Blues Music Movies

Taken from the European tours organised for American blues musicians between 1962 and 1969, this release features performances by several popular blues artists, including: Big Mama Thornton, Roosevelt Sykes, Buddy Guy, Dr. Isaiah Ross, Big Joe Turner, Skip James, Bukka White, Son House, Hound Dog...

This film traces the road of the Blues and takes us on a journey to mythical places: From the banks of the Niger to New Orleans, going up the Mississippi through Memphis to the skyscrapers of Chicago. It tells the story of this culture which faced the worst barriers and shows that Humanity can...

This acclaimed documentary depicts the sad life of the greatest of all jazz singers, Billie Holiday, a life engraved with personal tragedy and ultimately shortened by drug abuse and alcoholism. Her story and career are portrayed through rare archival film and television appearances, memorable...

They called him the The Ice Man and The Master of the Telecaster, but above all else, Albert Collins was a consummate Texas bluesman. Ice Man or not, Albert was on fire the night of his taping on October 28, 1991. His performance was a wild ride, and the ACL stage proved too small for his antics,...

HAIYU interweaves Mariem Hassan’s music and her personal quest for her country’s independence with larger historical events dating back to the region’s Spanish colonisation, and subsequent occupation by Morocco.

America's Blues takes a new angle on the Blues, focusing on, not only the musical impact it has had on all forms of Popular American Music, but also the influence it has had on art, fashion, language, film and racial equality.

Danny fulfilled his great ambition to play and record in his native Cincinnati's King Records studio. On this unique video, he illegally enters the derelict King building in order to commune with the spirits of the great King Records artists from the past -- and, in so doing, becomes the last...

The work of art in the age of genetic reproduction-- Based on the practice of lip-reading, this short animated film explores the visual "code" of verbal pronunciation by animating pairs of lips cut out from magazines according to the position of the mouth in pronouncing a sound of spoken language.

An exploration of the musical and social origins of the blues, shot on location in Mississippi in 1978 by Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long in association with the Mississippi Authority for Educational Television and broadcast on PBS in 1980. This re-release in 2009 includes two hours of...

Documentary which celebrates the music of Louisiana.

Blues Story presents an impressionistic history of one of the most lasting art forms America has ever produced - as told for the first time through the eyes of the artists who lived it. Combining exclusive interview and performance footage with vintage clips and the music of many Blues legends long...

A travelogue through the Mississippi delta searching for the heart and the spirit of the blues.

Geri Ashur’s Me & Stella traces the life of blues musician, folk singer, and composer Elizabeth Cotten—and her guitar, Stella—who is best known for writing the folk standard “Freight Train.” After spending her early teenage years writing songs and playing the guitar, Cotten put her...

Soul singer Dana Masters traces the story of Ottilie Patterson, who for a dazzling few years in the late 1950s and early 1960s was a pioneer of British jazz and blues music and inspiration to later groups such as The Rolling Stones and The Pretty Things.

A documentary short about Charley Patton included in the box set "The Definitive Charley Patton - 75th Anniversary Edition". The film contains interviews with musicians, musicologists, blues scholars and Delta historians and contains brand new footage of Dockery’s, the legendary plantation where...

In the late 1980s, Tim Duffy, a penniless North Carolina musicology student, became deeply involved in Winston-Salem's drinkhouse music scene, an off-the-grid hotbed of gritty traditional blues. He began the foundation after observing and living with the deep poverty of the Southern blues artists...

By the time "It's A Mean Old World" was filmed, Reverend Pearly Brown had been struggling to survive singing gospel music for nearly 40 years. While the rough sound of his bottleneck playing has the feel of a life spent scuffling on the street, the poignancy of his voice is a better measure of the...