Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Samuel Charters - 'The Blues' (1963)

For the first time you can view online Samuel Charters' 1963 documentary 'The Blues', featuring Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon, Sleepy John Estes and more. You can also download it at: http://blog.dinosaurdiscs.com/post/64727904411/blues-historian-samuel-b-charters-made-a-film


Samuel Charters - 'The Blues' (1963)




Scholar Samuel Barclay Charters shot the footage for 'The Blues' in the summer of 1962 in St. Louis, Memphis, Louisiana and South Carolina. The film features blues musicians J.D. Short, Pink Anderson and his son "Little Pink", Furry Lewis, Baby Tate, Memphis Willie B. with Gus Cannon, and 'Sleepy' John Estes.

I do not own the distribution rights to this film, but encourage any offended rightsholders to consider that the work has not been accessible since a print on U-matic videocassette in 1973. I think it's time to change that, but will respond to removal requests by rightsholders.

The audio for the film doesn't always sync perfectly with the performances, but I think this was an editing decision by the director or a fault of the recording equipment. The audio does match the beginning and ends of the scenes, so I believe this is how the film was originally presented.
--mvanderl

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