Taj Mahal
A confessional, cautionary, and occasionally humorous tale of Robbie Robertson's young life and the creation of one of the most enduring groups in the history of popular music, The Band.
Robert Johnson was one of the most influential blues guitarists ever. Even before his early death, fans wondered if he'd made a pact with the Devil.
Jack White and T Bone Burnett invite today’s greatest artists to test their skills against the long-lost machine that recorded their musical idols and forebears. The producers have, over a decade rebuilt, a 1920s recording system, timed by a weight-driven system of clockwork gears. Stripped of the comforts and security of modern technology, Nas, Elton John, Alabama Shakes, Steve Martin Willie Nelson and Merle Haggard, are among the artists who have three minutes and one chance to get their music etched into a revolving wax disc, before the weight hits the floor. The results are career defining performances and the very definition of "Lighting In A Bottle".
Shake ‘Em On Down is a one-hour documentary film which aims to tell the story of Fred McDowell, who was first recorded by Alan Lomax in 1959, traveled to Europe with the Rolling Stones in the mid-1960s, mentored Bonnie Raitt, and served as the cornerstone of the unique and enduring North Mississippi- style of blues music.
Austin City Limits (ACL) heads to Nashville for a special broadcast featuring performance highlights from this year’s Americana Honors & Awards. ACL Presents: Americana Music Festival 2014 premieres this Saturday, November 22, on PBS stations across the United States and includes performances from Robert Plant and Ry Cooder, among many others. The show was recorded live at the Americana Music Association's 13th Annual Honors & Awards ceremony at Nashville’s historic Ryman Auditorium in September.
All My Friends: Celebrating the Songs & Voice of Gregg Allman captures a once-in-a-lifetime performance, honoring one of the most acclaimed and beloved icons in rock and roll history. A founding member of the Allman Brothers Band and successful solo artist in his own right, Allman possesses a voice that has resonated through four decades.
Buffy Sainte-Marie is best known for her protest songs (Universal Soldier) and her love songs (Up Where We Belong). This one-hour documentary chronicles her remarkable career as she rises to prominence in the 1960s Greenwich Village folk music scene and blazes a groundbreaking path as an Aboriginal-rights advocate, digital artist and Oscar-winning songwriter.
A guitar playing car thief meets an autistic savant piano player, and together they transform a group of reluctant halfway house convicts into The Killer Diller Blues Band.
Track listing : 1 - Intro (1min05) 2 - TAJ MAHAL : Riverside (1min40) 3 - TAJ MAHAL : Sweet Mama Genise (1min16) 4 - TAJ MAHAL : Oh Susannah (3min30) 5 - JOHNNY WINTER : Johnny B. Goode (5min35) 6 - JOHNNY WINTER feat. EDGAR WINTER : Tell The Truth (5min23) 7 - IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY : Soapstone Mountain (5min10) 8 - IT'S A BEAUTIFUL DAY : White Bird (4min55) 9 - SANTANA : Medley (3min52) 10 - SANTANA : Soul Sacrifice (7min53)
After being denied a promotion at the university where she teaches, Doctor Lily Penleric, a brilliant musicologist, impulsively visits her sister, who runs a struggling rural school in Appalachia. There she stumbles upon the discovery of her life - a treasure trove of ancient Scots-Irish ballads, songs that have been handed down from generation to generation, preserved intact by the seclusion of the mountains. With the goal of securing her promotion, Lily ventures into the most isolated areas of the mountains to collect the songs and finds herself increasingly enchanted.
A drama revolving around a group of strangers brought together by a common occurrence as well as listening to the same radio station.
When Quinn, a grouchy pilot living the good life in the South Pacific, agrees to transfer a savvy fashion editor, Robin, to Tahiti, he ends up stranded on a deserted island with her after their plane crashes. The pair avoid each other at first, until they're forced to team up to escape from the island -- and some pirates who want their heads.
Also known as Georgia Blues, this is a biopic of influential bluesman Blind Willie McTell.
"It must schwing!" was the motto of Alfred Lion and Francis Wolff, two German Jewish immigrants who in 1939 set up Blue Note Records, the jazz label that was home to such greats as Miles Davis, John Coltrane, Herbie Hancock, Thelonious Monk, Art Blakey, Dexter Gordon and Sonny Rollins. Blue Note, the most successful movie ever made about jazz, is a testimony to the passion and vision of these two men and certainly swings like the propulsive sounds that made their label so famous.
This film relates the story of a tightly connected Afro-American community informally called Colored Town where the inhabitants live and depend on each other in a world where racist oppression is everywhere, as told by a boy called Cliff who spent his childhood there. Despite this, we see the life of the community in all its joys and sorrows, of those that live there while others decide to leave for a better life north. For those remaining, things come to a serious situation when one prominent businessman is being muscled out by a white competitor using racist intimidation. In response, the community must make the decision of whether to submit meekly like they always have, or finally fight for their rights.
A 1968 event put together by The Rolling Stones. The film is comprised of two concerts on a circus stage and included such acts as The Who, Taj Mahal, Marianne Faithfull, and Jethro Tull. John Lennon and his fiancee Yoko Ono performed as part of a supergroup called The Dirty Mac, along with Eric Clapton, Mitch Mitchell, and Keith Richards.
Poor black sharecroppers band together to build a school for their children.
Amiable slackers Bill and Ted are once again roped into a fantastical adventure when De Nomolos, a villain from the future, sends evil robot duplicates of the two lads to terminate and replace them. The robot doubles actually succeed in killing Bill and Ted, but the two are determined to escape the afterlife, challenging the Grim Reaper to a series of games in order to return to the land of the living.
An Oscar nominated portrayal of the UFW's 1973 strike where grape workers made history by walking off the job from Coachella to Fresno to fight for a UFW contract. A moving testimony to the bravery of the farm workers in their non-violent struggle against police brutality on the picket lines.
The Morgans, a loving and strong family of Black sharecroppers in Louisiana in 1933, face a serious family crisis when the husband and father, Nathan Lee Morgan, is convicted of a petty crime and sent to a prison camp. After some weeks or months, the wife and mother, Rebecca Morgan, sends the oldest son, who is about 11 years old, to visit his father at the camp. The trip becomes something of an odyssey for the boy. During the journey he stays a little while with a dedicated Black schoolteacher.
Mr. Handy's Blues is the never before told story of W.C. Handy, known worldwide as The Father of the Blues. The film features performances of Handy's songs by current artists including Taj Mahal, Bobby Rush and Gary Nichols.
