V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

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Thirty-five years have now come and gone since the 'rediscoveries' of the blues revival startled us with their corporeal presence. IT seems little short of miraculous that so many of the greatest pre-War bluesman were found ready, willing, and able to recreate the passion of their youth's music for a moving Last Hurrah. Now they are, to a man, gone, making the window which briefly shown into their world all the more precious. That these men were filmed in performance is fortuitous for us today; they need no longer be disembodied voices. The performance experience was captured and while the video reflection is no more the essence of the artist than the scratchy 78, it is far more than we once could have hoped for.
We enter their world of Delta blues during the first half of this DVD and experience that music little removed from its source. Bukka White and Big Joe Williams were disciples of Charley Patton, Sam Chatmon claimed he was his half-brother, and Son House began his blues recording career at Patton's behest. (House was also a formative inspiration for Robert Johnson and Muddy Waters.) The other seminal influence on early Delta blues, Tommy Johnson, is reflected in performances here by Houston Stackhouse and Sam Chatmon, once a member of the legendary Mississippi Sheiks.
Beyond the powerful blues of the Delta, ragtime was a still- popular pre-blues music throughout the Southeast in the 1920s- 30s. Adapted from piano to guitar, ragtime flourished in Virginia and the Carolinas and had no greater exponent than Rev. Gary Davis. The previously unseen 'home movie' footage of Davis shows here the ease with which he spanned ragtime, blues and sacred song.
Though both Texas and Louisiana claim him, Huddie Ledbetter defies neat regional pigeonholing. Leadbelly was a vast storehouse of blues and pre-blues African-American tradition, a 'songster' whose repertoire ranged from pop tunes to ancient work songs to original topical ones. He was the sort of larger-than-life figure who played his robust myth to the hilt and managed both to entertain and inspire with enduring vigor. Given that Leadbelly left us before any of the other figures on this DVD (and, in fact, before any 'blues revival' existed), we are indeed fortunate to have film footage offering some semblance of his power as a performer.

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

Close

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

Close

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V.A. - Legends Of Country Blues Guitar Vol.2 (2002)

Close