Stream It Or Skip It: ‘Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President’, a Nice Enough Documentary Profiling the Ex-Prez’s Intimate Relationship With Music

The documentary Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President — now available on HBO Max — takes a close look at an overlooked component of the man’s presidency: How music informed both his personality and his political philosophies. For a fresh angle on the now-96-year-old ex-prez, director Mary Wharton, a VH1 Legends and Behind the Music veteran with a Tom Petty doc on the 2021 docket, interviews everyone from Madeleine Albright to Bob Dylan. The film reminds us, after four years of T***pist nihilism, that presidents of the United States sometimes actually appreciate things and enjoy stuff, a pretty much unavoidable context that seems like more than enough reason to watch it.

JIMMY CARTER: ROCK & ROLL PRESIDENT: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

The Gist: New York City, 1976: Jimmy Carter quotes Bob Dylan in a speech, bringing to mind how Barack Obama was a big fan of Eminem and Beyonce and how T***p was a fan of — well, probably nothing, because liking something requires having some sort of inner life. Cut to Plains, Georgia in 2018: a Dylan LP spins on a turntable next to Carter, who says he was frequently inspired and informed by music throughout his life. He was a fanboy first; his status allowed him to earnestly befriend musicians, who subsequently helped boost his national profile, raising money for his campaign with high-profile concerts. “The Allman Brothers helped put me in the White House,” he says. Compare that to Democratic primary also-ran Jerry Brown, who tried to mimic Carter’s winning formula by hitching his political pony to squares like Linda Ronstadt and the Eagles. (All together now: I HATE THE F—IN’ EAGLES, MAN.)

One of Carter’s perennial favorites and tight bros is Willie Nelson, who has confessed to smoking pot while staying in the White House, and not with an employee, as was initially stated, but with Carter’s son, so hey, CHIP ‘N’ WILLIE 2024, right? That’s one of a handful of amusing anecdotes shared here among many talking heads, biographical touchstones from Carter’s life and vintage clips of jazz, country, rock and pop artists performing at fundraisers or the White House itself. Gregg Allman talks about visiting the Georgia governor’s mansion, and putting a dent in a bottle of whiskey on the porch with Carter, who he said was bare-chested and wearing ripped jeans; Jimmy laughs and says he probably only had a drink that time. Then there was the time, per Chip’s narration, that Allman and Cher attended a White House dinner and drank the liquid in the finger bowls.

Perhaps unfortunately, but probably in tune with the tone of the man himself, the film isn’t wholly comprised of wild, shirtless stories of the ’70s. Carter’s friendship with such figures was a bit controversial, but rooted in his compassion — he famously stood by Allman despite his struggles with drugs; cue a shot of people on the street holding “COKE FIENDS FOR CARTER” signs. A section of the film is dedicated to Carter’s appreciation of jazz (Dizzy Gillespie and Sarah Vaughn played for him), and another for country (Willie, Loretta Lynn, Charlie Daniels (!)). Paul Simon, Jimmy Buffett and country power-couple Garth Brooks and Trisha Yearwood testify for Carter’s pacifist influence; you won’t be surprised to learn that Daniels does not. Albright talks about “soft power,” and if you’re even just vaguely familiar with Carter, I don’t even need to define the term, because you kind of just catch that vibe. Nile Rodgers, Roseanne Cash and Bono read Carter’s poetry. Dylan himself, somewhat surprisingly almost removed from his trademark cocoon of confounding opacity, appears for a somewhat surprisingly lucid modern-day interview and somewhat surprisingly quotes Lynyrd Skynyrd’s Simple Man in his description of Carter. We’re once again reaffirmed that good ol’ Jimmy is an earnest, humble and selfless man, but maybe we’re also newly enlightened about how his taste for music helps define his character, just as it does for so many of us.

What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: Pour yourself a diet ginger ale and pop a bowl of popcorn — not too much salt! — and pair Rock & Roll President with Man from Plains for a perfectly nice, totally mellow, utterly tasteful and slightly boring documentary double feature!

Performance Worth Watching: The tone of the film is so even-keel, even Bono comes off as not entirely insufferable.

Memorable Dialogue: “We were liberals, and we were not racist. In Plains, that meant you had like two other friends.” — Chip Carter

Sex and Skin: None. So much for rock ‘n’ roll, eh!

Our Take: Let’s get real here: Sure, Carter was WITH IT, MAN, and had plenty of youth appeal, enough to beat Gerald Ford in the presidential sweepstakes (a race, by the way, that seems like Daniel Tiger when compared to the Funny Games vibe of modern American politics). But he wasn’t cool enough to have Alice Cooper or Van Halen or the Ramones rock the White House. I guess Pop-Rock-Adjacent President just doesn’t have that particular je ne sais quoi.

Slight marketing beefs aside, Rock & Roll President is a decent enough watch, sincere and admirable and unflashy, right on brand for Jimmy C. Archival clips of Ray Charles and Willie Nelson singing “Georgia on My Mind” convey the film’s cottony-warm tone, which gets a little thin when it unavoidably covers Carter’s political struggles, and never more threadbare than that screenshot of the 1980 election results. Not that the doc ever really digs in too deep; its most profound moments are the celeb poetry readings, which don’t break up the visual monotony as much as enliven the irrepressible tonal temperateness with splashes of verbal watercolor. No, this is feelgood journalism that likely got Carter’s stamp of approval, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, because the worst the guy did was be a mediocre politician, and he seems to own that — and has atoned for it with 40 years of influential humanitarian work.

So it’s no surprise that the film accentuates the positive. It hits all the points we’d expect — Jimmy, Garth and Trisha pounding nails at a Habitat for Humanity construction site; peanut farmer bits; a loving ode to his First Lady Rosalynn — but also reframes some of his policy successes within the context of his musical passions. He says he often dealt with the stresses of the presidency by retreating to the White House study and dropping the needle on Willie Nelson’s gospel record. He was perhaps never more relatable to the common music enthusiast when he had to miss Willie’s concert at the White House to negotiate a peace treaty between Egypt and Israel, because how often have we had to skip a killer show due to some boring-ass obligation? (I had to prioritize a rehearsal dinner over Massive Attack 24 years ago, and I’m STILL pissed about it.) This doc isn’t going to change the world, but it further asserts that Jimmy Carter was and is and will always be one of the nicest guys ever.

Our Call: STREAM IT. Rock & Roll President is a warm hug for libs and a hate watch for conservatives who exist to needlessly rile themselves with the harsh truth that all the good celebs are Democrats.

John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan. Read more of his work at johnserbaatlarge.com or follow him on Twitter: @johnserba.

Where to watch Jimmy Carter: Rock & Roll President