This film is about a famous music family who influenced Elvis, The Beatles and Lef Zeppelin. The friction between the famous brothers carried down to their sons who also became famous and the film is an adventure where the director struggles to reunite the family at the end of the film.

EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH SALLY STEELE

How and why did you become a documentary filmmaker?

i have published my rock magazine Vegas Rocks! Magazine for 20 years and interviewed famous rock musicians but I always wanted to be in the movie business. I was interested in making a documentary but it never came to fruition until I met Rocky Burnette Backstage at the Viva Las Vegas Rockabilly show. We became friends and I found out a once in a lifetime story about his family, career and rock history no one knew.
While I was on the film Festival circuit so many people came up to me to thank me for doing the film and how they loved it and how they knew all about music but never knew or heard this story.
I felt like someone had given me a briefcase full of gold and said: "You will know what to do with this." So I made the film.

What makes a good documentary?

Someone told me while I was making my film :"Well you need to have a real story with friction and drama". To which I responded "Well, I have all that." While I was filming the movie, I never knew how it was going to turn out and it was being created as I filmed. What started as a serious film trying to reunite generations of family members with much bitterness turned in to a comedy reality show of sorts when Gary Busey entered the film.

Why did you make "Raised on Rock" and what were the key challenges you faced making the film?

"I made the film "Raised on Rock - The Burnette Family Legacy" because despite knowing so many famous rock stars in my line of work with my magazine, I became intrigued with Rocky Burnette and his family and story like no one else I had ever met. His family influenced, Elvis, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin and so many other hundreds of entertainers and musicians and the general public never heard of the family except for Billy Burnette who was in Fleetwood Mac for 9 years. I had so many challenges along with this being my first film. Learning about music licensing was difficult and was very expensive and hard to understand and how to contact the right people. And I never knew if the family members were going to cooperate for the ending of the film to reunite. There was all kinds of healing I had to do within the family as sort of a 'go-between' to keep the story going and hope I could bring them all together at the end."

What's next for you? What projects are you currently working on?

It took over 6 years to get the film finished with legal matters and search for distribution so I don't really want to do another film. But I am now seeking out how to get my television series to the networks/streaming services that is based on my book from my Hollywood era in the 80's.