Red White and Blues

Every true movie lover loves music as well, and it's a delight when the two merge sometimes, like in these interesting documentaries produced by Martin Scorsese about the blues, there are seven of them but in my opinion one of the best was "red white and blues" directed by Mike Figgis.

The movie simply documents the british influence on the evolution of the blues music in General, and how the british music scene shifted from jazz influences to embrace the blues, and the very passionate people at the center of the mouvment, it's true that GenXers, and GenYers don't know much about that, we tend to take things for granted, but it's safe to say that without these people, your favourite rock band, or metal band would probably not exist.

Through testimonials of inflencial musicals, like Eric Clapton, BB King, Chris Fowler, Jeff Beck, the story is told, how these very passionate post war musicians discovered the blues through import vinyls, and how they absorbed it for ten years, to then export it back to America in the era of "the british invasion", where the beatles and the rolling stones took america by surprised and amazed it and the rest of the world for decades.

The Rolling Stones are not interviewed but they are part of this mouvment and so are the beatles, it's interesting to notice that it was a political decision in America to shelter white kids from this music, it was the reason it had to find a temporary refuge across the ocean, and then invade white america in the mid sixties, thus "opening doors that otherwise would have stayed closed", it is also interesting to notice how these brilliant people made this music their own, but without changint it's core, a fascinating journey indeed.

This story is illustrated by filmed performanes of many british musicians and singers doing blues renditions, and heavyweight ones, Van Morrison, Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, the best performance in my opinion is Lulu's rendition of "drown in my own tears" but they are all great, and recored in the legendary Abbey Road studios for god's sake !

A great primer on blues for those who are interested, and just a great documentary by all means, if you have a chance to catch this one don't miss it, because cinama and music, especially the blues have a deep relation and blues is the music of the night, of the misfits and of the lonely, and a lot of the movie making comes from these primal elements.