Wesley Dean has released the music video for his song ‘Crazy Hearts', taken from his album ‘Music From Crazy Hearts'.
The video for the track is a collaboration with the Nashville Ballet. It was choreographed by Nashville Ballet’s Artistic Director and CEO Nick Mullikin and features company dancers James Lankford and Lily Saito. The music video, directed by Jacobie Gray, premiered to an exclusive audience during Nashville Ballet’s opening production of Paul Vasterling’s ‘Dracula' at Tennessee Performing Arts Center last week.
Dean shared that he came up with the idea of the unique collaboration, giving his neighbor credit for the suggestion.
“The sun was warm on a Nashville afternoon. I was on the porch, guitar in hand, playing something between a memory and a dream,” said Dean of how he first connected with the ballet. “My neighbor Evelyn, a dancer herself, wandered over, drawn by the music. Out of nowhere, she asked if I’d ever thought about working with the Nashville Ballet. It stopped me cold. Full circle. I used to dance when I was younger—ballet, jazz, modern, contemporary. It was all in me. When she asked, I stood there, trying to take it in. The Nashville Ballet—best of the best. My song, ‘Crazy Hearts,’ spinning into something raw, something real. The kind of thing you spend your life chasing. And here it was, handed to me by the universe.”
Dean soon discovered that Nashville Ballet, the largest professional ballet company in Tennessee, presents a varied repertoire of classical ballet and contemporary works by noted choreographers, including original works by Artistic Director and CEO Nick Mullikin. So he asked Mullikin to choreograph this special piece for his music video and the rest was magic.
Last summer, Dean and his family packed into an RV with a director and cameraperson in tow, traveling over 5,000 miles from Nashville to LA via towns steeped in musical history and playing shows off the beaten track. ‘Music From Crazy Hearts', recorded at Nashville’s historic RCA Studio A, and its videos chronicle this experience, with a full-length feature film ‘Crazy Hearts: The Documentary' slated for release next year.
