Four minutes into the upcoming documentary Rick Nelson: Guntersville, we’re shown a modern restaurant with brick walls, pizza-eating customers, wandering waitresses and a TV on the wall tuned to sports. This is a crucial location: the site of PJ’s Alley, where Nelson performed his final set, closing with Buddy Holly’s “Rave On,” before boarding his DC-3 at the Guntersville, Ala., airport, then crashing en route to a 1985 New Year’s Eve gig in Dallas.

The film, directed by Nelson fan Kenny Scott Guffey, an indie filmmaker who made 2022’s A Night of the Undead, illuminates the rockabilly pioneer’s career by focusing on Guntersville, a city of about 9,000 people, many of whom remain obsessed with the local tragedy. “‘Haunted’ is a good word,” Guffey says. “They had just seen him a few hours

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