The Blues

Tried to catch most of this week long thing, and it was all over the place. But last night was the best: "Piano Blues" a Clint Eastwood directed "documentary" about piano impresarios using the blues as a base for a lot of their work, with super old footage of Art Tatum and modern piano bench interviews with Ray Charles, Dr. John, Dave Brubeck, and others. Real, real, cool. Best of the seven "films".


This thing comes well merchandised, with a box DVD set, CD, and Book (authored by Peter Guralnick, Elvis' biographer). Unfortunately, you must buy the whole set of DVDs right now; they don't seem to be selling individual episodes.

Saw the Scorcese one. Good stuff on Mali.

YAH!!!! my buddy has been recording those on his tivo, watched one last night where Common freestyles over some Muddy Waters riff. Really really good stuff. Excellent show!

Just saw the "British" segment.

Tom Jones(!) and Jeff Beck doing Howlin' Wolf. priceless.
Beck: "Green Onions, now that's a milestone in records, eh?" oh yeah.
Too bad Peter Green didn't play, but it's good to see he's alive and coherent.
Stones: "The Thames valley cotten fields."

British guys don't age well.