‘DANNY SAYS’ is Electric as Its Subject, Press Agent and Rock Impresario Danny Fields

By Gregory Crofton

Loved this documentary.

Hard to get past the flatline of a title (which works only after you’ve seen the film) but once you press play, it’s like a fuse that burns just long enough for you to stand back and look at the colorful explosion that follows.

Nonchalantly gay and Jewish, Danny Fields is brilliant and has had a grand, fascinating and influential life — one that reassured Nina Simone at UPENN about her talent, before heading to Harvard Law to party and fuck Cambridge boys at 19.

Then it was on to Greenwich Village in New York City where he made journalism history as managing editor of Datebook Magazine and eventually landed in the lap of Andy Warhol, Nico and The Velvet Underground.

Fields was blessed, but really blessed by his own design, always opting for more action down the road instead of a payday. He worked with Jim Morrison, MC5, The Stooges, Ramones, Jonathan Richman and a slew of other artists.

“Being in a world of New York in the 60s was transcending everything to me,” Fields said. “I was with people who were smart and sexy and famous and brilliant and talented and I had what I had always wanted … a pool from where I could find friends. That’s what’s motivates me, is to be in the right crowd.”

Director Brendan Toller gets out of the way of all the fabulous stories Fields has to tell, many of them animated on screen, which work well sandwiched between dozens of archival photographs, film clips and a fitting soundtrack.
Watch this doc. It’s on Netflix.