactly a prominent language--especially when that country is one that America had missiles pointed at for forty years. This is the saga told here in THE BALLAD OF BERING STRAIT.
The film tells us of the long four-year struggle of Bering Strait, a sextet of young Russian musicians with a passion for American bluegrass and contemporary country music who kept tenaciously struggling to break into the American market. And as talented as all of them were, particularly co-lead vocalist Natasha Borzilova, banjo player Ilya Toshinsky, and steel player Sasha Ostrovsky, the very fact that they were Russian meant that there was no way people weren't going to see them as something of a novelty. But a look into their background, conducted by director Nina Gilden Seavey, and their musicianship showed that they could craft their material into something unique and fresh. At the end, they do indeed make a major-league debut in 2002 at Wolftrap, outside of Washington D.C., as the opening act for Trisha Yearwood.
THE BALLAD OF BERING STRAIT goes into great depth into how the Nashville music and radio machinery operates, and how this band, as talented as they are, can find themselves pushing up against not only a glass ceiling, but really a stone wall. It was a near-impossible thing, with the record companies they were signed to being consolidated, their Nashville apartment going up in flames, and much, much more. But in the end, they persevered, and went on to make two albums as a band. And while they did split up in 2006, they still managed to break through to a dedicated cult following. This film shows how it all happened, and is a marvelous demonstration of tenacious and young country musicians from another part of the world somehow being able to make an impact in America.
The film tells us of the long four-year struggle of Bering Strait, a sextet of young Russian musicians with a passion for American bluegrass and contemporary country music who kept tenaciously struggling to break into the American market. And as talented as all of them were, particularly co-lead vocalist Natasha Borzilova, banjo player Ilya Toshinsky, and steel player Sasha Ostrovsky, the very fact that they were Russian meant that there was no way people weren't going to see them as something of a novelty. But a look into their background, conducted by director Nina Gilden Seavey, and their musicianship showed that they could craft their material into something unique and fresh. At the end, they do indeed make a major-league debut in 2002 at Wolftrap, outside of Washington D.C., as the opening act for Trisha Yearwood.
THE BALLAD OF BERING STRAIT goes into great depth into how the Nashville music and radio machinery operates, and how this band, as talented as they are, can find themselves pushing up against not only a glass ceiling, but really a stone wall. It was a near-impossible thing, with the record companies they were signed to being consolidated, their Nashville apartment going up in flames, and much, much more. But in the end, they persevered, and went on to make two albums as a band. And while they did split up in 2006, they still managed to break through to a dedicated cult following. This film shows how it all happened, and is a marvelous demonstration of tenacious and young country musicians from another part of the world somehow being able to make an impact in America.