Ep. 155: Garland Jeffreys -The King of In Between Documentary with Director Claire Jeffreys

Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between Documentary with Director Claire Jeffreys

From director Claire Jeffreys: I've been Garland’s partner for more than 40 years. Many fans and friends have told me about turning people on to Garland’s music—and can't believe they’ve never heard of him. I decided to make this film not only to bring Garland to a wider audience, but also because it seems the world has finally caught up to his commitment to examining issues of race and social justice in his songs. He belongs in the conversation. His perseverance will inspire people everywhere.

When Garland Jeffreys released his first solo album in 1973, Village Voice critic Robert Christgau called him both “classy” and “classless.” He wasn’t meaning to be self-contradictory: It was clear even then that Jeffreys was elevated just a little in temperament and ambition from much of the streetwise New York scene he was a part of. It was also evident from day one that classifications meant nothing to a genre-indifferent performer whose self-titled debut had “Stonesy blues shuffles rubbing elbows with reggae from Kingston.” The dean of rock critics declared that “this man should be given the keys to every city whose streets he walks—ours first” and issued a bold two-word prophecy: “staying power.”

There’s been no cause to eat those premonitory words since. Although Jeffreys did take a hiatus from recording in the late ‘90s and 2000s, he returned five years ago with a comeback album, The King of In Between, that made Christgau gush that the singer/songwriter had somehow “beaten the odds by surpassing 1973’s Garland Jeffreys and 1977’s Ghost Writer.” He won’t be treading of any of those high-water marks. In 2017, Jeffreys stays on a returning-champion roll with 14 Steps to Harlem, a spirited summation of virtually all the styles and subjects he’s explored through a nearly five-decade career. If the entire world doesn’t know it, the cognoscenti still agree: As “woke” New York rock standard-bearers go, Jeffreys remains at the head of the class. (And the classy. And the unclassifiable.) The new album is filled with autobiographical narratives that refer back to Jeffreys’ occasionally rough, fondly recalled Brooklyn upbringing, as well as songs that salute his adult friendships with peers like Lou Reed, Bob Marley, John Lennon, and Joe Strummer, explored in both original songs (“Reggae on Broadway”) and a pair of choice covers (“I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Help”). He looks back to his childhood in “Schoolyard Blues” (about being an undersized basketball hustler) and the title track (about his father’s inspiring work ethic), but the invocation of these memories is less indulging in nostalgia than about a continued penchant for narrative writing.

GARLAND JEFFREYS: THE KING OF IN BETWEEN

Opens Friday, June 6, 2025

SPECIAL EVENTS

Fri Jun 6 :

Q&A w/ dir. Claire Jeffreys, prods. Savannah Jeffreys & Evan Oppenheimer, & Ivan Julian at 7:30 p.m.

BUY TICKETS

Sat Jun 7 :

Q&A w/ dir. Claire Jeffreys, playwright Dael Orlandersmith, & Cornelius Eady at 7:30 p.m.

BUY TICKETS

SHOWTIMES AT IFC CENTER

Fri Jun 06

7:30 pm

Sat Jun 07

2:05 and 7:30 pm

Sun Jun 08

2:05pm and 7:30 pm

Mon Jun 09

2:05 pm 7:30 pm

Tue Jun 10

2:05 pm 7:30 pm

Wed Jun 11

2:05 pm 7:30 pm

Thu Jun 12

2:05 pm 7:35 pm

Friday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.: Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys, Associate Producer Savannah Jeffreys, Executive Producer Evan Oppenheimer, and singer-songwriter Ivan Julian, founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids

Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 p.m.: Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys, Pulitzer finalist playwright Dael Orlandersmith, NYPL fellow Alvin Eng, Nicky Paraiso curator at La Mama, and Cornelius Eady, co-founder of Cave Canem Foundation, a nonprofit organization for Black poets

https://www.kingofinbetween.com