If any of you out there missed the PBS special "Martin Scorsese presents The Blues", don't worry - it is available via steaming audio.
I highly recommend listening to it, as it is both educational as well as beautifully presented, and a joy to listen to.
I have spent some time creating this post and the links, so please give them a listen - if you are any kind of music fan, you will not be disappointed.
You can also click on the direct image link below, to be taken to the YOTB features page.
Enjoy, and I hope this inspires your interest in The Blues - something everyone should be exposed to, and this is a great way to be introduced to the blues, or to just sit back and enjoy the wonderful music and commentary.
Regards,
CrumbCat
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Beginning in September of 2003, Public Radio International stations nationwide broadcast "The Blues," thirteen hour-long programs hosted by Grammy Award-winning bluesman Keb' Mo', produced by Robert Santelli, EMP Radio, and Ben Manilla, Ben Manilla Productions, and presented by WGBH Radio, Boston.
Yearoftheblues.org/radio is the home of "The Blues" on the web. Each episode of this comprehensive chronicle includes a visit to a celebrated blues location. Venues such as the Delta Blues Museum, the Chess Studios in Chicago, and Beale Street in Memphis emphasize the music's contemporary connections and establish a firm sense of place. Each program breathes life into blues history and culture with new and archival interviews from prominent artists, historians, record producers, and of course, historic and modern-day blues recordings. Each episode ends with a performance of a seminal blues song from a contemporary artist.
The complete series is available here, as well as special bonus interviews and performances that weren't featured on the radio. Although "The Blues" is not available for purchase at this time, all thirteen episodes will remain available on-line through at least the Spring of 2004
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Episode 1: "The Birth of the Blues"
Though the blues is an American music form, its origins are undoubtedly African. The Blues begins with a journey through the music’s roots in West Africa, where slaves were loaded onto ships bound for America...
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Episode 2: "Goin' Up the Country"
“Goin' Up the Country” documents the birth of recorded blues with the music of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Blind Blake, Charley Patton, Son House, and Blind Willie McTell...
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Episode 3: "Tain't Nobody's Business If I Do"
In addition to featuring first-generation blues divas — Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, Alberta Hunter, Sippie Wallace, and others — backed by jazz bands led by the likes of Louis Armstrong and Lonnie Johnson, this episode documents W.C. Handy’s relationship with the blues...
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Episode 4: "Standin' at the Crossroads"
This episode explores Depression-era styles including the revolutionary music of Robert Johnson — the single most important country blues artist of the pre-War era. It examines Johnson’s legacy and investigates the “mythology” of the blues, including the battle between the sacred and the secular...
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Episode 5: "Mystery Train"
Beale Street in Memphis was to blues what 52nd Street in New York was to jazz. Packed clubs, street musicians, all-night card games, ladies of the night, fights, and some of the best music heard anywhere added to the color of Saturday night on Beale Street...
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Episode 6: "Sweet Home Chicago"
The 1950s was the blues' golden era. With the advent of the electric guitar and amplification, the music grew louder, bolder, and hotter...
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Episode 7: "Key to the Highway"
By the 1960s, Chicago blues had peaked and a resurgence of acoustic roots music was in full swing throughout America’s college campuses and coffeehouses. At the Newport Folk Festival, older blues artists returned to the stage after being re-discovered by amateur musicologists who had scoured the South in search of their heroes...
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Episode 8: "Blues Power"
In the 1950s, Big Bill Broonzy then Willie Dixon and Muddy Waters performed in England, setting off a prolonged period of blues obsession by young British musicians...
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Episode 9: "Bring it on Home"
In the early ‘60s, America was listening to re-constituted country blues, while England was experimenting with its own version of electric blues. It wasn’t long before both camps came together and colored the sound of rock in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s, capping off a decade of unprecedented blues popularity among whites...
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Episode 10: "Gimme Back My Wig"
With the rise of glam rock, country rock, and progressive rock on the white side, and funk and disco on the black side, the blues suddenly sounded irrelevant to pop music fans in the 1970s. Still, the blues survived...
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Episode 11: "Texas Flood"
At the start of the 1980s, the future of the blues seemed as bleak as the decade just passed. But the emergence of a pair of young bluesmen, the re-birth of an old one, and the introduction of the compact disc fueled a blues revival...
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Episode 12: "When Love Comes to Town"
Late in the 20th century, a plethora of young blues artists brought fresh sounds and stylings to the music. At the same time, stalwarts only heightened their acclaim...
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Episode 13: "Future Blues"
The Blues concludes with a look into the future of the blues. The program looks at the emergence of Acid Blues and authors and experts offer predictions for what path the blues will follow in the 21st century...
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