“I don’t know if I can go on with this interview.” Michael Mabbott, the writer/director behind the new Canadian flick The Life and Hard Times of Guy Terrifico, is flabbergasted as he discovers that I never listened to Bob Dylan. In fact, while attempting to recall a Dylan song, I accidentally jumbled “Tambourine Man” and “Mr. Bojangles” to come up with “Mr. Jamboree Man.”

“Interview’s over!”

He’s kidding, of course. However, the country music and rock’n’roll-loving director does not refrain from referring to my ignorance of the Dylan canon throughout our interview. Which is understandable, considering he just spent the better part of the last seven years developing his ‘mockumentary,’ which both pays tribute to and affectionately takes a critical look at Dylan’s era of music.

Mabbott, 32, was a mere tot during that period of musical history, yet to hear him lecture about the early 70s, one would believe that he was actually there, getting wasted while jamming in Nashville (the vaunted home of country and roots-rock music).

“I just wanted to fit (into Terrifico) this time in music, from the late 60s to the mid-70s. With rock and roll becoming country, and country becoming rock and roll… Everyone smoking all sorts of drugs. The rock and roll culture is inserted into Nashville,” Mabbott explains.

Mabbott molded his lead character, fictional Alberta-born singer Guy Terrifico, from the influences of that era’s songwriters, who were previously not allowed to record their own work.

“It (was) the rise of singer/songwriters, for guys like Kris Kristofferson. The songwriters (who) started performing their own things, like Willie Nelson and Waylon Jennings. There was this time, right in the early 70s, where guys like Willie just kind of said, ‘Fuck you. I’m moving to Austin, I’m going to grow my hair long, I’m going to record the songs the way I want to record them, and I’m going to sing them with my band,'” Mabott notes.

To realistically capture the era and its music, Mabbott recruited Canadian indie musician Matt Murphy (the Halifax rocker formerly of the Flashing Lights, the Super Friendz, and currently, City Field) to both refine the Terrifico songs and play the lead character. The mild-mannered Murphy, a first-time actor, hits just the right exuberant note as wild man Terrifico.

A long list of musical veterans lend their support, including Kris Kristofferson, Ronnie Hawkins, Phil Kaufman, Merle Haggard, and Donnie Fritts, making for an impressive cast. With such big names, one wonders if any others declined the opportunity to appear in the film.

“We asked Dolly Parton,” Mabbott says. “And when her people read the script, we got a letter back from her lawyers, basically saying, ‘If you even think about her while you’re making this film, we’ll sue you,'” he quips (we think).

Evidently, Parton’s people can’t recognize talent when they see (or read) it-Terrifico was the winner of the CityTV Award for best Canadian first feature at this year’s Toronto film festival, a well-deserved surprise for Mabbott.

However, the director was even more astonished after reading the inscription on the base of the award, which read: “Sooner or later we’re all working for television,” with Moses (former head of CityTV) Znaimer’s initials attached.

“To have that quote given to the first-time Canadian film thing, where you somehow have the naïve hope that you can make a career in this country without doing TV… And then you look at the bottom, and (it’s like) ‘Hey, fuck-o, sooner or later we’ll be producing (TV) crap…'” Mabbott grumbles.

Nonetheless, Mabbott is grateful for the recognition that his film has achieved so far. He’s hoping it might spark an interest in the country-rock genre in people that go to see it. Or at least educate lost souls like me: “Can’t get over the fact that you almost thought Dylan’s song was called ‘Mr. Jamboree Man,'” he marvels.

The Life and Times of Guy Terrifico is now playing at the Carlton and Kennedy Commons cinemas.