ONE OF THE BEST BLUES & ROOTS MUSIC DOCUMENTARIES EVER
Did you ever wonder what it would have been like to walk down a dirt road and spy Mance Lipscomb picking guitar on his front porch or catch Lightning Hopkins entertaining his friends and neighbors in a local juke joint? Well, now's your chance. Just pop this tape in your VCR and prepare to be blown away by some of the rarest and best footage ever of real blues men, guitar-playing street preachers and other African-American traditional musicians (the only white musicians presented here are old-time country fiddler J.E. Mainer and his family band, performing my personal fav, "Run Mountain"). Unlike many of the other blues and roots music documentaries currently available, the focus here is on the artists making music on home ground, in the context of the of their daily life, and not on a folk festival concert stage or in some university film studio. In 1963, Chris Strachwitz, pioneering blues/roots music collector and founder of the ever wonderful ARHOOLIE label, took German filmaker Dietrich Wawzyn on a cross country road trip across the continental United States to seek out what Chris calls "vernacular music." What they found was some amazing slices of life, such as: Texas songster Mance Lipscomb playing for a home audience of two small boys; Lightning Hopkins in the aforementioned juke joint; and 1930s radio and recording artist, Babe Turner, "the Black Ace," picking and "sliding the frets" on his silver National lap steel guitar to the delight of his wife in their apartment-- to name but a few of the great folk masters documented. My favorites: Blind James Campbell and his Nashville Street Band (one of the last of the African-American fiddle-led string bands; you can hear more of their great music on the eponymously titled Arhoolie CD 438) entertaining a street full of neighborhood kids; and the extremely colorful San Francisco evangelist, King Narcisse.

I could go on and on. Suffice to say, this film is a treasure trove of fine music and stunning imagery, shot in beautifully understated black & white and unhampered by narration and dry "expert" commentary.

If down home acoustic music is your cup of canned heat, grab this video.