Hartford Courant from Hartford, Connecticut • 42

D8 THE HAITPORD COUKANT: Friday, March IS, IMS Guitarist Elated By His Big Break o-tipiv life i lllf 20th Century-Fox says Sonni, "welL that's as high as I've ever been in my whole life." 1 Sonni studied English at the Uni- versity of Connecticut branch in Hartford and graduated from the Hartford Conservatory of Music Dance in 1975. Along the way, he played with local bands ranging from a Holiday Inn combo called the Corporation to a rock group called Lady. But seven years ago he decided he had to go to New York City for bigger breaks. He took guitar lessons from pros and took any gig he could get just to get his name around. A few struggling bands he joined didn't go anywhere, and others that were well-established such as those backing Billy Squier and Robert Gordon expressed interest, but the deals fell through.

Several years' ago he -switched from being a sideman to forming his own band and focusing on his own material, but nothing seemed to be happening on that front either. "I had taken a lot of pressure on myself," says Sonni, "working six days a week at the music store, working on my own stuff and still i coming to a dead end. I kind of nervoused out. "I spent a lot of time with my folks this past year," he says. "I realized then how important the family real-; ly is.

I don't think I could have hung out in this music scene as long as I had if I hadn't been able to call up my folks or some of my cousins and go and hang out and get away from it all. There you can talk to people who Nastassja Kinski as Jane, above, is in touch with ing brought home by his brother, Travis is wel-her estranged husband, Travis, played by Harry corned by his sister-in-law Anne, played by Aurore Dean Stanton, in "Paris, Texas." Below, after be- Clement. Continued from Page Dl They had hung out together, played music together and vacationed together. Knopfler and his wife, Lourdes, had visited the home of Sonni's parents, a credit card's fling from Westfarms Mall. Sonni says he hadn't wanted to use his friendship with Knopfler to further his career, but when the call came asking him to replace guitarist Hal Lindes, he was happy to accept Lindes had quit the band during its recording session in Montserrat in the West Indies in December, just months before a planned spring and summer tour.

The band has scheduled concerts in Yugoslavia before officially beginning its tour in Israel in April. Dire Straits will tour the United States at the end of summer, with a tentative Hartford date in early October. "It happened so quick that it felt like I won the lottery," Sonni said several weeks ago at his apartment, where he was busy packing for a trip to London, where tour rehearsals would continue. Earlier in the day he had rehearsed with the baBd for the first time, and it "finally turned into a reality." "I was a bit nervous," he says, "but it felt great. There I was and I looked around and there was drummer Terry Williams and bassist John Illsley and Mark, who is one of the best guitarists on the planet.

There were a couple times, like when I was playing 'Tunnel of that I just kind of stepped back, took a breath, looked at the whole thing and went, Joining the critically acclaimed and popular band, noted for such songs as "Sultan of Swing" and "Romeo and Juliet," was a dream for Sonni. "Nobody bought the rock 'n' roll story hook, line and sinker like I did," he says of his early days as a rock fan and musician. Sonni was born in western Pennsylvania and grew up there and in New Jersey before moving to West Hartford for his senior year in high school. He remembers wanting to play guitar since he was a young boy, but his parents urged him to take up the trumpet so he could play in the school band. "They didn't understand the point of playing guitar was so you didn't have to play in the school band," Sonni says.

He switched from trumpet to guitar when he got braces. "As soon as I figured out the lick to the Rolling Stones' and played it along with the record," -a 't if etched portrait of Travis's imagination by Harry Dean Stanton. Even when he is silent, Stanton makes his character resonate using his dark watchful eyes, seamed face and shapeless, slow-moving body to communicate loneliness, defeat, despair and a breadth of experience." Then, as Travis comes back to life, Stanton reveals his hope, the hell-raising joy he once had, and an utter hopelessness that is ultimately heroic. There are other good perfor-1 mances, too. Dean Stockwell quietly, fills the giving Walt with his own heroism, rescuing his brother and resuscitating him at great personal cost and some financial loss.

Aurore Clement makes Anne genteel, nervous and finally even desperate. And young Hunter Carson bestows a Christopher Robin beauty and a child's strength, understanding and intelligence on the boy. Nastassja Kinski fails to deliver the full emotional weight of her final big scene, but otherwise Wenders' Shepard's West on The Screen 'Paris, Texas' Makes Fascinating Viewing By MALCOLM L. JOHNSON Courant Film Critic German director Wim Wenders has a new American friend: that poet of the Old West, New West and True West, Sam Shepard. Their collaboration shaped with some help from L.M.

Kit Carson is "Paris, Texas," a German- French co-production that fairly teems with Shepard's ail-American themes and images but also is shaped by Wenders' outsider's view of the mystical West At nearly 2Vi hours, this deliberately paced, occasionally arid film is perhaps not for everyone. But as the first visit of a full-fledged Shepard work to Hartford, it is a rare and fascinating experience for those patient enough to go with its slow flow. Those familiar with the current manifestations of Shepard's vision through his two recent of -Broadway hits, "True West" and "Fool for Love," will find themselves in familiar territory in "Paris, Texas." Like "True West," "Paris, Texas" focuses on two brothers, one a ratty desert drifter, the other a well-to-do West Coast suburbanite. Like "Fool for Love," this collaboration with Wenders is about a tormented love. 'Wenders has dealt with these ideas, too, notably in his "The American Friend," in which a young, middle-class German develops an odd closeness to a disreputable cowboy figure, and in "Hammett," in which the great mystery writer becomes entangled with a gangster in a search for a mysterious woman.

Together, Wenders, Shepard and Carson (who contributed an "adaptation" of Shepard's sceenplay or scenario) range from the scorched, empty spaces of the Mexican border to the highway-entwined cities of Los Angeles and Houston. Their story is a simple one, with five principal characters. There are the brothers: burned-out Travis, and generous, impatient Walt. There are their wives: Walt's pretty, efficient, aging, childless Anne, a European, and Travis's sexy, lost, childlike, drawling Jane. And there is Hunter, the 7-year-old son of Travis and Jane, who has been reared for four years by Walt and Anne.

At the start of the film, Travis, bearded and filthy, collapses in a Scholar Says Letter Absolves Twain of Racism By GARRET CONDON Courant Book Editor Shelley Fisher Fishkin of Yale University, who has brought to light a letter Mark Twain wrote offering financial support to a black Yale law student, hopes the letter will prove that "Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" is not a racist book. The 1885 letter written the year Finn" was published also strongly repudiates slavery and racism. "The letter makes it clear that there was no doubt about his attitude toward the legacy of slavery," Fish-kin said at a press conference Thursday at Yale. Fishkin, 34, director of the Poynter Fellowship in Journalism at Yale, announced Wednesday that she has authenticated a letter, owned by two Connecticut collectors and written by Twain Dec. 24, 1885, to Francis Wayland, dean of Yale's Law Twain offered to help subsidize the education of Warner T.

McGuin, a black law student, who 'went on to become a newspaper edi-. tor in Kansas City, and then a lawyer and city councilor in Baltimore and director of the Baltimore branch of the NAACP. In the three-sentence letter, Twain says he doubts he would support a white student. but I do not feel so about the other color. We have ground the manhood out of them, the same is ours, not theirs we should pay for it." "Adventures of Huckleberry Ilia1 MVi illll i Another New Phase for Rocker Bolton PUfM I i luiiwyjnmiim i- i.

illl "4 HI. direction of her is exemplary, especially in the overlapping images of her face and Stanton's in the climax. But from its opening shot of a hawk perched above a desert, Wenders and director of photography Robby Miiller fill "Paris, Texas" with visually arresting compositions. The favorite Shepard icons are all here: the motel called "Ranche-ro" also the brand on the broken-down vehicle purchased by Travis for his search; the pickup slowly disintegrating in the desert; sweeping highways and their massive superstructures; the laundromat and highway fast-food joints; broken photographs of Travis and Jane "in happier days" and his dream plot of land in Paris, Texas. And Ry Cooder's gutsy slide guitar underlines the images of endless city and endless desert with crashing, throbbing, thrumming country blues.

Rated this film contains impolite language and scenes in a peep sbow-bar-bordello establishment. You," which has been recorded by country, pop and rhythm and blues artists. Musical Life No. 4 In 1980 a new manager approached Bolton, bought out his old contract and got him a deal with Columbia Records. "I felt like it was Christmas all over the world," Bolton says.

Before his first Columbia album came out in 1983, Bolton decided to change his name from Bolotin. "For years people mispronounced my name Boloktin, Boloter, Bot-lotin. The only people who got it right were Russian Jews," he says. "I thought about changing it for some time. It wasn't forced on me by management.

But as soon as I went to Bolton bang people got it right first time, every time. I was so relieved. I knew I made the right decision." Bolton's career looks fairly solid right now. His last album produced a moderately successful single, "Fool's Game," and MTV showed the song's video often. In 1983 and '84 he was the opening act on Bob Seger's national tour.

brian alden PMICHELOB COLLINS SPYROGYRA Festival fit Film Review PARIS, TEXAS, Directed by Wim Wenders; written by Sam Shepard, adaptation by LM. Kit Carson; director of photography, Robby Oiler; music by Ry Cooder; art director, Kate Altrnan; edited by Peter Przygodda; produced' by Don Guest; executive producer, Chris Sie-vernich. A TLC Films release of a.German-French co-production by Road Movies Film-produktion, Berlin, and Argos Films, Paris, opening today at Cinema City, Hartford. Running time: 150 minutes. Travis Harry Dean Stanton Doctor Ulmer Bernhard Wicki Walt Dean Stockwell Anne Aurore Clement Hunter Hunter Carson Carmelita Socorro Valdez Jane Nastassja Kinski "Slater" John Lurie "Nurse Bibs" Sally Norvell small, flyblown filling station after wandering in the desert.

Walt arrives to take him back to Los Angeles. But Travis keeps wandering off. He won't talk either. When Walt recaptures him and gets him on a plane bound for the Coast, Travis stops the plane. But ultimately, on the film's first automotive.

odyssey across the desert, Walt begins to draw Travis back into the world. Gradually, the portrait of the relationship between the two brothers gives way to the rekindling of the feeling of the father for his son. And then another desert odyssey begins as father and son head east to Houston to search for the long-lost Jane. As this sketch indicates, "Paris, Texas" is not exactly crammed with action. But it builds momentum and fascination nonetheless, through Wenders' feeling for the terrain of Shepard's imagination, through telling fragments of dialogue and bursts of poetry, and through the deeply Associated Press Shelley Fisher Fishkin holds a letter Mark Twain wrote offering i-, nancial aid to a black student.

Finn" has been controversial since it was published 100 years ago. It is still banned in some American schools. Fishkin acknowledged Thursday that scholars have known for many years that Twain supported a black law student at Yale, but that the letter is the first direct evidence. David Sloane, a Twain scholar at the University of New Haven, said the story about Twain's support of a black law student "has simply been a line in the Twain literature." He said the letter is important because it shows beyond a doubt that Twain did more than just write against racism." 4TIMNiliinrjaOBl.lri from 59S King Crab 95 IK in' "'in imuiiitim I jo I are reaiiy going iisien ana noi oe concerned if they're gonna get an-' other gig or whether you're gonna get them ahead. "I'm glad the offer didn't happen seven years ago when I first came to New York," he says.

"If I had gotten a gig when I was 23, 1 don't think I would have made it through it. I would have lived the life. I would have gone the way a lot of kids end up going. I've seen a lot of guys get caught up in the rock 'n' roll machine and messed up by the image and the whole lifestyle and the drugs and the drink. They're not the same people I knew when I met them.

If I had gotten the gig back then, I think it would have been more about the whole stardom thing. Now it's about the music." Has the long trip from dire circumstances to Dire Straits been worth it? how long I'd been in New York, I would have answered, 'Absolutely Now I think about it and -feel, 'Geez, it wasn't that private one. I'm obsessively protec-' tive about my private life for a lot of reasons," he says. "I don't want to get paranoid about strange people hanging around especially when it comes to your kids." And, he says, it isn't good marketing strategy to talk about the wife and kids and your age when a large percentage of your audience is teenage girls. While not ignoring Bolton's good looks, Columbia Records is also targeting teenage males by focusing on his hew album's tough, aggressive sound.

Bolton's new video of "Everybody's Crazy" premiered at Toad's Place in New Haven last week. His mother, Helen, who was wearing a black satin jacket with the "Bolton" lightning-bolt logo emblazoned on the back, just beamed. It's been a crazy career, she says, but "Michael's always been very deter mined. It was never a question of 'if with Michael, but What does she see up there on the video screen? "I just see my son," she says. "I just see my baby." you'll never forget.

Continued from Page Dl Musical Life No. 3 In 1978 Polydor Records' signed Bolton not as a solo star but as lead singer and songwriter with a group called Blackjack. "Blackjack was never intended to be a group," says Bolton. Polydor heard a demo tape Bolton and three of his friends, had made, and the record company wanted the four-member group, not just Bolton. It was a lucrative deal he couldn't re-, sist.

But Bolton also lost control of his music. "I was miserable working with the producer, who was set on a certain sound," he says. "It just wasn't Blackjack's two albums were released in '78 and '79. They, too, flopped. "It was the toughest period of my life and I was depressed," Bolton says.

"I felt my career was over." He continued to write songs, many of which were recorded by other artists. Among them: Laura Brani-gan's "How Am I Supposed To Love Without You," the Pointer Sisters' "Heartbeat" and "Still Thinking of The' Spring azz Bolton says he is most popular in the Midwest, "where straight-ahead rock is more popular than dance music." And he says there is a kind of Boltonmania in Puerto Rico. His new album, released this week, is hard rock, "but it's not heavy metal," he says. Doc Cavalier, president of Trod Nossle studios, has watched Bolton's many breaks, beginning with the Epic deal. "Record companies have always recognized that there was talent there," he says, "but now the time is especially ripe for Michael.

He has that cocky personality, like David Lee Roth of Van Halen, that is so popular now for that kind of straight-ahead, confident rock 'n' roll. And now there's also video, which Michael didn't have before." How has the up-and-down crazi-ness of his career affected Bolton? "I'm very schizophrenic," Bolton says. "There are a lot of personalities in me, especially in the song-writing part of me that is very personal." Bolton will reveal little about his personal life. "There are two Michael Boltons: a public one and a Images 100 Berlin i i una Delectable Exquisite fine china the classic Impressions Enjoy them in the nezo Call (203) reservations The Npw TREADWAY The Ftalace Shubert Fterforming Arts Center Woolsey Hall FRIDAY, SATURDAY SUNDAY rf. LoGDSftCC 1 Lb.

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