Now's the time to celebrate the Year of the Blues, as Congress has decreed 2003.
By GINA VIVINETTO
Published September 18, 2003
Here a few of the party favors:
MARTIN SCORSESE'S THE BLUES SERIES: Executive producer Scorsese's seven-part documentary The Blues airs on PBS beginning Sept. 28 and coincides with a bevy of CDs already in stores, a five-CD box set and a book. The Blues explores the history and social significance of the musical phenomenon in various regions. The films are directed by such moviemakers Clint Eastwood, Wim Wenders and Charles Burnett.
BOX OF THE BLUES: Rounder Records this week releases this superb four-disc box set from its catalog of diverse artists. The collection includes old-timers (Otis Spann, Mississippi John Hurt, Brownie McGhee) and "younger" entertainers Candye Kane, Marcia Ball and George Thorogood. Classic artists, obscure folks - the box features plenty for blues lovers who relish everything from finger-picking to full-on rock.
ALAN LOMAX COLLECTION, BLUES IN THE MISSISSIPPI NIGHT: The story of the birth of the blues, this exquisitely recorded disc is a historical treasure. Taped by historian and musicologist Alan Lomax in New York in 1947, it features the voices of three great African-American blues musicians: Big Bill Broonzy, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson.
Their songs and stories tell of the Mississippi Delta, its men and mules, the levee camps and prison farms, forced labor from sunup to sundown. In between songs, the men speak of prejudice and pistols. They tell of their hardships with wisdom and eloquence. It's a testimony to Lomax's tireless work and his commitment to preserving indigenous music that he, a white man, got these men to share their stories.
SHOUT, SISTER, SHOUT: A TRIBUTE TO SISTER ROSETTA THARPE (M.C. RECORDS): Singer-guitarist Tharpe, who died in 1973, was a giant voice in the blues, blurring the lines between gospel and secular music. This tribute features an all-female roster including Joan Osborne, Maria Muldaur (with Bonnie Raitt on guitar), Phoebe Snow, Odetta, Michelle Shocked, Sweet Honey in the Rock, Janis Ian and Marcia Ball.
THE AMERICAN FOLK BLUES FESTIVAL (1962-1966): Hip-O Records offers this DVD of nearly three hours of unreleased footage of performances shot in the early 1960s, during the first and most famous American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe. The two-DVD/one-CD set features premier American blues artists at their peak: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker, Willie Dixon, T-Bone Walker, Howlin' Wolf, Lightin' Hopkins, Memphis Slim, Otis Rush, Sippie Wallace and others.
Many of the artists were filmed in a German television studio during the annual Blues Festival tours, but the performances were never broadcast. These DVDs include Waters performing Got My Mojo Working with Williamson on harmonica and Dixon on bass, and J.B. Lenoir's Alabama Blues, a song that could not air on American television at the time because it refers to the lynching of a black man.
EXPERIENCE MUSIC PROJECT: Seattle's Experience Music Project has a blues exhibit called Sweet Home Chicago: Big City 1946-1966, featuring the guitars of Tampa Red, John Lee Hooker and Eric Clapton. The exhibit runs through January.
For those who can't make it to the Pacific Northwest, EMP co-produced The Blues, a 13-part radio program hosted by Grammy winner Keb' Mo', that will air nationwide on Public Radio International affiliate stations. In Florida, the program airs only in Miami, Inverness and Gainesville. Internet users can find it on www.yearoftheblues.org/radio .The series chronicles the genre's roots in West Africa, its spread through the rural South, the booming early scenes in Chicago and Memphis, its dip in popularity in the 1970s and its later resurgence.
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PUNKS ON FILM: Director Doug Sakmann shot the slasher flick Punk Rock Holocaust while traveling with the 2003 Vans Warped Tour. The film is about a disgruntled employee of the tour who seeks revenge by causing mayhem and murder. The film features the mysterious (and fictitious) supergory deaths of various band members on the tour. So, who better to appear in the flick than the bands themselves?
Sakmann enlisted many of the Vans bands' members to do cameos, including Simple Plan's Jeff Stinco, who appears in a bloody scene where he's impaled by a bass guitar. The flick will be released on DVD this winter.
John Roecker, director of Live Freaky! Die Freaky!, is another director putting punks in a movie, his new stop-animation flick to be released on DVD in February 2004. The movie, based on the Manson Family murders, features voice-overs from Kelly Osbourne, who provides the voice for Sharon Tate, and Green Day's Billie Joe Armstrong, who "stars" as Charles Manson.
The director also nabbed speaking parts from Rancid's Tim Armstrong (who produced the flick), Good Charlotte's Joel and Benji Madden, Jeordie White (who was called Twiggy Ramirez when he played with Marilyn Manson), Siouxsie Sioux, X's John Doe, Josh Freese of A Perfect Circle, Fat Mike of NOFX, and AFI's Davey Havok.
WHO'S A BUSY RAPPER? Ol' Dirty Bastard has been keeping busy since he got out of that mental facility in May (following his three-year prison stint). The former Wu Tang Clan rapper is now known as Dirt McGirt (remember when he called himself Big Baby Jesus for a spell?). McGirt is working on a new album for Roc-A-Fella Records and has launched a fashion line called Dirt McGirt including fancy boxers called Ol' Dirty Drawers.
The rapper is also trying his hand at photography: McGirt recently shot a playmate for Playboy.
- Gina Vivinetto is the Times pop music critic. E-mail her at gina@sptimes.com
