Product Description

Harley Cokliss's Chicago Blues filmed in 1972 was a remarkable film; remarkable in that it was not just a competent documentary but a film crafted with care by professionals with a love and understanding of music and a respect for its history and artists. The music and its artists of Chicago Blues reflect faithfully the structure of the city's Blues activity of the late '60s from unknown amateur to world famous stars, from house to small bar, from traditional down home to modern city style. Thus Johnny Lewis, a housepainter who played for his own amusement at home and was almost a discovery of the film team, to Muddy Waters, Chicago Blues' most famous figure.

Lewis' Hobo Blues opens the film over images of the Bus Station and fixes firmly the importance of migration in the development of Chicago's postwar Blues. But with the great bulk of migrants coming from the Delta this pure East Coast offering sits oddly with the heavy electric Mississippi sound to follow. Strictly, only Muddy and Johnny Young came from Mississippi and while they contributed to and still played in the classic Chicago style, by the '60s the influence of Mississippi and the Delta was fading fast. The young lions of the West Side were in the ascendant and it's the nervous, raw energy of Buddy Guy's guitar and searing vocal that catches the positive mood of that decade. (The political mood was also captured on this film by interviews with Rev Ridick. Alderman A.A. Rayner and in a particularly telling contribution from Dick Gregory).

Product Description

Chicago, IL, was arguably the single most important American city in the growth of post-war electric blues. The city played host to one of the nation's most important blues labels, Chess Records, and was home to a number of wildly influential musicians, including Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Willie Dixon, and Buddy Guy. Chicago Blues is a documentary which looks at the rich history of Chicago's blues scene, as well as examining the city's African-American community and the various economic and sociological factors which helped to give the music and its message a home in the Windy City. Chicago Blues includes performances by Muddy Waters ("Hoochie Coochie Man," "She's 19 Years Old"), Junior Wells ("My Little Girl"), Johnny Lewis ("Hobo Blues"), J.B. Hutto ("If You Should Change Your Mind"), and Buddy Guy (" "The First Time I Met the Blues"), as well as interviews with Dick Gregory and Willie Dixon. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi