Brownie McGhee

Taken from the European tours organised for American blues musicians between 1962 and 1969, this release features performances by several popular blues artists, including: Big Mama Thornton, Roosevelt Sykes, Buddy Guy, Dr. Isaiah Ross, Big Joe Turner, Skip James, Bukka White, Son House, Hound Dog Taylor and Little Walter, Koko Taylor and Little Walter, Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee, Helen Humes, Earl Hooker, and Muddy Waters.

Director Mike Figgis (Stormy Monday, Leaving Las Vegas, Time Code) joins musicians such as Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Tom Jones, performing and talking about the music of the early sixties British invasion that reintroduced the blues sound to America.

For some 30 years, they embodied "country blues" for folk music audiences around the globe. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee were once ubiquitous, and as such tended to be taken for granted in the halcyon days of the 1960s blues rediscoveries. But nearly two decades have passed since the perennial team parted, and the 16 performances here remind us of this superb duo's complementary strengths.

Taken from the European tours organised for American blues musicians between 1962 and 1969, this release features performances by several popular blues artists, including: T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, Muddy Waters, etc.

Taken from the European tours organised for American blues musicians between 1962 and 1969, this release features performances by several popular blues artists, including: T-Bone Walker, Lightnin' Hopkins, Victory Spivey, T-Bone Walker ...

The story of seminal guitarist and singer Bert Jansch, from his early days in Edinburgh, Scotland, to becoming the acoustic guitarist that everyone wanted to be. As a teenager, in the early 1960's Bert sat at the feet of Brownie McGhee at the Howff Folk Club in Edinburgh mesmerised by 'Key to the Highway'. Armed with that raw American Blues influence and a bewildering technique, he fashioned sublime interpretations of traditional and blues music on the acoustic guitar. The result was music that had a profound influence on a generation of musicians including Bob Dylan, Paul Simon and Neil Young, and it still inspires todays' generation of guitarists and singers.

Documentary on the life of Woody Guthrie, the travelling songwriter and singer who paved the way for the likes of Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen.

A down-and-out Brooklyn detective is hired to track down a singer on an odyssey that will take him through the desperate streets of Harlem, the smoke-filled jazz clubs of New Orleans, and the swamps of Louisiana and its seedy underworld of voodoo.

After discovering he's not really black like the rest of his family, likable dimwit Navin Johnson sets off on a hilarious misadventure that takes him from rags to riches and back again. The slaphappy jerk strikes it rich, but life in the fast lane isn't all it's cracked up to be and, in the end, all that really matters to Johnson is his true love.

Black and white footage of performances, interviews, and conversations at the Newport Folk Festival, from 1963 to 1966. The headliners are Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, who's acoustic and electric. Son House and Mike Bloomfield talk about the blues; John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee show its range. The Osborne Brothers perform bluegrass. Donovan, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Mimi and Dick Farina, and others less well known also perform. Several talk musical philosophy, and there's a running commentary about the nature and appeal of folk music. The crowd looks clean cut.