Back in 2009, Hey Dillon (The Last Great DJ), a documentary produced by the McKinney-based The Good Fight Motion Pictures and focused on KHYI-95.3 FM The Range disc jockey Brett Dillon, premiered and made its way around the region.
The narrative -- independent radio's David facing off against corporate radio's Goliath -- helped give the film about Dillon's life as a DJ a driving heartbeat. Of course, songs from a fantastic array of local, regional and national talent helped give the doc a bit of bounce, too. Among the artists locals might recognize on the film: Rodney Parker, CC Cross, The Lost Immigrants, Tejas Brothers, Hayes Carll, Backporch Mary, Austin Cunningham and Darryl Lee Rush.
Last year, the film made its festival debut in the documentary-intensive Docutah Film Festival, which is held in the mountains of Utah each fall. And now, just as momentum for the film seemed to be dwindling, a new and even more high-profile home for the movie has been announced.
Beginning in June, Hey Dillon (The Last Great DJ) will premiere in primetime on DOC, the relatively new cable outlet that also goes by the simple name of The Documentary Channel.
And, rather than simply enjoying a brief weekend run or a mere couple
of months in the premium cable sun, the film's rights have been
purchased so that it can be shown at various times on the channel for
the next two years.
Details on a watching party for the premier
are forthcoming, but for now, if you have, oh, 72 minutes to spare, you can watch the whole darn thing below.
All in all, it's just nice to think of all the people
out there, living beyond the signal of KHYI, that will now be
introduced to some Dallas and Texas-based acts that they never really
knew they were missing. Which is kind of what Brett Dillon has been
doing for local listeners for 15 years now, come to think of it.
