The Blues (2003): Season 1, Episode 1 - Feel Like Going Home - full transcript
A documentary about the blues and it's African origins.
Once I had a pretty little girl
I lose my baby,ain't that sad?
Once I had a pretty little girl
I lose my baby, ain't that sad?
Well, you know you can't
Spend what you ain't got
You can't lose
What you ain't never had
Well, you know you can't
Spend what you ain't got
You can't lose
What you ain't never had
I can't imagine my life
or anyone else's...
without music.
It's like a light in the darkness
that never goes out.
The Blues takes you back to the place
where it first came to life.
There's an old African saying that
the roots of a tree cast no shadow.
That's how deep the blues goes.
When you really listen
to the music you understand...
this is the one thing they could
never take away from Black people.
- Well, he Long John
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- Brother John said
- Brother John said
- In the Chapter 14
- In the Chapter 14
- lf a man live
- lf a man live
- Let his sin be seen
- Let his sin be seen
I won't be here long
Dark gonna catch me here
Dark gonna catch me here
You're listening to songs...
that were recorded for
the Library of Congress in the 1930's.
John Lomax,
who worked for the Library...
called himself a 'ballad hunter'
He and his son, Alan,
drove all across America...
and made literally thousands
of recordings.
They were doing one of the most
important things anyone could do...
they were preserving the past
before it disappeared forever.
Irene goodnight
Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene
I'll get you in my dream
It was John Lomax who first
recorded Lead Belly in 1933...
in a Louisiana prison.
After Lead Belly was released...
he went to Philadelphia with the Lomaxes
and he gave a series of concerts.
Don't you see me coming
With both two hands on your man?
See me coming
With your man alone
Northern audiences
responded to Lead Belly...
and they loved the songs
he performed.
As Lead Belly became famous
around the world...
a different kind of musician
was reworking the blues...
down in the Mississippi Delta...
in a way that would eventually
reach an even wider audience.
When I learned to play the Blues...
I knew I was connecting with
my ancestors and my history.
Every song tells another part
of the story.
It was through playing the music
I began to understand...
to know yourself you have
to know the past...
to know where you're going
you have to know where you've been.
Oh, Lordy Lord
Oh, Lordy Lord
It hurts me so bad
John Lee Hooker,
that sound, that feeling...
my great-grandmother used to call it
'knocking at the back door music'...
other people call it
the devil's music.
You listen to it and you feel the mud
and the blood of the Mississippi Delta.
This journey begins
in Mississippi because...
this is the land
where the Blues was born.
Sam Carr's father was Robert Nighthawk,
a blues legend...
and Sam played drums with
Big Jack Johnson and Frank Frost...
in the Jelly Roll Kings.
- Come on.
- My name is Corey Harris.
- Sam Carr.
- Nice to meet you, Sam
- Same to you.
- I'm a big admirer of your music.
Well, do it man,
you just did catch me.
Alright, I'm glad I caught you.
I been sick about a year
taking part of my music and...
everything and just kinda
easily coming back this way.
I first started playing guitar...
I met a dude who played harmonica...
and one day it came up: I know, let's
call ourselves the Jelly Roll Kings...
and we were so proud:
"That's a great name"...
and we thought we were
the first ones to think...
of that then we went
to the record store.
- So we changed it.
- Somebody beat you to it.
Beat us to it by many years.
That's some of the best blues records
ever made that you all was on.
Really.
So I understand your father
was Robert Nighthawk.
- Yeah, yeah, he was.
- Very famous musician.
What can you tell us about
Mr. Nighthawk and his music?
I was around him all the time.
I got to see a lot of old music...
old musicians, I can't think
of their names now...
but they was good.
I listen to some of
that old music now.
I and Frank started playing
together in '55.
Frank Frost?
So we played all through the country,
all overseas and everywhere else...
as we, you know, got known.
Yeah, so. We got the chance to go
a lot of places I never'd go...
places I never would see,
if I hadn't been playing music.
Yeah, well...
he just ain't... you know.
As we die out...
the music died
right along with us...
most of it.
You take...
a guy forty-five years old...
he can't play what
we was playing back yonder.
Now, the instruments
do the playing.
Then you had to play.
Every string for string,
you had to play.
That's it, that's it.
Do it, till you do it, I want you do it
with your eyes close, do it till when...
when you can feel comfortable
that you can close your eyes and do it.
Oh, man, yeah...
let's give him a nice
round of applause, y'all.
I celebrate my heritage and my culture
with my blues festival.
From all walks of life...
- they come down to Freedom Creek.
- Oh, man.
Yeah, you know.
Last one we had nearly everybody thought
it was gonna be hot because it was June.
And man it was so cool
and pleasant down here...
and had the wind kind of blowing
through the trees and...
I just felt the spirit
of old Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters...
John Lee Hooker, and all Son House
and all them old Blues brothers...
Johnny Shines.
I just felt all of them down here,
you know, as one.
The spirit I just felt them...
that spirit was...
was close at hand, believe me.
Now look it here.
That was too late
To stand up for their rights
Just because they was black
They had to put up a hell of a fight
In Picken's County
In Picken's County
When a little sheriff
Came out and rescued them
DA called out the town
Said good sheriff will tear you down
And penetrate you down
In Picken's County
Come out of cotton fields
with no money...
or just a little food at home to eat,
children crying...
at the edge of suicide.
So...
the good Lord and the Spirit
had to send something down...
to the people...
to help ease the worried mind...
and this's where the music
come in at what you're working...
at what you're trying to do,
at what you're striving for...
to help give you a vision
of a brighter day way up ahead...
to help you get your mind off
of what you are in right now.
And they'd use
a lot of these of songs...
which they were talkin'
about their woman...
but they was telling
you about the boss man.
Them old blues songs talking about
their woman... my baby, she's so mean...
she just won't treat me right...
she take all my money,
well, you talking about the boss man...
but that's the way that they have
to get the message undercover.
So they couldn't just come out and say
the boss man ain't treating me right.
- And his name is such and such.
- Yeah.
- He lives at...
- Right, right.
They finding you hanging from one
of them trees in the morning.
Dead before day in the morning.
Lord, if you rise
And the blues just survival.
John Lee Hooker say:
"It's a healer."
It was 1941 when Alan Lomax
arrived in the Mississippi Delta...
with John Work and an integrated
team from Fisk University.
The old way of life
was disappearing fast.
Many of the jobs on the old plantations
were being phased out...
and people were leaving in droves.
Everything was changing.
So Alan Lomax figured the music
had to be changing, too.
- Did you go on, girl?
- Yes, ma'am
- Did you go on town?
- Yes, ma'am
- Did you see my brown?
- Yes, ma'am
- Which way did he go?
- Choo, choo, all night long
Choo, choo, all night long
Hell is a place and not a state.
Can you here me,
my brother Lomax?
Hell is a place...
and not a state.
Name: McKinley Morgansfield
nickname: Muddy Waters...
Stovall's famous guitar picker.
How long have you lived out here
on the Stovall plains?
17 year.
- Working in the same place?
- Same place all the time.
Well, I just felt blue and
the song veer into my mind and...
it come to me just like that song
and I start to singing it and went on.
Do you know is that tune, the tune
from any other blues that you know?
This song from the cotton field and
the boy went and put the record out...
Robert Johnson,
he put out "Walking Blues".
Did you know the tune before you
heard it the record, though?
Yes, sir I knew the tune before
I heard it on the record.
- Who'd you learn it from?
- I learn it from Son House.
So how did you learn to play
with this bottle?
Picked it up from Son House,
I call it a slide.
Some people say the world Muddy Waters
and Son House were born into is gone.
I drive down these roads,
I visit these places...
and I hear the music...
as if it were in the air.
Blues is not a plaything like
people think they are.
Like youngsters today, they take
anything and make the Blues out of it...
just any little old jump something
or other say...
this is the such and such a blues...
no it's not.
There ain't but one kind a blues...
and that consisted between...
male and female that's in love.
In love, male and female.
Now I been married five times...
with my jerky self.
Five times...
and I had a good experience
of what that mean.
Blues.
B-L-U-E-S. Blues.
This is a bit dark. This is Son House
with his eyes closed...
and the sweat pouring off of him
and he is just gone.
He's left this point in time.
He's just gone somewhere else.
He went to 1928 and 1935...
he went to Lula, he went to
Clarksdale, he went to Tunica...
he just went somewhere else.
How did you meet Son House?
How'd your association with him begin?
I promoted a week of John Hurt
shows in February of '64...
and that was successful.
Then I brought in Booker White...
who was a great Mississippi bluesman...
and he came in
and played in April of '64.
In talking to him he said
he had seen Son House...
in Memphis,
seen him in a movie theater.
We were just flipping out
because he had vanished in '42...
after recording for Lomax.
So we went down to Memphis
and saw Booker...
and Booker basically said...
"Well, maybe I was wrong, I guess
I really didn't see Son House".
Some of my old favorite boys...
at least I love them all
so far as that.
Charlie Patton, Willie Brown,
and Robert Johnson...
well, they died one right after
the other...
and you know,
and we played together.
So out of them three...
these gone on back to the mother's
dust from whence they came...
and then that scared me.
Lemon Jefferson he done gone too.
Then that scared me
and I said: Well, maybe...
Lord, I'm next...
and I got scared and
quit playing for 16 years...
until Mr. Dick Waterman found me...
and gave me nerve enough
to try it again.
He had been retired from the railroad.
So he said: "Okay"...
he'd come back to playing...
not because he had any great musical
motivation or financial motivation.
He just wasn't doing anything
so he said "Okay" he'd try it.
Son was interesting because
Son descended from a preaching clan...
and that's one of his tunes.
He was...
was: "Well, I be religion
and I know all religious stuff...
but then all that corn liquor
just taste so good...
and that girl's behind is just
so good looking.
I believe
I'm gonna go over here".
And then he'd get over there, and then
he'd start feeling remorseful about it.
And then he'd have to go
over there, you know...
and the whole thing was like...
that song...
I used to sing that...
I'm gonna get me religion,
I do believe...
I'm gonna join the Baptist church,
you know...
I'm gonna get me religion
I do believe...
I'm gonna join the Baptist church...
so I can be a Baptist preacher
and I will not have to work.
In the 1960's,
when I was starting out...
there was a folk revival going on...
and many of these bluesmen
were invited to perform at concerts.
Me and many people from
my generation had access...
to the artistry and wisdom
of a wonderful older generation.
One of the things I did when
I hung out with the older players...
Yes.
Was to talk to them about what life
was like for them at that time.
Who were they as a much young crazy
boys, talking about and thinking about.
So how did these cats
like Son House come about...
like how did the music
come out of this place, this area?
3,000 acres of cotton.
I mean, if you ran 3,000 acres
of cotton...
seventy, eighty years ago,
you had a lot of folks working there.
You know, I mean, that's
a lot of land to be trying deal.
If that was something
I was doing back in the day...
that's a lot of mules and men...
you know, that's a lot of
mules and men...
that's a lot of people
washing clothes...
that's a whole bunch
of biscuits and cobbler.
That type of life, you know...
coupled with
the way people live...
and the intensity of the times,
you know...
the delta you know, produced
a real strong hard-driving music.
Charley Patton's "Highwater Everywhere",
he's really kicking the doors down.
And harmonically
the instrument's in tune.
They must have kept the liquor away
from him so he didn't get drunk.
He's really in tune good
and he's singing so great, you know.
See, that song you get the feeling
of where he is and where he can go...
and where he will go,
and where the water's gonna go...
and what the word
is from cross town and...
how far he's getting the word
coming back to his ear...
because sometimes the Blues
gotta talk about...
he's talking about somebody
you don't ever meet.
I'm talking about my baby,
never met her, you know...
and she's fine as she can be
I still never met her.
Patton's thing, that's what
I like about he does is that...
he includes you way up
inside his mind...
as to what's going on and
what's he's thinking and...
what it's like at that time.
What is this place?
Where are we at right now?
We're at the epicenter
of a musical revolution.
This is where McKinley Morgansfield,
better known as Muddy Waters...
worked and played his music.
And this is where Alan Lomax
made that great recording of...
"Down on Stovall's Farm"
with Muddy.
Here we are, what 100 years later
or whenever the this farm started...
and then it's within a hundred year span
we're talking that Muddy was out here...
and went on to Chicago and eventually
out to the rest of the world.
When Muddy Waters got his first
record in the mail...
he put on a suit and tie
and went to a photographer studio...
to have his picture taken.
He thought about leaving
the plantation before...
but now he knew he could do it.
- What's up brother?
- I ain't seen you in God knows when...
man how you doing?
It's been a long time since
I seen you.
- You gonna play the blues, brother?
- I gotta crawl tonight, I gotta do it.
You gonna play the blues tonight?
I got that whup.
That's the whup over there, hey whup.
Check. One, two.
Alright, check one, two.
Check...
check, check, check,
check, check.
Could fill a spoon full of coffee
Could fill a spoon full of tea
Just a little spoon
Of your precious love
Is that enough for me
It been lied about
Some of them dies about it
Some of them dies
About it
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
Good God, about it
Tell me about it
How about that?
Son House was more stable...
him and...
Charley Patton, Willie Brown...
they're more stable because these guys,
I think they worked on a farm...
and played on a Saturday night
for the get backs.
Where as me, I wanted to go somewhere
I wanted to see some places.
See, there's a lot of things
that I wanted to learn about...
I was curious about, you know.
Like, when I was a kid...
my parents used to tell me
what they was taught...
about the white people.
My parents used to tell me if you
go to Chicago, St Louis and New York...
you walk along, you see the
little things with the holes in 'em...
you can look down through there.
Don't step on those things because
those are student traps.
If you step on those things,
you'll fall down in those traps...
and students jumps you and cut you up
and see how you were made.
All this crap.
If you go to Canada...
the Canadians didn't have but
one big eye in the center of their head.
Everywhere you went a big eye'd
be following you around...
that's a scary feeling you know.
I don't know,
maybe I'm just a hard believer.
I just didn't believe all that stuff.
About that traps, you know, being there.
I jumped down on many traps...
I guess folks thought I was crazy,
to see if it break in...
but I'd walk over one,
I'd jump up and down...
see if it was gonna break in.
I gotta keep moving
Blues falling down like hail
Blues falling down like hail
That high haunting voice pitched on
the razor's edge between joy and pain.
Dead at 27.
Twenty-nine songs and
just two known photographs.
We'll never have more than just
a few scattered memories and details...
about the life of Robert Johnson.
In the 65 years since he died...
his shadow's only grow longer
as musician continue to...
sing his words and play
his music.
That something that
I associate with Robert Johnson.
He's one of the first guys
I know to do that.
Whereas, you know, with Son House it's
like when Son House does "Jinx Blues"...
you know,
he's like banging on it.
You know,
I think Son House was...
I don't know, to me,
he sounds more country, more rural.
Robert Johnson is like between that
and something uptown or more urbane.
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
One and one is two
Two and two is four
Heavy loaded, baby
And I got to go
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
Two and two is four
Four and two is six
Keep on mocking, my friend
And you'll get pity, you'll see
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
Where did you and Johnson
travel together?
Well, through Missouri,
Arkansas...
Tennessee...
Illinois, Michigan, Ohio...
on up into Canada, New York,
places like that.
And you found an audience
everywhere you went?
Yes, audience,
a ready audience waiting on us.
You get the feeling that this was
a guy who was in some kind of trouble...
or running from something,
or afraid of something.
Well, I'll tell you what
his life was like.
If we played somewhere tonight
and probably got off at four o' clock...
and got into our hotel room
and went to sleep...
and a train waking me up
at 6:30h...
I say Robert I hear a train
you wanna catch it?
Never say a word, get right up,
start putting his clothes on.
Didn't make no difference
what way it was going.
Going back the way we just come from,
or where we was headed.
Just didn't make him any difference,
just so...
he just didn't care.
Some folks tell me
Old blues ain't bad
I got the worst of feeling
I ever had
Some people tell me
Old blues ain't bad
I got the worst of feeling
That I ever had
One thing that's remarkable with,
about Robert Johnson...
for me is that he was one of
the first cats I can tell...
who was really like listening to records
of cats outside of his region.
He definitely had traces in his playing
that let you know he had big ears.
He was definitely listening.
We get most of our
information from CD's records...
I mean, we talk to other musicians
and we learn stuff from gigs...
but I think most of the development
for most people...
now is listening to records
and stuff.
And I think he was one of he first
people to really do that, you know.
- He was more of a like a crooner.
- Yeah.
He was really kinda,
he had a kinda croon.
He did, he did.
But I was, I guess, about 19...
I got my hand on
a Led Zeppelin eight track.
I was listening to this Led Zeppelin
record probably for 2 years straight...
in the car, just like listening to it and
this line 'you can squeeze my lemon'.
And I said uh-oh. Bee!
Profane!
What's he talking about?
Mother, that came from this,
it was on the Led Zeppelin.
Then it was like all of a sudden...
"that came from Robert Johnson"...
something about his music
that keeps awaking people up 'cause...
he was such a rebel...
and such a person that was himself,
kind of like a James Dean.
To be like well-dressed.
To be able to just wander around
and play. Always had ready money.
Had a car...
that's like, you know, that's a rebel,
like you say, really breakin' loose.
You never seen that picture
before, huh?
No, I never seen this one before.
Is that how he would dress up
in those days? He looks...
awfully fancy.
Well, yes if you felt like it...
because...
I can tell you this.
I'm glad my wife isn't here.
If a broad likes you well enough,
she's going to put some clothes on you.
You know, just to have you around.
Play the blues for her.
People are looking at blues like
it's like the Shakespearean canon.
And I've even heard people do
remakes of tunes...
and they'll duplicate
all the vocal asides.
- Yeah, yeah.
- That's not the point.
- You know, just like verbatim.
- That's not the point.
- And the mistakes...
- And the mistakes, too, yeah.
You gotta make it your own, because
it's all about personal expression.
John Lee Hooker started making records
in Detroit, in the late '40's.
Hooker's music was born in the Delta
and it cut right to the bone.
For the tens of thousands
who had left the plantations...
this down home music was nostalgic,
but it was something else too...
something mysterious, haunting.
I know I'll never, I'll never
Come out of this blues alive
There was also a new audience
for Hooker's sound...
who knew little if anything
about where it came from.
Living
I ain't coming back
Living
I ain't coming back
Woke up this morning, baby
His music sounded old
and new at the same time.
And you could dance to it.
It was a different kind of groove.
In the hills of North Mississippi...
life was never as brutal
as it was in the Delta.
Many black people owned
and worked their own land.
On a picnic
in the hill country...
along with the traditional
fiddling and ballads...
Alan Lomax heard music which he believed
to have truly ancient origins.
Traditions,
stretching back to Africa...
had taken root here.
- What was that?
- I don't know.
Don't know.
I heard the voice of Jesus sing
- Okay.
- I
Heard
It
This cane get so dry sometime
you gotta get some moisture in it.
That's right.
How long you been had this one?
Is this an old one?
I been made this cane I reckon about
three years, living on this cane.
- I made this cane. I sell cane.
- Ok, I'm a buy one from you.
Yeah, put a little water in it,
you can get it to sound off.
And it ain't got
but two whistles to a cane.
That's high and low.
You make the cane do what
you want it to do.
I'm gonna show you. I tell people that
I back my tongue off when I talk.
You have to do that.
Glory, glory
Hallelujah
When I lay in my burial ground
Will be glory
Hallelujah
When I lay in my burial ground
I'm going home to
Little baby Jesus
When I lay in my burial ground
I'm going home to
Little baby Jesus
When I lay in my burial ground
Anything wrong with it,
I don't see!
I think it works.
It's working all right.
It's working all right, yes sir.
I come up the hard way.
I had worked for three white...
y'all don't know nothing about that.
I worked for three white quarters
a day.
My payday on a Saturday
was eight dollars. I'm living.
I picked cotton right across the bridge
right down there for L.P. Buford...
for twelve, fourteen, fifteen cents
a hundred, and I lived like that.
That's right.
Yes, but foodstuff now you can't
make it like that now...
but everybody raised their own food,
just like them out there on the pen...
every year I raised my hog,
you have two to three hog...
and everybody done the thing a garden
and green, milking' cows...
sorghum, glass on the table,
plenty of food...
then had to buy some corn or coffee,
something like that, to get you by.
Yeah, we raised our food,
pretty darn far from that now...
so it's gone you can't bring it back...
it's gone, it's tightening down,
getting' worse and worse.
When I first started blowing
a cane momma said...
"Put that danged thing down.
I'm tired of you keep up a whole
lot of noise all of the time.
If I catch you with it again
I'm gonna whup you".
I put it down when she'd go off,
I'd get my cane, I'd start again...
"y'all come off". I'd run and
hide it again...
but I kept on. When I learned she said:
"Son, you sure surprised me".
You got to make the cane do
what it do.
Cane'll lay all day
you lay down on the floor...
if you don't pick it up,
it'll be right there.
But when you pick it up,
put something in it.
And it's up here.
If you got it in your brains up, in your
head, then try it, you can do it...
but if you don't you can't.
Then why do you think
people so excited about your music?
- Why they so attracted to what you do?
- Well, 'cause they like it.
You take that drum music...
is known for...
Now I ain't heard nothing like it...
and I been a heap of places.
B.B. King, Albert King,
all them guys play...
but when they've announced
me to go on the stage...
and they realize I gonna come in there,
all them stop.
- Yeah.
- Drum music...
if you get together like it's supposed
to be, it's hard to beat.
That's right,
it's hard to beat.
What do you think, is your music
like the blues, or?
Some of it is, some of it ain't.
Some people don't want the blues,
they want to hear something else, so...
in the business,
you gotta do that to satisfy them.
Right.
That's the way it is, you can't just
pick what you want all the time...
- you got to change up.
- Unfortunately.
That's right.
That's the way that is.
So when I'm out there,
I try to satisfy them.
The old boys say "when I get through
I want some meat and bread".
You really then the last person
left doing that then, right?
It's just you playing cane now,
ain't nobody else.
That's right, yes.
Who else is gonna do it after?
My little daughter, she learn
pretty good, but I don't know.
To tell you the truth, I don't know.
I been a heap a places, but I ain't
seen it and I ain't heard it.
It may be some cane blowers
but I ain't run up on them.
I sho' ain't.
It's a miracle that Otha's
fife and drum...
ever made it all the way
to North Mississippi.
Because before the Civil War...
slave drums were banned
throughout the South...
and if you were caught with a drum
you could be put to death.
This music was recorded by Arthur
S. Alberts, in West Africa, in the 40's.
Roughly about the same time
that Alan Lomax...
was recording in Mississippi.
When you listen to the fife and drum,
the presence of Africa is unmistakable.
Something was kept alive
in this music.
These rhythms were carefully
preserved and passed down...
generation after generation...
through slavery, through Jim Crow,
right up to the present.
It was an act of survival.
The rhythms are layered
in Otha's fife and drum...
just like the rhythms
of African drumming.
Interwoven polyrhythms.
Try keeping one rhythm
with one hand...
and a different rhythm
with the other.
Because drums
were banned over here...
other instruments
took on the role of percussion.
This is one of the key elements
that connects Africa...
all the way to the blues.
You love is dead, hurry, hurry
Oh, hurry, gal
You love is dead
You know
I grabbed my suitcase
Many people have gone to Africa...
searching for musical links
with the blues.
When you listen
to these recordings now...
you feel that Africa was always
just a heartbeat away.
I live in Virginia, man.
You know that's gonna turn
your head, you hear that over here.
Brother, brother!
Come over here, please.
Come over here,
please.
Mali, West Africa.
I travel here from time to time
and play with the musicians.
This is where everything began.
I'll never forget the first time
I came to West Africa.
The faces looked just like the faces
I knew from back home.
Everything felt familiar
and completely new at the same time.
This is a land of kings.
The country may be poor but
the culture is rich.
The griot or the jali...
are a special caste of musical
storytellers.
Music and history are intertwined
here right at the heart of the culture.
What are the words saying?
- Yes, it's the Northern climate.
- Yes, this is it.
Yes, yes.
The people who live here
The people who live here
Alan Lomax traveled
all over the world...
and he found
and recorded music... everywhere he went.
It was always there, close
to the heart of every culture.
He came to realize that music
was as essential as human speech...
and just as precious.
Your cousin She Kamallah
told me once...
that when a jali dies, he said it's like
a whole library is burned up.
Exactly.
And when he told me that,
it's like...
- I understood a lot from that phrase.
- It is true.
You know, I mean,
myself I think about...
all the struggles my ancestors went
through so that I could live.
I think we all do, you know...
but I think about, you know,
my ancestors...
they were in the bottom of a ship
for three or for months...
coming from Africa,
chained together.
You know, I mean, and myself...
I'm a strong man,
but I'm not that strong.
I'm sure many people went crazy
and died.
So it's really a miracle
that we made it that far.
That's right.
Is that them over there?
Ok. Ok.
- Welcome to Niafunk?
- Thank you, sir.
- This...
- Thank you, sir.
My people is here.
Niafunk?is very nice.
- It's good.
- It's very good.
- Welcome.
- Yeah, welcome.
Nice seeing you.
Nice seeing you.
Ok, his second wife.
At the beginning of this movie...
Corey said...
to know yourself
you have to know the past...
and I believe that once you lose
the past, you lose yourself.
Toward the end of his life
Alan Lomax wrote these words...
" When the whole world
is bored with automated...
mass distributed video music...
our descendants
will despise us...
for having thrown away
the best of our culture".
All the roots.
Science.
Is there any seed inside?
One summer day
You went away
You're gonna left me
You're gonna stay
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you, sir.
Well I wish
I was a catfish
Swimming in the old deep blue sea
I have all you good-Iooking women
Fishing after me
Showing up after me
Showing up after me
When there's two
Two trains running
They ain't never going my way
While one run for the midnight
The other one runs for day
Just for a day
Just for a day
Just for a day
Is it true?
My babe, don't dance
Don't dance, my babe
Don't, don't dance
My babe
Don't, don't dance, my babe
Don't, don't mess
My babe, don't dance
Don't you hear my babe
My babe, I know she had
Yes, I know she'll love you
My babe
Yes, I know she loves me
Don't you love me
My babe, sing and dance
My babe
Thank you.
Alright.
Well, now it getting' late on into
The evening' and I feel like
Like blowing' my home
When I woke up this morning' all I
I had was gone
Now it getting'
Late on into the evening'
Man now
I feel like, like blowing' my home
Well now, woke up this morning'
All I had was gone
Well, brooks run into the ocean
The ocean run in
Into the sea
If I don't find my baby
Somebody gonna
Sure bury me
Brooks run into the ocean, man
That ole
Ocean run into the sea
Well now
If I don't find my baby
Somebody sure gonna bury me
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
Who's that writing', John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
Now God walked down
In the cool of the day
And called Adam by his name
But he refused to answer
Because he was naked and ashamed
Who's that writing', John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
You know Christ had 12 apostles
And three he laid away
Said "Watch for me one hour
'Til I go yonder and pray"
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator, who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals
Christ came on Easter morning'
Mary Margaret was there to see
Go tell my disciples
To meet me in Galilee
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote a book of the seven seals
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals
I lose my baby,ain't that sad?
Once I had a pretty little girl
I lose my baby, ain't that sad?
Well, you know you can't
Spend what you ain't got
You can't lose
What you ain't never had
Well, you know you can't
Spend what you ain't got
You can't lose
What you ain't never had
I can't imagine my life
or anyone else's...
without music.
It's like a light in the darkness
that never goes out.
The Blues takes you back to the place
where it first came to life.
There's an old African saying that
the roots of a tree cast no shadow.
That's how deep the blues goes.
When you really listen
to the music you understand...
this is the one thing they could
never take away from Black people.
- Well, he Long John
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- He long gone
- He Long John
- Brother John said
- Brother John said
- In the Chapter 14
- In the Chapter 14
- lf a man live
- lf a man live
- Let his sin be seen
- Let his sin be seen
I won't be here long
Dark gonna catch me here
Dark gonna catch me here
You're listening to songs...
that were recorded for
the Library of Congress in the 1930's.
John Lomax,
who worked for the Library...
called himself a 'ballad hunter'
He and his son, Alan,
drove all across America...
and made literally thousands
of recordings.
They were doing one of the most
important things anyone could do...
they were preserving the past
before it disappeared forever.
Irene goodnight
Irene goodnight
Goodnight Irene
I'll get you in my dream
It was John Lomax who first
recorded Lead Belly in 1933...
in a Louisiana prison.
After Lead Belly was released...
he went to Philadelphia with the Lomaxes
and he gave a series of concerts.
Don't you see me coming
With both two hands on your man?
See me coming
With your man alone
Northern audiences
responded to Lead Belly...
and they loved the songs
he performed.
As Lead Belly became famous
around the world...
a different kind of musician
was reworking the blues...
down in the Mississippi Delta...
in a way that would eventually
reach an even wider audience.
When I learned to play the Blues...
I knew I was connecting with
my ancestors and my history.
Every song tells another part
of the story.
It was through playing the music
I began to understand...
to know yourself you have
to know the past...
to know where you're going
you have to know where you've been.
Oh, Lordy Lord
Oh, Lordy Lord
It hurts me so bad
John Lee Hooker,
that sound, that feeling...
my great-grandmother used to call it
'knocking at the back door music'...
other people call it
the devil's music.
You listen to it and you feel the mud
and the blood of the Mississippi Delta.
This journey begins
in Mississippi because...
this is the land
where the Blues was born.
Sam Carr's father was Robert Nighthawk,
a blues legend...
and Sam played drums with
Big Jack Johnson and Frank Frost...
in the Jelly Roll Kings.
- Come on.
- My name is Corey Harris.
- Sam Carr.
- Nice to meet you, Sam
- Same to you.
- I'm a big admirer of your music.
Well, do it man,
you just did catch me.
Alright, I'm glad I caught you.
I been sick about a year
taking part of my music and...
everything and just kinda
easily coming back this way.
I first started playing guitar...
I met a dude who played harmonica...
and one day it came up: I know, let's
call ourselves the Jelly Roll Kings...
and we were so proud:
"That's a great name"...
and we thought we were
the first ones to think...
of that then we went
to the record store.
- So we changed it.
- Somebody beat you to it.
Beat us to it by many years.
That's some of the best blues records
ever made that you all was on.
Really.
So I understand your father
was Robert Nighthawk.
- Yeah, yeah, he was.
- Very famous musician.
What can you tell us about
Mr. Nighthawk and his music?
I was around him all the time.
I got to see a lot of old music...
old musicians, I can't think
of their names now...
but they was good.
I listen to some of
that old music now.
I and Frank started playing
together in '55.
Frank Frost?
So we played all through the country,
all overseas and everywhere else...
as we, you know, got known.
Yeah, so. We got the chance to go
a lot of places I never'd go...
places I never would see,
if I hadn't been playing music.
Yeah, well...
he just ain't... you know.
As we die out...
the music died
right along with us...
most of it.
You take...
a guy forty-five years old...
he can't play what
we was playing back yonder.
Now, the instruments
do the playing.
Then you had to play.
Every string for string,
you had to play.
That's it, that's it.
Do it, till you do it, I want you do it
with your eyes close, do it till when...
when you can feel comfortable
that you can close your eyes and do it.
Oh, man, yeah...
let's give him a nice
round of applause, y'all.
I celebrate my heritage and my culture
with my blues festival.
From all walks of life...
- they come down to Freedom Creek.
- Oh, man.
Yeah, you know.
Last one we had nearly everybody thought
it was gonna be hot because it was June.
And man it was so cool
and pleasant down here...
and had the wind kind of blowing
through the trees and...
I just felt the spirit
of old Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters...
John Lee Hooker, and all Son House
and all them old Blues brothers...
Johnny Shines.
I just felt all of them down here,
you know, as one.
The spirit I just felt them...
that spirit was...
was close at hand, believe me.
Now look it here.
That was too late
To stand up for their rights
Just because they was black
They had to put up a hell of a fight
In Picken's County
In Picken's County
When a little sheriff
Came out and rescued them
DA called out the town
Said good sheriff will tear you down
And penetrate you down
In Picken's County
Come out of cotton fields
with no money...
or just a little food at home to eat,
children crying...
at the edge of suicide.
So...
the good Lord and the Spirit
had to send something down...
to the people...
to help ease the worried mind...
and this's where the music
come in at what you're working...
at what you're trying to do,
at what you're striving for...
to help give you a vision
of a brighter day way up ahead...
to help you get your mind off
of what you are in right now.
And they'd use
a lot of these of songs...
which they were talkin'
about their woman...
but they was telling
you about the boss man.
Them old blues songs talking about
their woman... my baby, she's so mean...
she just won't treat me right...
she take all my money,
well, you talking about the boss man...
but that's the way that they have
to get the message undercover.
So they couldn't just come out and say
the boss man ain't treating me right.
- And his name is such and such.
- Yeah.
- He lives at...
- Right, right.
They finding you hanging from one
of them trees in the morning.
Dead before day in the morning.
Lord, if you rise
And the blues just survival.
John Lee Hooker say:
"It's a healer."
It was 1941 when Alan Lomax
arrived in the Mississippi Delta...
with John Work and an integrated
team from Fisk University.
The old way of life
was disappearing fast.
Many of the jobs on the old plantations
were being phased out...
and people were leaving in droves.
Everything was changing.
So Alan Lomax figured the music
had to be changing, too.
- Did you go on, girl?
- Yes, ma'am
- Did you go on town?
- Yes, ma'am
- Did you see my brown?
- Yes, ma'am
- Which way did he go?
- Choo, choo, all night long
Choo, choo, all night long
Hell is a place and not a state.
Can you here me,
my brother Lomax?
Hell is a place...
and not a state.
Name: McKinley Morgansfield
nickname: Muddy Waters...
Stovall's famous guitar picker.
How long have you lived out here
on the Stovall plains?
17 year.
- Working in the same place?
- Same place all the time.
Well, I just felt blue and
the song veer into my mind and...
it come to me just like that song
and I start to singing it and went on.
Do you know is that tune, the tune
from any other blues that you know?
This song from the cotton field and
the boy went and put the record out...
Robert Johnson,
he put out "Walking Blues".
Did you know the tune before you
heard it the record, though?
Yes, sir I knew the tune before
I heard it on the record.
- Who'd you learn it from?
- I learn it from Son House.
So how did you learn to play
with this bottle?
Picked it up from Son House,
I call it a slide.
Some people say the world Muddy Waters
and Son House were born into is gone.
I drive down these roads,
I visit these places...
and I hear the music...
as if it were in the air.
Blues is not a plaything like
people think they are.
Like youngsters today, they take
anything and make the Blues out of it...
just any little old jump something
or other say...
this is the such and such a blues...
no it's not.
There ain't but one kind a blues...
and that consisted between...
male and female that's in love.
In love, male and female.
Now I been married five times...
with my jerky self.
Five times...
and I had a good experience
of what that mean.
Blues.
B-L-U-E-S. Blues.
This is a bit dark. This is Son House
with his eyes closed...
and the sweat pouring off of him
and he is just gone.
He's left this point in time.
He's just gone somewhere else.
He went to 1928 and 1935...
he went to Lula, he went to
Clarksdale, he went to Tunica...
he just went somewhere else.
How did you meet Son House?
How'd your association with him begin?
I promoted a week of John Hurt
shows in February of '64...
and that was successful.
Then I brought in Booker White...
who was a great Mississippi bluesman...
and he came in
and played in April of '64.
In talking to him he said
he had seen Son House...
in Memphis,
seen him in a movie theater.
We were just flipping out
because he had vanished in '42...
after recording for Lomax.
So we went down to Memphis
and saw Booker...
and Booker basically said...
"Well, maybe I was wrong, I guess
I really didn't see Son House".
Some of my old favorite boys...
at least I love them all
so far as that.
Charlie Patton, Willie Brown,
and Robert Johnson...
well, they died one right after
the other...
and you know,
and we played together.
So out of them three...
these gone on back to the mother's
dust from whence they came...
and then that scared me.
Lemon Jefferson he done gone too.
Then that scared me
and I said: Well, maybe...
Lord, I'm next...
and I got scared and
quit playing for 16 years...
until Mr. Dick Waterman found me...
and gave me nerve enough
to try it again.
He had been retired from the railroad.
So he said: "Okay"...
he'd come back to playing...
not because he had any great musical
motivation or financial motivation.
He just wasn't doing anything
so he said "Okay" he'd try it.
Son was interesting because
Son descended from a preaching clan...
and that's one of his tunes.
He was...
was: "Well, I be religion
and I know all religious stuff...
but then all that corn liquor
just taste so good...
and that girl's behind is just
so good looking.
I believe
I'm gonna go over here".
And then he'd get over there, and then
he'd start feeling remorseful about it.
And then he'd have to go
over there, you know...
and the whole thing was like...
that song...
I used to sing that...
I'm gonna get me religion,
I do believe...
I'm gonna join the Baptist church,
you know...
I'm gonna get me religion
I do believe...
I'm gonna join the Baptist church...
so I can be a Baptist preacher
and I will not have to work.
In the 1960's,
when I was starting out...
there was a folk revival going on...
and many of these bluesmen
were invited to perform at concerts.
Me and many people from
my generation had access...
to the artistry and wisdom
of a wonderful older generation.
One of the things I did when
I hung out with the older players...
Yes.
Was to talk to them about what life
was like for them at that time.
Who were they as a much young crazy
boys, talking about and thinking about.
So how did these cats
like Son House come about...
like how did the music
come out of this place, this area?
3,000 acres of cotton.
I mean, if you ran 3,000 acres
of cotton...
seventy, eighty years ago,
you had a lot of folks working there.
You know, I mean, that's
a lot of land to be trying deal.
If that was something
I was doing back in the day...
that's a lot of mules and men...
you know, that's a lot of
mules and men...
that's a lot of people
washing clothes...
that's a whole bunch
of biscuits and cobbler.
That type of life, you know...
coupled with
the way people live...
and the intensity of the times,
you know...
the delta you know, produced
a real strong hard-driving music.
Charley Patton's "Highwater Everywhere",
he's really kicking the doors down.
And harmonically
the instrument's in tune.
They must have kept the liquor away
from him so he didn't get drunk.
He's really in tune good
and he's singing so great, you know.
See, that song you get the feeling
of where he is and where he can go...
and where he will go,
and where the water's gonna go...
and what the word
is from cross town and...
how far he's getting the word
coming back to his ear...
because sometimes the Blues
gotta talk about...
he's talking about somebody
you don't ever meet.
I'm talking about my baby,
never met her, you know...
and she's fine as she can be
I still never met her.
Patton's thing, that's what
I like about he does is that...
he includes you way up
inside his mind...
as to what's going on and
what's he's thinking and...
what it's like at that time.
What is this place?
Where are we at right now?
We're at the epicenter
of a musical revolution.
This is where McKinley Morgansfield,
better known as Muddy Waters...
worked and played his music.
And this is where Alan Lomax
made that great recording of...
"Down on Stovall's Farm"
with Muddy.
Here we are, what 100 years later
or whenever the this farm started...
and then it's within a hundred year span
we're talking that Muddy was out here...
and went on to Chicago and eventually
out to the rest of the world.
When Muddy Waters got his first
record in the mail...
he put on a suit and tie
and went to a photographer studio...
to have his picture taken.
He thought about leaving
the plantation before...
but now he knew he could do it.
- What's up brother?
- I ain't seen you in God knows when...
man how you doing?
It's been a long time since
I seen you.
- You gonna play the blues, brother?
- I gotta crawl tonight, I gotta do it.
You gonna play the blues tonight?
I got that whup.
That's the whup over there, hey whup.
Check. One, two.
Alright, check one, two.
Check...
check, check, check,
check, check.
Could fill a spoon full of coffee
Could fill a spoon full of tea
Just a little spoon
Of your precious love
Is that enough for me
It been lied about
Some of them dies about it
Some of them dies
About it
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
Good God, about it
Tell me about it
How about that?
Son House was more stable...
him and...
Charley Patton, Willie Brown...
they're more stable because these guys,
I think they worked on a farm...
and played on a Saturday night
for the get backs.
Where as me, I wanted to go somewhere
I wanted to see some places.
See, there's a lot of things
that I wanted to learn about...
I was curious about, you know.
Like, when I was a kid...
my parents used to tell me
what they was taught...
about the white people.
My parents used to tell me if you
go to Chicago, St Louis and New York...
you walk along, you see the
little things with the holes in 'em...
you can look down through there.
Don't step on those things because
those are student traps.
If you step on those things,
you'll fall down in those traps...
and students jumps you and cut you up
and see how you were made.
All this crap.
If you go to Canada...
the Canadians didn't have but
one big eye in the center of their head.
Everywhere you went a big eye'd
be following you around...
that's a scary feeling you know.
I don't know,
maybe I'm just a hard believer.
I just didn't believe all that stuff.
About that traps, you know, being there.
I jumped down on many traps...
I guess folks thought I was crazy,
to see if it break in...
but I'd walk over one,
I'd jump up and down...
see if it was gonna break in.
I gotta keep moving
Blues falling down like hail
Blues falling down like hail
That high haunting voice pitched on
the razor's edge between joy and pain.
Dead at 27.
Twenty-nine songs and
just two known photographs.
We'll never have more than just
a few scattered memories and details...
about the life of Robert Johnson.
In the 65 years since he died...
his shadow's only grow longer
as musician continue to...
sing his words and play
his music.
That something that
I associate with Robert Johnson.
He's one of the first guys
I know to do that.
Whereas, you know, with Son House it's
like when Son House does "Jinx Blues"...
you know,
he's like banging on it.
You know,
I think Son House was...
I don't know, to me,
he sounds more country, more rural.
Robert Johnson is like between that
and something uptown or more urbane.
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
One and one is two
Two and two is four
Heavy loaded, baby
And I got to go
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
Two and two is four
Four and two is six
Keep on mocking, my friend
And you'll get pity, you'll see
Baby
Baby, don't you want to go?
Back to the land of California
To my sweet home Chicago
Where did you and Johnson
travel together?
Well, through Missouri,
Arkansas...
Tennessee...
Illinois, Michigan, Ohio...
on up into Canada, New York,
places like that.
And you found an audience
everywhere you went?
Yes, audience,
a ready audience waiting on us.
You get the feeling that this was
a guy who was in some kind of trouble...
or running from something,
or afraid of something.
Well, I'll tell you what
his life was like.
If we played somewhere tonight
and probably got off at four o' clock...
and got into our hotel room
and went to sleep...
and a train waking me up
at 6:30h...
I say Robert I hear a train
you wanna catch it?
Never say a word, get right up,
start putting his clothes on.
Didn't make no difference
what way it was going.
Going back the way we just come from,
or where we was headed.
Just didn't make him any difference,
just so...
he just didn't care.
Some folks tell me
Old blues ain't bad
I got the worst of feeling
I ever had
Some people tell me
Old blues ain't bad
I got the worst of feeling
That I ever had
One thing that's remarkable with,
about Robert Johnson...
for me is that he was one of
the first cats I can tell...
who was really like listening to records
of cats outside of his region.
He definitely had traces in his playing
that let you know he had big ears.
He was definitely listening.
We get most of our
information from CD's records...
I mean, we talk to other musicians
and we learn stuff from gigs...
but I think most of the development
for most people...
now is listening to records
and stuff.
And I think he was one of he first
people to really do that, you know.
- He was more of a like a crooner.
- Yeah.
He was really kinda,
he had a kinda croon.
He did, he did.
But I was, I guess, about 19...
I got my hand on
a Led Zeppelin eight track.
I was listening to this Led Zeppelin
record probably for 2 years straight...
in the car, just like listening to it and
this line 'you can squeeze my lemon'.
And I said uh-oh. Bee!
Profane!
What's he talking about?
Mother, that came from this,
it was on the Led Zeppelin.
Then it was like all of a sudden...
"that came from Robert Johnson"...
something about his music
that keeps awaking people up 'cause...
he was such a rebel...
and such a person that was himself,
kind of like a James Dean.
To be like well-dressed.
To be able to just wander around
and play. Always had ready money.
Had a car...
that's like, you know, that's a rebel,
like you say, really breakin' loose.
You never seen that picture
before, huh?
No, I never seen this one before.
Is that how he would dress up
in those days? He looks...
awfully fancy.
Well, yes if you felt like it...
because...
I can tell you this.
I'm glad my wife isn't here.
If a broad likes you well enough,
she's going to put some clothes on you.
You know, just to have you around.
Play the blues for her.
People are looking at blues like
it's like the Shakespearean canon.
And I've even heard people do
remakes of tunes...
and they'll duplicate
all the vocal asides.
- Yeah, yeah.
- That's not the point.
- You know, just like verbatim.
- That's not the point.
- And the mistakes...
- And the mistakes, too, yeah.
You gotta make it your own, because
it's all about personal expression.
John Lee Hooker started making records
in Detroit, in the late '40's.
Hooker's music was born in the Delta
and it cut right to the bone.
For the tens of thousands
who had left the plantations...
this down home music was nostalgic,
but it was something else too...
something mysterious, haunting.
I know I'll never, I'll never
Come out of this blues alive
There was also a new audience
for Hooker's sound...
who knew little if anything
about where it came from.
Living
I ain't coming back
Living
I ain't coming back
Woke up this morning, baby
His music sounded old
and new at the same time.
And you could dance to it.
It was a different kind of groove.
In the hills of North Mississippi...
life was never as brutal
as it was in the Delta.
Many black people owned
and worked their own land.
On a picnic
in the hill country...
along with the traditional
fiddling and ballads...
Alan Lomax heard music which he believed
to have truly ancient origins.
Traditions,
stretching back to Africa...
had taken root here.
- What was that?
- I don't know.
Don't know.
I heard the voice of Jesus sing
- Okay.
- I
Heard
It
This cane get so dry sometime
you gotta get some moisture in it.
That's right.
How long you been had this one?
Is this an old one?
I been made this cane I reckon about
three years, living on this cane.
- I made this cane. I sell cane.
- Ok, I'm a buy one from you.
Yeah, put a little water in it,
you can get it to sound off.
And it ain't got
but two whistles to a cane.
That's high and low.
You make the cane do what
you want it to do.
I'm gonna show you. I tell people that
I back my tongue off when I talk.
You have to do that.
Glory, glory
Hallelujah
When I lay in my burial ground
Will be glory
Hallelujah
When I lay in my burial ground
I'm going home to
Little baby Jesus
When I lay in my burial ground
I'm going home to
Little baby Jesus
When I lay in my burial ground
Anything wrong with it,
I don't see!
I think it works.
It's working all right.
It's working all right, yes sir.
I come up the hard way.
I had worked for three white...
y'all don't know nothing about that.
I worked for three white quarters
a day.
My payday on a Saturday
was eight dollars. I'm living.
I picked cotton right across the bridge
right down there for L.P. Buford...
for twelve, fourteen, fifteen cents
a hundred, and I lived like that.
That's right.
Yes, but foodstuff now you can't
make it like that now...
but everybody raised their own food,
just like them out there on the pen...
every year I raised my hog,
you have two to three hog...
and everybody done the thing a garden
and green, milking' cows...
sorghum, glass on the table,
plenty of food...
then had to buy some corn or coffee,
something like that, to get you by.
Yeah, we raised our food,
pretty darn far from that now...
so it's gone you can't bring it back...
it's gone, it's tightening down,
getting' worse and worse.
When I first started blowing
a cane momma said...
"Put that danged thing down.
I'm tired of you keep up a whole
lot of noise all of the time.
If I catch you with it again
I'm gonna whup you".
I put it down when she'd go off,
I'd get my cane, I'd start again...
"y'all come off". I'd run and
hide it again...
but I kept on. When I learned she said:
"Son, you sure surprised me".
You got to make the cane do
what it do.
Cane'll lay all day
you lay down on the floor...
if you don't pick it up,
it'll be right there.
But when you pick it up,
put something in it.
And it's up here.
If you got it in your brains up, in your
head, then try it, you can do it...
but if you don't you can't.
Then why do you think
people so excited about your music?
- Why they so attracted to what you do?
- Well, 'cause they like it.
You take that drum music...
is known for...
Now I ain't heard nothing like it...
and I been a heap of places.
B.B. King, Albert King,
all them guys play...
but when they've announced
me to go on the stage...
and they realize I gonna come in there,
all them stop.
- Yeah.
- Drum music...
if you get together like it's supposed
to be, it's hard to beat.
That's right,
it's hard to beat.
What do you think, is your music
like the blues, or?
Some of it is, some of it ain't.
Some people don't want the blues,
they want to hear something else, so...
in the business,
you gotta do that to satisfy them.
Right.
That's the way it is, you can't just
pick what you want all the time...
- you got to change up.
- Unfortunately.
That's right.
That's the way that is.
So when I'm out there,
I try to satisfy them.
The old boys say "when I get through
I want some meat and bread".
You really then the last person
left doing that then, right?
It's just you playing cane now,
ain't nobody else.
That's right, yes.
Who else is gonna do it after?
My little daughter, she learn
pretty good, but I don't know.
To tell you the truth, I don't know.
I been a heap a places, but I ain't
seen it and I ain't heard it.
It may be some cane blowers
but I ain't run up on them.
I sho' ain't.
It's a miracle that Otha's
fife and drum...
ever made it all the way
to North Mississippi.
Because before the Civil War...
slave drums were banned
throughout the South...
and if you were caught with a drum
you could be put to death.
This music was recorded by Arthur
S. Alberts, in West Africa, in the 40's.
Roughly about the same time
that Alan Lomax...
was recording in Mississippi.
When you listen to the fife and drum,
the presence of Africa is unmistakable.
Something was kept alive
in this music.
These rhythms were carefully
preserved and passed down...
generation after generation...
through slavery, through Jim Crow,
right up to the present.
It was an act of survival.
The rhythms are layered
in Otha's fife and drum...
just like the rhythms
of African drumming.
Interwoven polyrhythms.
Try keeping one rhythm
with one hand...
and a different rhythm
with the other.
Because drums
were banned over here...
other instruments
took on the role of percussion.
This is one of the key elements
that connects Africa...
all the way to the blues.
You love is dead, hurry, hurry
Oh, hurry, gal
You love is dead
You know
I grabbed my suitcase
Many people have gone to Africa...
searching for musical links
with the blues.
When you listen
to these recordings now...
you feel that Africa was always
just a heartbeat away.
I live in Virginia, man.
You know that's gonna turn
your head, you hear that over here.
Brother, brother!
Come over here, please.
Come over here,
please.
Mali, West Africa.
I travel here from time to time
and play with the musicians.
This is where everything began.
I'll never forget the first time
I came to West Africa.
The faces looked just like the faces
I knew from back home.
Everything felt familiar
and completely new at the same time.
This is a land of kings.
The country may be poor but
the culture is rich.
The griot or the jali...
are a special caste of musical
storytellers.
Music and history are intertwined
here right at the heart of the culture.
What are the words saying?
- Yes, it's the Northern climate.
- Yes, this is it.
Yes, yes.
The people who live here
The people who live here
Alan Lomax traveled
all over the world...
and he found
and recorded music... everywhere he went.
It was always there, close
to the heart of every culture.
He came to realize that music
was as essential as human speech...
and just as precious.
Your cousin She Kamallah
told me once...
that when a jali dies, he said it's like
a whole library is burned up.
Exactly.
And when he told me that,
it's like...
- I understood a lot from that phrase.
- It is true.
You know, I mean,
myself I think about...
all the struggles my ancestors went
through so that I could live.
I think we all do, you know...
but I think about, you know,
my ancestors...
they were in the bottom of a ship
for three or for months...
coming from Africa,
chained together.
You know, I mean, and myself...
I'm a strong man,
but I'm not that strong.
I'm sure many people went crazy
and died.
So it's really a miracle
that we made it that far.
That's right.
Is that them over there?
Ok. Ok.
- Welcome to Niafunk?
- Thank you, sir.
- This...
- Thank you, sir.
My people is here.
Niafunk?is very nice.
- It's good.
- It's very good.
- Welcome.
- Yeah, welcome.
Nice seeing you.
Nice seeing you.
Ok, his second wife.
At the beginning of this movie...
Corey said...
to know yourself
you have to know the past...
and I believe that once you lose
the past, you lose yourself.
Toward the end of his life
Alan Lomax wrote these words...
" When the whole world
is bored with automated...
mass distributed video music...
our descendants
will despise us...
for having thrown away
the best of our culture".
All the roots.
Science.
Is there any seed inside?
One summer day
You went away
You're gonna left me
You're gonna stay
- Thank you very much.
- Thank you, sir.
Well I wish
I was a catfish
Swimming in the old deep blue sea
I have all you good-Iooking women
Fishing after me
Showing up after me
Showing up after me
When there's two
Two trains running
They ain't never going my way
While one run for the midnight
The other one runs for day
Just for a day
Just for a day
Just for a day
Is it true?
My babe, don't dance
Don't dance, my babe
Don't, don't dance
My babe
Don't, don't dance, my babe
Don't, don't mess
My babe, don't dance
Don't you hear my babe
My babe, I know she had
Yes, I know she'll love you
My babe
Yes, I know she loves me
Don't you love me
My babe, sing and dance
My babe
Thank you.
Alright.
Well, now it getting' late on into
The evening' and I feel like
Like blowing' my home
When I woke up this morning' all I
I had was gone
Now it getting'
Late on into the evening'
Man now
I feel like, like blowing' my home
Well now, woke up this morning'
All I had was gone
Well, brooks run into the ocean
The ocean run in
Into the sea
If I don't find my baby
Somebody gonna
Sure bury me
Brooks run into the ocean, man
That ole
Ocean run into the sea
Well now
If I don't find my baby
Somebody sure gonna bury me
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
Who's that writing', John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
Now God walked down
In the cool of the day
And called Adam by his name
But he refused to answer
Because he was naked and ashamed
Who's that writing', John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator wrote
The book of the seven seals
You know Christ had 12 apostles
And three he laid away
Said "Watch for me one hour
'Til I go yonder and pray"
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator, who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals
Christ came on Easter morning'
Mary Margaret was there to see
Go tell my disciples
To meet me in Galilee
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote a book of the seven seals
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Tell me who's that writing'
John the Revelator
Wrote the book of the seven seals