Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues

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Anyone watch the first installment of this on PBS last night? Last night was the episode directed by Scorsese himself. It follows a contemporary blues player, Corey Harris, as he travels around the South and to West Africa talking to blues musicians and exploring the roots of the music. There were short cursory bios of the major historical blues figures, and some fascinating historical footage, but I think the best parts were probably the parts where Harris interviewed living musicians. Overall, this had a much looser and more personal feel than the Ken Burns Jazz extravaganza of a few years ago. Thus it managed to avoid a lot of the stiffness and bookishness of the Burns series. Burns seemed to want his series to be the definitive word on the genre and its significance, though many of the judgments presented in the series were debatable, whereas Scorsese is content just to tease out connections and suggest ideas, which gave his segment a less overbearing and more likeably humble feel.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 29 September 2003 14:16 (twenty-two years ago)

Tonight's episode is directed by Wim Wenders.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 29 September 2003 14:19 (twenty-two years ago)

I'm looking forward to tonight's Wim Wenders episode, which features Skip James. His music was positively terrifying. The Web site features two incredible clips of him:

http://www.pbs.org/theblues/aboutfilms/wenders.html#null

― Jazzbo (jmcgaw), Monday, 29 September 2003 15:29 (twenty-two years ago)

>Thus it managed to avoid a lot of the stiffness and bookishness of the Burns series.

Except for, you know, subtitling the singers.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Monday, 29 September 2003 15:43 (twenty-two years ago)

Yeah, I thought the subtitles were kind of overkill, because most of the time, the words were clearly understandable, but they didn't distract too much.

― o. nate (onate), Monday, 29 September 2003 15:55 (twenty-two years ago)

That fife-and-drum corp music at the beginning blew my mind- can anyone recommend any good artists/albums/comps in that genre??

― Matt Helgeson (Matt Helgeson), Monday, 29 September 2003 22:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Far as I know this --

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000003OR1/ref=pd_sim_music_1/104-5133404-3909506?v=glance&s=music

is about the only historical document out there. Otha Turner himself --
http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/B000005HOI/ref=pd_bxgy_img_2/104-5133404-3909506?v=glance&s=music

ain't half bad.

― Dock Miles (Dock Miles), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:46 (twenty-two years ago)

Othar Tuner is probably the most well known musician in the North Misissippi fife and drum tradition. He died a few months ago at 96. He had picnics up until the last years of his life where he would perform. I kick myself for never attending one. He recently did a record called Everybody's Hollerin' Goat featuring the North Mississippi Allstars (Luther Dickinson's kids) .

― Will (will), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:53 (twenty-two years ago)

That should be Otha Turner

― Will (will), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:55 (twenty-two years ago)

I saw much of episode 1 (but not 2) and agree with much of the above. It may be that the subject takes better to the format than jazz. But there are problems - I could do with less of Corey Harris' commentary (I think Salif Keita could have done without as well), it was very easy to predict exactly what was coming next (and I know very little about the blues), and even my non-pop-culture parents called out the treat-the-audience-like-children PBS tone. But the music has been good, the tone appropriate. The Ali Farka Toure sequence was mostly wonderful.

― gabbneb (gabbneb), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Wow - the Wim Wenders episode tonight was really good. It focused on Blind Willie Nelson, Skip James and J.B. Lenoir. By focusing on only three artists, it seemed to allow a more detailed treatment than the Scorsese episode, which tended to skip around more. The idea to use actors to recreate historical episodes could have been kitschy, but it was handled with creativity.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

Oh my god, I must be high - I can't believe I just typed Blind Willie Nelson.

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:56 (twenty-two years ago)

That should have been Blind Willie Johnson (obviously).

― o. nate (onate), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 01:57 (twenty-two years ago)

it's going around

― Will (will), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 02:03 (twenty-two years ago)

I thought there was a pretty wide chasm between the modern-day portions and the archival footage. You can pretty much say anything you want in between clips of Son House raising hairs, and it'll work and you'll still look like a shuffling undergrad. I imagined an obvious attempt by Scorsese to bear as little resemblance to a Burns PBS formula as possible. He was also boxed into a corner, narrative-wise, by the countless cliches of the blues mythology, which I think he answered with vagueness. I really liked how all the old coots had firm opinions on the nature of the Blues beast that bore no similiarity to each other. One craggy face gets up and says its all about rebelling against the bossman, using women's names as subterfuge, then the next American Moses they interviewed claimed the whole thing was about love between a man and a woman, period. I believe the intensity came from the former, the popularity came from the latter. In my opinion, though, the connections to the African griot tradition were overstated.

― Ian Christe (Ian Christe), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 02:33 (twenty-two years ago)

>In my opinion, though, the connections to the African griot tradition were overstated.

In mine, too. There was a lot of "Just So Story" quality about that talk. It can't be DISproven, of course, but the evidence is on the "sounds the same" and "sounds logical" level. What can't be disputed, though, is that John Lee Hooker influenced Ali Farka Toure -- a complex guy I like a lot, btw -- and he once readily admitted the connection. Nowadays, he's more given to claiming his was a parallel evolution and doling out smug, puritanical complaints about "One Scotch, One Burbon, One Beer."

― Dock Miles (Dock Miles), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 03:26 (twenty-two years ago)

I disagree on the overstatement of the African griot tradition. Blues heavily steeped in tradition, and each artist is almost 90% his influences. In that sense, Blues is as old as music itself.

― David Allen, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 03:37 (twenty-two years ago)

That Swedish couple's films of J.B. Lenoir last night were fantastic. Shame about the guy's eye, although its unexplained presence added something to the segment.

― Curt (cgould), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 13:29 (twenty-two years ago)

I've been watching here and there (my rabbit ears haven't been pulling in the signal so good) but what i have seen looks better than Ken Burns' Jazz. Burns seemed to envisage the jazz family tree as a single stoic oak -- but The Blues comes off like the morass amongst the underbrush (i.e. much better).

― christoff (christoff), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 17:44 (twenty-two years ago)

After seeing Blind Willie Johnson on the show, i really have to get a compilation of his..as well as Skip James !!!!!

― yaeger, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 17:52 (twenty-two years ago)

My father has my musical tastes frozen in 1997, and thinks I still just listen to "that punk crap."

In the interests of enlightening me, he bought me the comp that goes with the series. It starts out pretty good, with the Skip James "Devil Got My Woman" song that was in Ghost World, John Lee Hooker, Son House.

Then, near the end, it turns into complete and utter bullshit, with Stevie Ray Vaughan doing "Pride and Joy," possibly the most annoying song ever to come out of Texas.

― miloauckerman (miloauckerman), Tuesday, 30 September 2003 18:09 (twenty-two years ago)

Come on dude, Stevie Ray was great!!
A total differant typr of "BLUES" than the 1920-3's material.
There has been no player as good as him since he died.
Stevie Ray does not fit in well with the Skip James, Son House blues period i will admit.

― yaeger, Tuesday, 30 September 2003 20:13 (twenty-two years ago)

To David, whose last post I rapidly disagree with: The blues as a musical form developed in the late 19th/early 20th centuries and owes scarcely more to the griot traditions—note plural, it is too easy to essentialize "African tradition" as the giver of all things—than does, say, country and western. I suppose some kind of spiritual link could be made, but that too seems problematic to me, historically and otherwise.

It's the totalizing tendency of these shows that puts me off—the need to explain the essence of the (insert idiom here), even from differing perspectives, rather than just to identify and feature the components.

I haven't seen this, though I want to. These shows are a bit like car wrecks for me...I'm fairly certain I'll be displeased with what I see, but I can't but look anyway, and even put some effort into doing so.

Lenoir is amazing and like those of many bluesmen his is a sad story. Died much too young.

Did Skip James's notorious orneriness come up? Although even that's chimerical—John Fahey (not himself notably genial) said James was an asshole, others say he was quite generous and kind at times. He certainly had the spiky pride of an autodidact (not unlike Marvin Gaye, for example).

Much more to say but later maybe...

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 14:51 (twenty-two years ago)

Also "blues is heavily steeped in tradition" is a statement of stupefying banality.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 14:54 (twenty-two years ago)

wwwothaturner.com has three downloadable MP3s.

― Phil Freeman (Phil Freeman), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 18:26 (twenty-two years ago)

oh there are lots of recordings of fife and drum music out there. i don't have access to my collection but a few that come to mind are the "blow my blues away" series on arhoolie and the "traveling through the jungle" lp on testament.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

that is to say, *african-american* fife and drum music.

― amateurist (amateurist), Wednesday, 1 October 2003 18:35 (twenty-two years ago)

There's only a couple fife-and-drum tracks on the [Blow My Blues Away] collections. And, on top of that, they're out of print. I'm quite certain that there are not "lots" of fife-and-drum recordings readily available out there besides the already-mentioned Testament collection and the Otha Turner albums, but would love to hear about them if there are.

― Dock Miles (Dock Miles), Thursday, 2 October 2003 04:51 (twenty-two years ago)

also check out the Sounds of the South box on Atlantic (reissue of a buncha Lomax recordings).

― Mr. Diamond (diamond), Thursday, 2 October 2003 05:29 (twenty-two years ago)

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