45RPM

45RPM is a 2013 independent film written and directed by Juli Jackson. The movie, filmed in various locations across Arkansas and the Missouri Bootheel, follows Charlie Clark (Liza Burns) and Louie Traxler (Jason Thompson) as they go on a road trip searching for a copy of “Rusted Roof,” the only song Charlie’s late father’s band ever recorded back in the 1960s.

Charlie is a struggling artist, living in an unnamed city, whose current project centers upon a memory of listening to her father’s song when she was a child. She hears at her local record store that a place in Memphis, Tennessee, has a copy and takes a thirty-six-hour bus ride to the city to try to buy it. But when she gets there, the store owner, Louie, does not know the record. She leaves behind her notebook, which Louie finds, and he tracks her down and offers to help her find this record, having realized that Butch Derby, a noted session musician with whom Louie is obsessed, played on the recording.

They start driving through eastern Arkansas, with the movie at times employing a watercolor-like animation to convey the passage of distance and time. They go to stores, yard sales, and swap meets looking for the record. At one place, a woman named Shirley (Natalie Canerday) says she remembers the band, Five Man Trip, playing at a high school dance in Blytheville (Mississippi County), and at a library they track down an old newspaper article on microfilm about the performance. However, during the trip, Charlie receives notice that the review board of a grant she has received wants a progress report within three days. Upset, she rails at Louie for wasting her time and walks off.

He tracks her down, and she rejoins him right as he gets a lead that radio station KOZE once had the record in its music library. The man who owns the building, a Mr. Baker (James Paskel), takes them to the basement and shows them an old ledger indicating that the song was recorded there. At a bar, a guitarist starts playing the song and tells them about his friend who is a DJ at KTSE and is familiar with older and obscure works like that. They visit the station, and the DJ pulls out a copy of the record. The record is stamped with an address, which takes them to the house of a woman named Francis (Candyce Hinkle), who is Charlie’s great-aunt, who tells them stories about Charlie’s dad.

Filmmaker Juli Jackson grew up in Paragould (Greene County), attended film school in Philadelphia, and worked for a while in Los Angeles. She was working for the Ozark Foothills FilmFest in 2011 when they announced a grant for independent filmmakers; she applied and received $30,000, which allowed her to pursue production. The movie features several Arkansas musical acts on its soundtrack, including CeDell Davis, Adam Faucett, and Tyrannosaurus Chicken. It was filmed at locations in Paragould, Little Rock (Pulaski County), Searcy (White County), Lonoke (Lonoke County), and Pocahontas (Randolph County), as well as Kennett, Missouri, and Memphis, Tennessee.

At the 2013 Little Rock Film Festival, 45RPM received the award for best feature made in Arkansas, while Liza Burns was named best actress. The movie was also shown at the Atlanta Film Festival the following year, and Jake Cole of Movie Mezzanine described the film as “the sort of movie that demonstrates how low-stakes drama and gentle humor can make for adult cinema as much as miserabilism and irony.”

For additional information:
“45RPM.” Internet Movie Database. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2387385/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

“ATLFF Review: ‘45RPM’ Is a Garage Rock Discovery.” Movie Mezzanine, April 3, 2014. https://moviemezzanine.com/atlff-review-45rpm/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Clancy, Sean. “Arkansan’s 45 RPM Has Local Screening.” Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, June 16, 2017, pp. 1E, 3E. Online at https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2017/jun/16/arkansan-s-45-rpm-has-a-little-rock-scr/ (accessed October 15, 2026).

Staff of the CALS Encyclopedia of Arkansas