Martin Scorsese presents The Blues

[GKarsEye]

PBS is now airing a series of films/documentaries about blues music. Each film is directed by someone else, one of whom is Martin Scorsese, who also is the executive producer.

Three have been shown so far, at least where I am. Check local listing to find out when is what.

I missed the first one, Scorsese's. I watched the 2nd one last night, directed by a German dude. Instead of a dry documentary, it was a loving tribute to the director's three favorite blues men: Blind Lemon Jefferson, Skip James, and J.B. Lenoir.

The film is narrated by Laurence Fishburn as Blind Lemon talking to you from space (his song Soul of a Man is on that record on Voyager). They recreate the image of Blind Lemon and a young Skip James singing by using actors synched to the songs and filming it in an old-timey style. Footage of the real Skip James when he was older and Lenoir is also used.

The remarkable tale of Skip having recorded all his songs in 1931 only to face dissappointing record sales during the Great Depression (people don't buy music during economic hardship, are you listening RIAA?), giving up music for the church, and then being rediscoverd in the 60s(!) is outlined dramatically.

Very highly recommended for any film lover or anyone remotely interested in American music.

The one I recorded last night and will try to watch tonight is about BB King and is supposedly more of a straight-ahead documentary.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

I'm recording them all, but have only seen two, Thursday's film about Chess records, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, and the Chicago sound, and Friday's, about British Blues, with John Mayall, Eric Clapton, Van Morrison, Eric Burdon, and many others. Both were wonderful. They WILL be available on DVD. Here is a link with lots of program info. Hopefully, they will be rerun in the future, so everyone can check them out.

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/

 

[GKarsEye]

I got bored with the British one. I stopped watching one they were spending like an hour just talking about which albums they liked- stuff I've heard a million times before.

And I really could live without hearing Tom Jones trying to sing the blues "genuinely."

The one part I liked a lot was Van Morrison's singing. I've been starting to dig into his wonderful music lately.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Morrison was my favorite part too, and I don't care for Tom Jones either, but he did have some funny stories to tell. The British were doing more than "talking about which albums they liked," they were talking about how these albums caused the birth of British blues, and which British band was inspired by which US album/artist, about the birth of skiffle bands, playing the original British blues record that Lennon/McCartney borrowed the tune for Lady Madonna from, without attribution, the Brits reaction to Ramblin' Jack, and his to them, was hilarious. Lots of interesting tidbits. I hope you saw Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing the guitar, she was amazing. The irony is that it took the British invasion, and their renditions of the blues, to reintroduce it to a new generation of people in the USA. I enjoyed it quite a bit. Of course, I like British blues, perhaps more than you.

Oh, yeah, The German director on Tuesday night was Wim Wenders, director of Wings of Desire, and Buena Vista Social Club, and many more fine films. I look forward to seeing his film.

 

[GKarsEye]

I hope you saw Sister Rosetta Tharpe playing the guitar, she was amazing

Yes! That was awesome.

I like some British blues, but I'll pull out the original old schoolers 4 times out of 5. I am, however, grateful to them for reviving it in the 60s.

I'm watching Clint's film about piano blues. It's pretty neat- some great footage, both archival and new. The style is a bit dry and there's little cohesion throughout the whole thing, but if you take it as a collage, it's neat.

 

[Jade Jaguar]

Clint's film wasn't bad, a collage is as good a term as any. I did find it unfocused, a bit lame in structure, and most of his comments were uninspired, but it was clear that he has a genuine love for the music. I loved seeing Ray Charles, Dr. John, and Marcia Ball, three favorites of mine, but everyone was excellent. I've seen Dr. John, Marcia, and Pine Top Perkins live, and enjoyed them all.

So far, I have only watched the last three films, so I have yet to see what I think are probably the best eps of The Blues. Scorsese, Wenders, and Charles Burnett are all excellent directors I am familiar with. Scorsese says he conceived the whole project with Burnett in mind, and I believe that his is the only narrative film (as opposed to documentary). It is called Warming By The Devil's Fire, and I can't wait to watch my tape of it. By the way, PBS is having a show about the first cross country auto trip this week that sounds very interesting.

 

[GKarsEye]

Pine Top Perkins live

Oh, cool, that must have been real fun.

Clint's film is worth it just for some of that footage. That one lady who was playing some mean boogie-woogie blues and incorporating Liszt in her solo- that's the shit!

And any opportunity to see the legend himself, Art Tatum, is excellent. Goddamn what a talent.

Due to Clint's love of jazz, Dave Brubeck was interviewed and he played some, which is great (the man is like 5000 yrs old and he still tours and sounds great) and they showed some footage of one of my musical Gods, Thelonious Monk, in action.

 

[jnk5y]

In Clints Documentary I really enjoyed the old footage but most of all I enjoyed Ray. I must say that the people in the really old footage never moved their bodies but their fingers were FLYING

 

[PillowRock]

I must say that the people in the really old footage never moved their bodies but their fingers were FLYING

It is possible that they weren't moving their bodies because they were given strict orders not to, because of the limitations of the recording equipment of the time.

Last night I bought a CD of Mississippis John Hurt's 1928 recordings. The liner notes were (mostly) two old articles written about him by the same music writer back in the 1960's; the first after spending a day with him and the second after Hurt's death. One of Hurt's stories that he relates is how Hurt had a stiff / sore neck for days after his first recording session because, once the engineer found the right position for microphone relative to Hurt's face and guitar, he was instructed not to move at all (since if he did they would have to restart the search for the proper mike position).

 

[PillowRock]

Scorsese says he conceived the whole project with Burnett in mind, and I believe that his is the only narrative film (as opposed to documentary). It is called Warming By The Devil's Fire, and I can't wait to watch my tape of it.

I saw all of that one in my hotel room last week (business trip). It was really quite good, and contained quite a bit of information and old archival footage of the Son House's of the world. It also included some audio of relatively obscure (at least as far as I have noticed) artists.


BTW: While I was at Border's last night I noticed that they don't separate CD's by the two Sonny Boy Williamsons. It also wouldn't be clear (if you didn't already know) that there *were* 2 of them. Of course, some of the labels make it relatively non-obvious which one a given CD was actually by. I am pretty sure that there were 2 CD's by Sonny Boy #1 and 3 CD's by Sonny Boy # 2 (Rice Miller).