Tag Archives: documentary

Film, Otis Redding, Soul, Stax

Documentary: Otis Redding – Soul Ambassador

soul ambassador

Otis Redding Soul Ambassador. Documentary from the BBC.

First-ever TV documentary about the legendary soul singer Otis Redding, following him from childhood and marriage to the Memphis studios and segregated Southern clubs where he honed his unique stage act and voice. Through unseen home movies, the film reveals how Otis’s 1967 tour of Britain dramatically changed his life and music.

After bringing soul to Europe he returned to conquer America,first with the ‘love-crowd’ at the Monterey Festival and then with Dock of the Bay, which topped the charts only after his death at just 26. Includes rare and unseen performances, intimate interviews with Otis’s wife and daughter, and with original band members Steve Cropper and Booker T Jones. Also featured are British fans whose lives were changed by seeing him, among them Rod Stewart, Tom Jones and Bryan Ferry.

– Hallgeir

Blues, Film, Muddy Waters

Chicago Blues 1972 documentary

chicago blues

This is a very fine “time capsule” directed by Harley Cokeliss, an American director, producer, writer and actor born February 11, 1945 in San Diego. The cinematography is by master cameraman Tak Fujimoto.

CHICAGO BLUES explores the hard lives of bluesmen in Chicago narrated by an insightful and incendiary commentary from comedian turned political activist Dick Gregory. CHICAGO BLUES is a an interesting document of a generation of great musicians trying to make a living in a racially divided America.

‘‘CHICAGO BLUES” is an angry film. To document Chicago blues at its source, the British director Harley Cokliss went to South Side clubs, storefront churches and homes. He wound up with both a performance film and an anti-travelogue on ghetto life. It is a stark, forceful combination.
– Jon Pareles (NYT, 1983)

 

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Country, Film, Waylon Jennings

Documentary: My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys a musical documentary with Waylon Jennings

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WJ2

“I think everybody secretly dreams of being a cowboy, no matter where they`re from.”
– Waylon Jennings

It is “roundup” time in Texas. In a ritual that has changed little since the times of “the wild west”, cowboys ride out twice a year to gather up the cattle and prepare them for the market.

Waylon Jennings spent 10 days roaming the 250 square miles of the 06 Kokernot Ranch with these cowboys to tell the story of his experience in this musical documentary, “My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys.”

Waylon Arnold Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Jennings began playing guitar at 8 and began performing at 12 on KVOW radio. He formed a band, The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J. on KVOW, KDAV, KYTI, and KLLL. In 1958, Buddy Holly arranged Jennings’s first recording session, of “Jole Blon” and “When Sin Stops (Love Begins).” Holly hired him to play bass. During the “Winter Dance Party Tour,” in Clear Lake, Iowa, Holly chartered a plane to arrive at the next venue. Jennings gave up his seat in the plane to J. P. Richardson, who was suffering from a cold. The flight that carried Holly, Richardson, and Ritchie Valens crashed, on the day later known as The Day the Music Died. Following the accident, Jennings worked as a D.J. in Coolidge, Arizona, and Phoenix. He formed a rockabilly club band, The Waylors. He recorded for independent label Trend Records, A&M Records before succeeding with RCA Victor after achieving creative control of his records.

During the 1970s, Jennings joined the Outlaw movement. He released critically acclaimed albums Lonesome, On’ry and Mean and Honky Tonk Heroes, followed by hit albums Dreaming My Dreams and Are You Ready for the Country. In 1976 he released the album Wanted! The Outlaws with Willie Nelson, Tompall Glaser, and Jessi Colter, the first platinum country music album.
– Wikipedia

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It is fascinating and educational with a fantastic soundtrack.

My Heroes Have Always Been Cowboys – a musical documentary with Waylon Jennings:

– Hallgeir

Film, Neil Young

Video of the day: Neil Young BBC documentary Don’t Be Denied

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screenshot Neil Young

 

“One of the funniest things about making this film were the doom merchants who popped up regularly during our research, like the fortune tellers that litter epic Greek tales. Neil will never talk about this or that, this will all end in tears, it will never happen.

But it did- with the help of a great production team, Warner Records UK and not least Neil’s very helpful organisation in California.”
– Ben Whalley (Director)

I have a lot(!) of Neil Young documentaries/films/concert footage lying around, and this is the best of it all (…no, it was not me who uploaded it on YouTube, thanks to the original uploader). Neil Young really opens up and the live footage is spectacular. Young is very much aware of his “difficult” personality, his quest for great art is his most important task in life. The film explores how Young’s unflinching dedication to the muse has created an impressive body of work and bruised a lot of people along the way. But he is also a warm and funny person. This docu was also shown in the American Masters series on PBS in the US.

The film ends with Neil Young playing an anti-Bush anthem to a Republican audience in the South, still refusing to be denied.

BBC Neil Young documentary – Don’t Be Denied:

– Hallgeir

Bluegrass, Country, Film

Video of the day: The Joy of Country music BBC documentary

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This celebration of the history and aesthetic of country music tracks the evolution of the genre from the 1920s to the present, exploring country as both folk and pop music – a 20th century soundtrack to the lives of working-class Americans in the South, forever torn between their rural roots and a mostly urban future, between authenticity and showbiz.

Exploring many of the great stars of country from Jimmie Rodgers and Hank Williams to Johnny Cash and Dolly Parton, director Andy Humphries’s meditation on the power and pull of country blends brilliant archive and contributions from a broad cast that includes Dolly Parton, the Handsome Family, Laura Cantrell, Hank Williams III, Kd lang and many more.

If you have ever wondered about the sound of a train in the distance, the keening of a pedal steel guitar, the lure of rhinestone or the blue Kentucky hills, and if you want to know why twang matters, this is the documentary for you.

The film is a bit harsh when discussing the future of country music, but it is one of the better docus on the genre (the four part BBC series, The Lost Highway is still the benchmark).

– Hallgeir