Stream It Or Skip It: ‘From Cradle To Stage’ On Paramount+, Where Dave Grohl And His Mother Virginia Talk To Music Stars And Their Mothers

From Cradle To Stageis a docuseries inspired by the book by Virginia Hanlon Grohl, Dave Grohl’s mother, where she talks to the mothers of a number of music superstars. In each episode, directed by Dave Grohl, the mother and son travel to a different locale to talk to the featured music star and that person’s mother and family. The goal is to get an idea of how they grew up, what prompted them to get into the music business, and how their mothers supported them, worried about them and tried to protect them as they became superstars.

FROM CRADLE TO STAGE: STREAM IT OR SKIP IT?

Opening Shot: Dave Grohl and his mother Virginia Hanlon Grohl walk through a hallway in the Springfield, VA home where Dave grew up. She shows him the various platinum records and magazine covers she has hanging there, from his time in Nirvana and his current band, Foo Fighters.

The Gist: First up is Dan Reynolds, lead singer and songwriter for Imagine Dragons, and his mother Christene. His upbringing is steeped in religion and family; he’s the seventh of nine kids raised in a Mormon family in suburban Las Vegas, eight of them boys. He feels he had a great childhood, with all the noise and everyone around. Christene details why she decided to be a stay-at-home mom, even though she was a pre-med student, and how she and her husband Ron always made sure they had high standards for all their kids.

Reynolds discusses getting into music in middle school, and how the rest of his siblings were all in bands; in fact, one of his brothers is the band’s manager. He also talks about being Mormon in Sin City, how he spent a depressing two years as a missionary in Nebraska, and how he decided to drop out of BYU and try to make it with his up-and-coming band, Imagine Dragons. Christene discusses with Virginia how momentous that decision was, and how it inserted a brief rift between the two. Reynolds also talks about his depression and how he supports LGBTQ rights, despite how the Mormon church comes down on that issue.

The episode also has segments where Dave and Virginia discuss his upbringing in Virginia. Other people profiled in this season are Pharrell and Carolyn Williams, Miranda and Bev Lambert, Brandi and Teresa Carlile, Tom and Mary Morello and Geddy Lee with his mother, Mary Weinrib.

What Shows Will It Remind You Of? Dave Grohl’s become quite the documentary director; From Cradle To Stage has the same warm storytelling vibe as his features What Drives Us and Sound City.

Our Take: Here’s a great sign that Dave and Virginia Grohl are on to something with From Cradle To Stage: I don’t care one whit about Imagine Dragons, but I was engrossed by their profile of Dan and Christene Reynolds.

There’s something about Dave Grohl that makes people feel very comfortable around him. He’s at legend status at this point, having smashed the drums behind Kurt Cobain during the grunge revolution of the early ’90s, then creating a Hall of Fame-worthy band out of whole cloth after Cobain’s death. But he’s also a very down-to-earth and personable guy, always interested in people’s lives and talking about their musical influences. Judging by how open Virginia is, it’s not hard to see where that came from.

That warmth and curiosity, like with the best documentarians, helps get their subjects to relax and open up. And considering a guy like Reynolds has been in front of cameras for over a decade, and has been giving very personal monologues in concerts for just about that long, the fact that he can open up even more to Grohl, and Christene can be honest about the ups and downs of her relationship with Dan to Virginia, makes for a great base for the Grohls’ storytelling.

The first episode’s interstitials where Dave and Virginia are back at his childhood home discussing his musical journey and how she supported him and managed his expectations were also well done, and we hope to see more of them as the series goes on.

Parting Shot: Reynolds sings “I bet my life on you” to Christene.

Sleeper Star: Virginia Grohl Hanlon, without a doubt. She had a musical career of her own at one point, which helps her appreciate Dave’s superstardom all the more, despite the usual motherly worries.

Most Pilot-y Line: None.

Our Call: STREAM IT. From Cradle To Stage gives viewers a great look at how their favorite music stars became so driven to succeed in what is an impossible business, and the moms who helped make them that way.

Joel Keller (@joelkeller) writes about food, entertainment, parenting and tech, but he doesn’t kid himself: he’s a TV junkie. His writing has appeared in the New York Times, Slate, Salon, RollingStone.com, VanityFair.com, Fast Company and elsewhere.

Stream From Cradle To Stage On Paramount+