Director - Dan Rose

Growing up in a suburb of Detroit, Michigan, Dan relocated to New York after graduation from college to begin a career in film and video production.  He has directed and produced award winning music videos for record companies such as Warner Brothers, Hollywood, Matador, broadcast on MTV.  He has also worked on a large number of TV commercials for national advertisers. 

Pride lies more, though, with the music videos he has directed for artists such as Cordell Jackson, The Gories, Lorette Velvette, The Country Rockers, Junior Kimbrough and Alan Vega, to name a few--as well as those he produced for Pavement and Helium.  He also directed a music video for Question Mark & The Mysterians with Terrence Murphy on his Are You For Real? documentary about the Mysterians.  Many of these can be seen through our 'roastingears' channel on YouTube. Wayne County Ramblin’ is Dan’s first full-length feature film and a project close to his heart and soul.  He basically had been putting it together over fifteen years, on evenings and weekends. 

Dan’s interest in his hometown, its people, its culture and its music led to a lifelong fascination with musicians, such as Eddie Kirkland and Doctor Ross, southerners who moved north to work, and make music. Detroit’s mythic Fortune Records—for which Ross, Kirkland, Mayer, Hooker, and many others recorded—is a touchstone in the film, as Penny remembers her grandfather taking her to its crumbling studio as a little girl.  Cultural division, and the musical impact of growing up in the Detroit area, are presented in Wayne County Ramblin' without apology, yet what's revealed to be celebrated, is creole.

After the film was completed, Dan moved to New Orleans after sixteen years of living in New York City.  Shortly thereafter, Dan and long-time friend, Peggy O'Neill, married. Nearly a year later, Wayne County Ramblin' celebrated it's World Premiére in New Orleans on Saturday, July the 16th, 2005.  Six weeks later, Hurricane Katrina found Dan and Peggy hightailing it north.  Eventually moving to Detroit where they were originally from, and where they originally met, prior to either of them moving to New York and/or New Orleans.  They finally returned to New Orleans in July of '07.  Wayne County Ramblin' had its Detroit Premiére/DVD Release Party June 24th, 2006.

Oscar Huckleby& Hezekiah Redbone

(aka Nathaniel Mayer & Dan Rose)

(photo by the Lakeside Lounge Photo Booth)

With the screenplay's outline in tact, Wayne County Ramblin' writer Dan Rose poses in front of the 'Furious Fuck'; a 1971, pistachio, Dodge Charger he purchased on a tip from his friend David Montgomery in Buffalo, NY for $500.00.  Photo was taken in 1989, just prior to departing NYC for a month long trip, first to Detroit, and then as far south as New Orleans.  The goal in mind; to see what the actual geography, folk, miles, and time could do to help flesh the screenplay out.  It did; a lot!  The Dodge Charger lasted a lot longer than the intended travels, but didn't make it until the screenplay was copyrighted in 1992.  (Although it is difficult to see, note the silver Radio Birdman logo stenciled on the hood of the Charger.)   (photo; Whitney Ward)  

Writer/Director, Dan Rose, in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti in July of 2001.  This photo was taken after 3 days 'Guerre' ceremony, prior to the 7 day  'Kanzo' initiation ceremony he had the opportunity to undergo.   According to him, it was one of the most incredible experiences in his life.  Rose was initiated in vodun after his film was shot, but not before it was edited. (photo; Fan Fan)

Dan Rose & Fan Fan

saluting General Barbancourt