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A biography of Huddie Ledbetter (Roger E. Mosley), this drama follows the life of the highly influential African-American blues singer and guitarist, who was better known as "Leadbelly." The trouble-prone musician frequently ended up working on chain gangs, and, when not incarcerated, he sometimes traveled around with fellow renowned blues man Blind Lemon Jefferson (Art Evans). The film shows how Leadbelly dealt with the racism of his era and found some degree of peace in his music. [more inside]
posted by DirtyOldTown on Aug 7, 2023 - 1 comment

A wannabe blues guitar virtuoso (the preternaturally youthful Ralph Macchio) seeks a long-lost song by the legendary musician Robert Johnson. [more inside]
posted by adamrice on Jan 7, 2023 - 1 comment

Two twenty-something New Yorkers. Seth is awkward and shy. Carter is the glamorous heir to one of America's great fortunes. They have one thing in common: an obsession with music. Seth is desperate to reach for the future. Carter is slipping back into the past. When Seth accidentally records an unknown singer in a park, Carter sends it out over the Internet, claiming it's a long lost 1920s blues recording by a musician called Charlie Shaw. When an old collector contacts them to say that their fake record and their fake bluesman are actually real, the two young white men, accompanied by Carter's troubled sister Leonie, spiral down into the heart of the nation's darkness, encountering a suppressed history of greed, envy, revenge, and exploitation.
posted by DirtyOldTown on Jan 31, 2018 - 3 comments

John and Zed go to Chicago to investigate the mysterious suicide of one of John's old friends. The culprit turns out to be an old acetate blues record containing the voice of the First of the Fallen himself. But the Constan-team aren't the only people looking for the record - John's old adversary Papa Midnite, an evil Voodoo priest, wants the record for himself.
posted by Small Dollar on Nov 8, 2014 - 12 comments