Garland Jeffreys: The King of In Between

Opens Friday, June 6, 2025

Special Events

  • Fri Jun 6 : 

    Q&A w/ dir. Claire Jeffreys, prods. Savannah Jeffreys & Evan Oppenheimer, & Ivan Julian at 7:30 p.m.

    Buy Tickets
  • Sat Jun 7 : 

    Q&A w/ dir. Claire Jeffreys, playwright Dael Orlandersmith, & Cornelius Eady at 7:30 p.m.

    Buy Tickets

SHOWTIMES AT IFC CENTER

Friday, June 6 at 7:30 p.m.: Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys, Associate Producer Savannah Jeffreys, Executive Producer Evan Oppenheimer, and singer-songwriter Ivan Julian, founding member of Richard Hell and the Voidoids

Saturday, June 7 at 7:30 p.m.: Q&A with director Claire Jeffreys, Pulitzer finalist playwright Dael Orlandersmith, NYPL fellow Alvin Eng, Nicky Paraiso curator at La Mama, and Cornelius Eady, co-founder of Cave Canem Foundation, a nonprofit organization for Black poets

“The name Garland Jeffreys either means nothing to you or everything to you.”

Hubris, anger, prejudice…doo-wop, reggae, rock…expectations, heartbreak, transformation…GARLAND JEFFREYS: THE KING OF IN BETWEEN examines the fifty-year career of this genre-bending, biracial singer-songwriter and explores how his commitment to writing about race in America is more relevant now than ever.

An enigmatic performer since his start in the Greenwich Village clubs, Jeffreys never reached the success predicted for him. His songs melded Dylanesque folk, the doo-wop sounds of his Brooklyn childhood, and reggae (well before its global popularity) with his personal experience of race in America. The result was unclassifiable, yet undeniably compelling. Fellow artists Vernon Reid (leader of seminal black rock group Living Colour), Bruce Springsteen, Laurie Anderson, Graham Parker and Alejandro Escovedo weigh in with their own experiences, friends and family suggest more personal reasons, and critics David Hajdu and Robert Christgau offer contextualizing takes on why Jeffreys did not garner more mainstream success.

DOC NYC 2023 Audience Award winner

  • Country USA
  • Running Time 69 minutes
  • Format DCP
  • Director Claire Jeffreys
  • Cast Garland Jeffreys, Claire Jeffreys, Savannah Jeffreys, Laurie Anderson, Vernon Reid, Harvey Keitel, Bruce Springsteen
  • Accessibility Assistive Listening, T-Coil

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