All language subtitles for The.Blues.Society.2023.720p.WEBRip.x264.AAC-[YTS.BZ]

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[blues music playing]

[♪]

[woman]
A party had developed.
People were mingling,

and you could sense that
people were very different
from one another.

It was really beautiful.

And it's hard for people
to recreate that moment,

the moment in time
that this was.

[♪]

[Zandria Robinson]
You felt the need to get
this music out there,

and you felt the need
to create a space

for younger generations
to both see this music

and have access to this music
and imagine a new world.

[♪]

[♪]

[audience applauding]

[announcer]
Memphis, despite the claims
of New Orleans and St. Louis,

is the home of the blues.

[audience applauding]

Beale Street is
where the blues began.

[♪]

[James Alexander]
My mother took me down to
Handy Park on Beale Street.

It had to be in the late '50s.

I mean, I wasn't even in music
or anything like that.

But we went to see
Bobby "Blue" Bland and BB King,

and they were performing
on a flatbed truck.

You know, I didn't realize
that back at the time,
but that particular performance,

my mother taking me down
on Beale Street

and seeing their performance
would have
a hell of a effect on me.

[man]
No one can tell you
why Memphis is
as magical as it really is.

It's as magical as
the Egyptian place from
whence it took its name.

[man 2]
All the hell Memphis has
done is taught people how to
talk, dance, and play music.

You know? And we still do that.

[man 3]
Memphis and this area
has a rich musical heritage.

They have a jewel here, and
they don't really realize it,

and they don't
really cherish it,

and they don't really
study the history that much.

This city and this area
has been a hotbed for years,

has one of
the richest histories
of any music city in the world.

[Jamey Hatley]
There is this
kind of erasure that happens
in Memphis again and again.

Memphis is
the city of good abode.

For who?

[♪]

[man 4]
Blues had been recorded
in Memphis since the 1920s, but
the city had never embraced it.

The city was adamant about
keeping the Black people
in their place.

[man 5]
Growing up in the 1940s
and '50s in Memphis, the racial
divide was virtually absolute.

There were very limited
circumstances in which

white people and Black people
were together.

Parents didn't really approve
of that kind of music,

so you'd go to bed at
nine or ten o'clock at night
and turn on the radio,

and there would be
Howlin' Wolf and Muddy Waters,
people like that,

who had made it into Chicago
and had become electrified.

[blues music playing]

[Henry Nelson]
Growing up,
here's what the blues was.

We had front yard concerts.
It was a neighborhood thing.

[♪]

That's what you heard every
Saturday, all day Saturday.

Like, the blues, to me,
it was entrenched into
a kind of community.

[Nelson]
Now, my parents
grew up, that's all they
listened to, was the blues.

♪ You know that I'd rather be
The devil ♪

♪ I'd rather be the devil ♪

♪ Than to be that woman man ♪

[Nelson]
The blues was not necessarily
to be shared.

You know, it was something
that you brought into your home.

It was something that you went
to the juke joint to listen to.

[woman singing]

It was a very private thing.

It was something that, um,
belonged

to a culture,
to Black people.

♪ The woman that I loved ♪

[Dom Flemons] While we tend to
think of the blues as being
born out of slavery,

it's important to remember
that the blues is born out of
post-Reconstruction

and strict segregation
and sharecropping.

I think the blues comes from
impossible situations.

♪ He done got her back again ♪

♪ You know I laid down
Last night ♪

♪ Oh, I laid down last night ♪

[man 6]
By '65, Memphis was
essentially pretty barren.

There were no art galleries,

just a small group of artists,
poets, some musicians.

Those people would be
attracted to whatever it was
here in Memphis.

[man 7]
John McIntire,
the sculptor,

put together a coffee house
called The Bitter Lemon.

[John McIntire]
Originally, it started with
a dream up in Michigan.

I came to Memphis.
I was teaching
at the Art Academy.

I found a building
for 150 bucks out on Poplar.

I had a little bit
of money saved up.

We had a little stage
in a corner.

It was about four, five inches
off the floor.

That's all the stage was.

So that's how it got started.
And we had one singer. [laughs]

[student] Okay,
this is reel number two

in Memphis State
Oral History project

documenting jazz and blues
in Memphis with Furry Lewis.

Reel number two.

[playing "Natural Born Eastman"]

♪ I woke up this mornin'
With the sight of rain ♪

♪ Around the curve was
A passenger train ♪

♪ Under the boiler
Was old hobo John ♪

♪ He was a good ol' hobo
But he's dead and gone ♪

♪ Dead and gone ♪

♪ Good ol' hobo
But he's dead and gone ♪

♪ I'm on the road again ♪

♪ I'm a natural born Eastman
On the road again ♪

♪ I'm gonna leave Memphis
To spread the news ♪

♪ The Memphis women
Don't wear no shoes ♪

♪ I got it written
In the back of my shirt ♪

♪ I'm a natural born Eastman
I don't have to work ♪

♪ I don't have to work ♪

♪ I'm a natural born Eastman
I don't have to work ♪

[Zeke Johnson] When I first
heard Furry Lewis,

that was just complete
transformative situation.

And I got him to show me
his tuning right there
at The Bitter Lemon.

Once I heard it, I ran home and
put my guitar in that tuning.

I started making that sound,
and I said, "Oh...

there is a God."

[♪]

[Nancy Jeffries] We were
going around the country
on our way to San Francisco

in our Volkswagen bus--
so clichéd now--

and stopping in different cities
on the way and finding out
where the clubs were,

if there was a coffee house
or something.

Memphis was one of the stops.

♪ I'm like, baby ♪

♪ Please don't go
The way I love you... ♪

And we really liked it there.
We stayed there
for a little while.

We were very interested
in the blues,

and we were friends
with a bunch of people
who were blues fanatics,

and they would go to the South
and collect 78 RPM records

from the old neighborhoods
trying to preserve this music

that hadn't really gotten
a fair shot at being preserved.

[John Larkin] I don't think
many Memphians actually
called themselves hippies.

Memphis was more
of a bohemian culture.

It had more of
a beat philosophy to it

than it did a hippie philosophy.

Until we got LSD, of course.

And then, you know,
that changed the whole game.

[funky music]

[Marcia Hare] I had just
got out of high school.

Oh, it was a colorful time.
[laughs]

Well, maybe the LSD brought
the colors out in everything.

But we were definitely
tripping, like, daily.

We weren't just tripping
once in a while.

We were tripping all the time.

[psychedelic music]

[Jeffries]
So it was
a giant, mass experiment,

and in the beginning of it,
people really did do it

to seek some knowledge,
some connection.

It was the opposite
of dulling your senses.

It was the opposite of that.

It was waking up.

We came to feel that the people
who had developed this style

from which rock and roll
music really came,

we felt that they were
being forgotten.

So for us, it was kind of like,
"Well, here is this guy

who has zero money
and lives in a shotgun shack,

but I see him as someone
who's created a movement.

I see him as someone
who's given us a precious
gift."

["Parchman Farm Blues"
by Bukka White playing]

♪ Judge give me life
This mornin', down on... ♪

[Bob Palmer]
Blues music
developed in rural areas of the
South in the 19th century.

Memphis,
at the top of the Delta,

became the headquarters
for early bluesmen.

Musicians found plentiful work
on Beale Street,

while labels like
Brunswick and Vocalion

recorded Furry Lewis
and other blues artists.

By the 1960s, the public
found blues recordings
difficult to obtain.

Most of the players
were presumed lost.

[Joe Callicott]
I ain't been lost.

I've been right here.

Ask anybody.

[man]
People like Furry Lewis,
Bukka White, and Gus Cannon
were living among us,

but in many ways, they had
been neglected and forgotten.

[man 2]
And there was
this whole resurgence, then,
in country blues.

[♪]

[Flemons] So from 1920
to, let's say, 1934,

you have Vaudeville blues,
which is popular music.

Then around 1925,
you start to see that blues
start to evolve and change

and become more of a single solo
male guitar-oriented blues,

and that's considered
country blues.

Innumerable people
were coming south,

looking for the people
that they'd rediscovered
on 78 records.

[Nelson] And they were mostly
white-- they were all white,
as a matter of fact.

They'd come down,
go into the Delta,

but mostly they stopped here.

[muffled humming]

"Even The Birds Were Blue."

On the scene at about this time
was a New Yorker
named Bill Barth,

one of the strange breed
of northern musicologists

like Sam Charters
and the Lomaxes

who spend their lives
looking for the blues
without ever quite finding it.

[Jeffries]
You know, Bill Barth
was part of a group of people

who were known for
collecting 78 RPM records,

and they would make
field trips to the South.

We spent a lot of time
playing music and hanging out.

You know, like,
going to the people's houses.

We'd go see Reverend Robert
Wilkins or Furry Lewis,

other people who lived in
the Memphis area,
spend time with them,

Nathan Beauregard,
and play music with them.

I mean, in hindsight,
it was probably really silly
and kind of shocking to them

to have these hippie characters
coming and hanging out.

For us, it was kind of like,
well, we love this music,

and we went there
to find this music,
to promote this music.

We decided to have
a blues festival,

and we wanted to get
all the old blues guys

and give them a chance
to make some money,

and we wanted to call it the
Memphis Country Blues Society.

[Jeffries]
The idea for the festival

was to pay homage to
the originators
of this musical style

that was, you know, influencing
such a large movement
in rock music at the time.

[Jim Dickinson]
Bill Barth rented the Shell.

The only money involved
was my session check
from
Cadillac Man,
$65,

and Barth had a lump of hash
the size of a softball.

And between that hash
and my $65,

we put on the first
Memphis Country Blues Festival.

[♪]

[Jeffries]
So, you know, the principles
of the Blues Festival,

the ones who signed the papers,

were myself, Bill Barth,
Randall Lyon, and Bob Palmer.

That was a funny group
of people.

I mean, Bob Palmer was,
you know, already
a writer and a musician,

and he came from
Little Rock to be there.

[♪]

[Bob Palmer]
The entire show
was put together within
a group of musicians,

photographers, artists,
writers, and friends,

working together
as a Memphis Country Blues
Society.

[Jeffries]
And Randall Lyon
was a crazy artist.

[mystical music]

[♪]

But lots of people helped.
It was a community thing.

Well, I just figured that was
the best thing that could
happen to you,

to be caught up with a group
of people who have this
heroic enthusiasm,

you know, for what
they're doing, I mean,
it's, like, that's beautiful.

We had what you would call
"[indistinct] furorae."

We were in poetic furor.

[♪]

[Jeffries]
We were amateurs.
We were definitely
amateurs at work.

You know,
just skimming by, really,

in terms of the legalities
and everything else.

[♪]

[♪]

[Bob Palmer]
We sold ads in
the program to local firms

and used the money to print
tickets and posters as well.

And the newspapers and even
a congressman spoke out
in favor of the show.

[man]
This was
kind of a new idea.

You know,
"Blues music? In a Shell?"

It had only been for
symphonic music before then.

[Nelson] Before '66, there was
no integration out here.

There was not a sense of safety
here for Black people.

I mean, that place is not mine.

So there's a generation who
never felt invited to the park.

[♪]

[Robert Gordon]
So they announced this
first festival, 1966.

And just before the festival,

an Imperial Grand Wizard
from the Ku Klux Klan

held a rally at Overton Park.

That was the world,

this world of inequality

and blind, rabid hatred
of Blacks by whites.

And in the same place,

they drew about
a thousand people
to this blues festival.

[overlapping chatter]

[Bob Palmer]
There were
middle-aged and elderly
couples,

crew-cut executive types,
college students, teenagers,

and all the freaks in town.

[man]
We were all young.
We were all confused.

Vietnam was this
big sack of shit
hanging over all our heads,

and nobody knew from one day
to another if they or their
friends were gonna be around.

You just didn't know.
So everything was okay
to experiment with.

You know, everybody
was welcome.

There was nobody excluded
from anything.

You'd see guys
in uniform there.
And they were fine.

You know,
they were fine with it.
We were fine with them.

[♪]

[man]
Almost everybody was there.

Furry Lewis,
Reverend Robert Wilkins,
Bukka White.

Piano Red was there,
Fred McDowell was there.

♪ ...Furry go tell 'em
Grand Central Station

♪ That's the only place
You know ♪

♪ Anybody ever ask you
Which way Furry go ♪

♪ Tell 'em
Grand Central Station ♪

♪ That's the only place
You know ♪

♪ Say, my Monday woman
Live on Beale and Main ♪

♪ And my Tuesday woman
Bring me pocket change ♪

♪ And my Wednesday woman
Bring me daily news ♪

♪ And my Thursday woman
Buy my socks and shoes ♪

♪ And then my Friday woman
Puts it on the shelf ♪

♪ The Saturday woman
Give me the devil ♪

♪ If she ever catch me here ♪

♪ My Saturday woman ♪

♪ Give me the devil
If she ever catch me here ♪

♪ Say, I got a Sunday woman
Who cooks me somethin' to eat ♪

♪ I got a woman, good God ♪

♪ Her mouth every day
In the week ♪

♪ Oh, Lord, I got a woman ♪

[crowd applauding, cheering]

And as a Black musician,
we was going places that
our peoples couldn't go

because they wanted
to hear us play.

It was all-white facilities.

Couldn't nobody come see us
but them, you know?

But the fact over
the Shells there,
since it was a wide-open thing,

you know, wasn't an enclosed
thing, it was open,

so everybody got a chance to
really come and enjoy the music.

["Keep It Clean"
by Sid Selvidge playing]

[indistinct]

♪ Give 'em a Coca-Cola ♪

♪ Lemon soda
Chocolate ice cream ♪

♪ Take soap and water
Lord, to keep it clean ♪

[loud cheers and applause]

♪ Give 'em a Coca-Cola ♪

♪ Lemon soda
Chocolate ice cream ♪

If you were on stage

and you'd look out
in the audience

and you saw the unity

and everyone
caring for each other--

Even watching over the kids,

whether it was your child
or someone else's child,

you made sure that kid was okay.

It was a wonderful
and a beautiful thing.

[Marcia Hare] A lot of people,
when they look at the '60s now,

they see everybody stoned out
of their minds at Woodstock,

you know, playing in the mud
and dancing to the music.

So yeah, that was part
of what went on, definitely.

But people did it
with a motivation.

I think most people,

maybe when it gets to be
500,000 people in a meadow,

the motivation slips.

[light conversation din]

[♪]

[♪]

[applause]

[♪]

[audience applauding]

[Rev. Robert Wilkins]
Thinking about how good
the Lord was to me.

Spared me all these many years,

and yet in pretty fair health
and strength.

And yet able to
tickle these strings.

Now, I want to
thank the Lord for it.

Now, I said, "Lord, I ain't
got enough tongue to thank you."

I said, "How am I gon' do it?"

He said, "Wilkins,
take the guitar

and make the guitar say,
'Thank you, Jesus.'"

Hold on a minute.

Then I took the guitar
with this...

♪ Thank you, Jesus
Thank you, Jesus ♪

♪ Thank you, Jesus, thank you
Jesus, thank you, Jesus ♪

♪ Thank you, Jesus
Thank you, Jesus ♪

♪ Thank you, Jesus, thank you
Jesus, thank you, Jesus ♪

♪ Thank you, Jesus
Thank you, Jesus ♪

[♪]

[♪]

[Rev. Robert]
I didn't do any playing music
around Memphis until--

just regular until about 1928,
I started recording records.

[interviewer]
Who did you record it for?

[Rev. Robert]
Oh, this was the Brun--
What was it, Brunswick?

[interviewer]
Were they
recorded here in Memphis?

[Rev. Robert]
I recorded here in Memphis.

Recorded in Auditorium twice
and Peabody Hotel once.

[interviewer]
Is it your son
that sometimes plays?

[Rev. Robert]
Yes, my son.

[Rev. John Wilkins]
When I was small,
we'd go to church

and I stand up and play
with him, yeah, with my little
old guitar and stuff.

[laughs]

It was my dad
playing the blues.

I was too young to

travel to anything with him
during that time,
back in the '20s.

Back in the '30s and '20s,
I wasn't even born.

So, you know,
he was traveling then, you know.

["In the Army of the Lord"
by Rev. Robert Wilkins]

♪ Got my war clothes on ♪
♪ In the army of the Lord ♪

♪ Got my war clothes on ♪

♪ In the army
of the Lord ♪

♪ Got my war clothes on ♪

♪ In the army
Of the Lord ♪

♪ Got my war clothes on ♪

♪ In the army
Of the Lord ♪

[Brian Guinle] When we went
to the show, sat down

and started hearing all these
people I had never heard before,

didn't even know who they were.

I looked at my friend, I said,
"All these guys are doing

is just playing all this old
New Orleans music."

And this guy looked at me
like I was absolutely crazy.

And he says, "New Orleans?

Where do you think
this music came from?"

He said,
"Those are all handy tunes.

Those are all blues.
That music came from Memphis."

[Mary Lindsay Dickinson]
I realized that
what was happening here

was really important.

These men were geniuses.
They were American heroes.

They should be--
As Jim would put it, in other,
more advanced societies,

they would've been
worshiped as shamans.

[man]
These two fringes
of society came together,

and mainstream society
took notice, basically
because they had to.

It was kind of like a big
announcement: "We're here."

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[man] See you next year!

[♪]

♪ Ain't got no
Special ride ♪

[Jeffries]
And we spent half
the year in Memphis
doing the blues festivals

and half the year in New York.

That's how I remember it.

[street din]

Bob, Bill and myself started
The Insect Trust then.

The worst named band
in history.

Gradually other people came in.

[♪]

♪ Within the little honeycomb ♪

I always think of it as,
like, an early on art rock
band.

You know, it's, like, jazz,
blues, everything mixed in.

♪ There's a man
Down the way ♪

We needed to work as a band,

and New York
was the place to do that.

Did that for six months
of the year,

and then we'd go down
to Memphis

and put the festival on
for six months.

Bob Palmer worked
for the magazines

and for
The New York Times
eventually

and all that as a writer.

We were motivated to then
use some connections

that we got in New York
to promote the festival.

[Bob Palmer]
The Memphis Blues Festival
continued for five years.

In 1969,
we changed the name to

the Memphis Country Blues
Festival.

[Jeffries]
Well, the first two
festivals were really homemade.

Silly things were going on
and people were being
very creative.

And to me, that was
the sweetest time.

John McIntire did the poster.

Bill Barth kept coming
adding people to it,

and I'd have to scribble
another name in somewhere.

That's why it's so cluttered.

Bill Barth grabbed it
and I chased him down the street
trying to get it back from him,

but he said, "I gotta
get it to the printers."

I was married to Bob Palmer,
and I wasn't a musician,

and I wasn't really
an organizer.

I did the drawings
for the program.

They said, "Take tickets."
I took tickets.

[♪]

[Bob Palmer]
We had all these props.

This huge cardboard cutout
of this sitting Buddha.

It was about 20 feet tall.

So all these people like
Furry and Nathan Beauregard

were playing in front
of this huge golden Buddha.

And there were like
stage pop trees and
motorcycles.

["Great Long Ways From Home"
by Mississippi Joe Callicott
playing]

♪ Oh, boy,
We're long ways from home ♪

♪ What good is your food
If your sink won't run ♪

♪ What good is your food
If your sink won't run ♪

♪ What you need with a woman ♪

♪ Call her,
And she won't come ♪

[marker scraping]

[Mike Vernon] Seymour Stein
was looking out for projects,

and he said to me,
"I tell you what,

there's a very interesting
festival that's going to happen
in Memphis during July

featuring
Bukka White and Furry Lewis."

[chuckles] It was as if
I was on the plane already.

[Seymour Stein] Mike Vernon
could produce anything.

He could produce
a classical orchestra.

He did David Bowie's
first album.

But what he loved was the blues.

When he met
these blues musicians,

I remember his eyes welled up.

Mike was in heaven.

[Vernon] I actually arrived
the day before the festival

and was almost immediately
whisked off to Nesbit

where I met Joe Callicott,
his wife, and their milk cow.

It was a wonderful experience.

The festival
was a bit of a rush.

We really didn't know
what was gonna happen next.

[distant audience applause]

[Jeffries]
We were never
completely professional.

They became busier
and a little more stressful.
It was fun.

It was fun to say, "Oh,
Steve Allen's on the phone,"
whatever.

You know, it was just fun,
and we're in our little hippie
apartment in Hoboken

with the phone on the wall,
you know,

pretending like we're
wheeler-dealers or whatever,
which we were not.

But that's how people start.
That's what starts it.
You just go as if.

A lot of the money stuff
was literally

counting dollar bills
in paper bags
and giving them out.

But I can tell you
that it was done honestly

and done from that perspective,
and that's what happened.

[♪]

It was also
sort of like a school,

because in the process
of enjoying each other,

we learned about
each other's cultures

and how to take the music
and blend it together

to where you had
an amazing sound.

[♪]

[Jimmy Crosthwait] I was the MC,
and I played music
with Bukka White.

There was a camaraderie
and a humanity that got shared

that is above and beyond
the ordinary.

It was transcendental
in a sense.

[announcer]
Next you're going to hear

from Mr. Bukka White
and my own self.

[Bukka White]
So our first selection would be
"Hello Central, Give Me 49."

[vibrant blues plays]

♪ Hello, Central
Hello, Central ♪

♪ Would you please now
Give me 49 ♪

♪ Hello, Central
Hello, Central ♪

♪ Would you please now
Give me 49 ♪

♪ I got a little woman
She done left me ♪

♪ [indistinct] ♪

♪ My baby, she left me ♪

♪ And left
Our little son crying ♪

♪ I didn't mind
That woman going ♪

♪ But I just hate to see her
Leave five children crying ♪

♪ I said
If you find that woman ♪

♪ Would you please, ma'am
Tell her I called ♪

♪ 309 ♪

[Bukka White]
Yeah, well,
I had to burn a guy a little.

I didn't get
the right decision on it.

and so they gave me
a little time down there.

But, you know, a lot of times
it's not what you do,

it's the way you do it,
and the way the justice
you get--

you don't get justice
all the time on things,
and so...

Don't care how good you are,
sometimes you get--

you know,
you get killed for doing right

and sometimes people will
let you go for doing wrong.

[♪]

[Jeffries] I was taking
Bukka White from Memphis
to Little Rock for a concert,

and it was just me and him,
because what did I care?

I knew what I was doing,
you know.

But we were pulled over
by the cops,
because it wasn't seemly

that I would be driving
this elderly gentleman of color
to this concert.

So I kind of--
You know, I was pretty--

I was pretty bold in those days.

I just told the guy,
"Look, this is what I'm doing."

Everybody was prejudiced.
My parents were prejudiced.

It wasn't just a southern thing.

[Bukka] I mean,
all kinds of marijuana and stuff
like that.

They could've busted us
and sent us all to jail
for six years,

and they would come in
and bust us because we were
Black and white at a party

playing music and just having
a good time,
and it was lots of fun.

[♪]

[Robinson] I think what happens
is that we were like,

"Let's be friends
despite power dynamics.

'Cause there's not slavery
anymore, and so we can--"

But no, that's-- it's a--
it's a really difficult thing.

There is always a disconnect

that complicates cross-racial
friendships, collaborations,

because that power dynamic
is always sitting there
in that room,

in the deep context
of the music,

which is violence
and pain and hurt.

-[dark tone]
-[projector whirring]

[man]
Furry Lewis, he lived
in Memphis most of his life.

He lost his leg working on
the Illinois Central Railroad.

So he got a job
sweeping the streets.

[rumbling]

[Furry Lewis]
Well, one thing,
when you write the blues
and what you be thinking about,

you be blue and you ain't got
nothing harder to think about.

You just already blue
just go and write it.

[man] He did that for, you know,
20 years and then he retired.

The city said you don't qualify
for a retirement
because you have a wooden leg,

and actually, with a wooden leg,
you are not supposed
to have the job you have.

So we don't know whether or not
you can really get retirement.

♪ I got the walkin' blues ♪

♪
I'm going get
My walkin' shoes ♪

[reporter]
In February 1968,
in Memphis, Tennessee,

some 1,300 sanitation workers
began a strike.

This wasn't an ordinary strike.

♪ Lord knows
I don't know what to do ♪

[James Douglas]
We felt like we
would have to let the city know

that because we were
sanitation workers,
we were human beings.

The signs that we were carrying
said that 'I am a man'

and we was gonna demand
to have the same dignity

and the same courtesy
any other citizen
of Memphis has.

[Martin Luther King Jr.]
But let me say to you tonight

that whenever you are engaged
in work

that serves humanity
and is for
the building of humanity,

it has dignity
and it has worth.

[crowd cheering]

[tense music]

[reporter 1]
Dr. Martin Luther King,

the apostle of non-violence
in the civil rights movement,

has been shot to death
in Memphis, Tennessee.

Police have issued
an all-points bulletin.

[reporter 2]
A curfew,
which requires all citizens

to be off the streets
of the city of Memphis
by 7:00 p.m. tonight

and remain off the streets
until 5:00 a.m.

[Alexander]
The Bar-Kays,
we were in the studio

the night that
the assassination occurred.

We had to spend the night
at the studio

because posted right outside
of Stax Studio was, you know,
the National Guard.

[Hatley]
That moment is still so
fraught,

and we're, like, living it
over and over and over again.

It is a hinge, and at any
moment
it could fall back

onto something else
that is painful and hurtful
just like that moment.

[Bob Palmer]
It was the sore
that totally separated,
even more so, the community.

♪ Glory, glory ♪

♪ Hallelujah ♪

♪ When I lay
My, my burden down ♪

♪ Glory, glory ♪

[Flemons] First you had
the Civil Rights movement,

but afterward,
the Black Power Movement
came in,

and there was
a big generational shift.

While ultimately the blues
has been respected
within the black community,

it came off a little bit old hat

and it was a little bit
different in terms
of the way that the protest

was being articulated
and disseminated within
the music community.

So I think that that led to
a lot of younger
African-American people

drifting away from the blues.

[Hatley]
The blues was all around me.

It was always,
always in the background.

♪ You know that
I'd rather be the devil ♪

Me hating the blues is kind
of like a fish hating water.

♪ Than to be that brother man ♪

I felt a little embarrassed,

a little twinge of something
there that I didn't even
understand.

So, you know, I told myself
that I hated it

because I thought
the blues was sad.

It was poor.

So these themes in the blues,
they were not abstract to me,
right?

I was not separate
from them, right?

But I felt like I needed to be.

I think seeing other people
consume the blues
also made me turn way.

[Sid Selvidge]
There were people
like Furry Lewis on the ground

that totally peeled the scales
off a lot of
white children's eyes.

Ah, hell, I want...
everybody out there

I want pictures here
because I just really wanna
call you that.

Let me call you sweetheart.

[light blues]

[Selvidge]
He's one
of the finest gentlemen
I've ever met in my life.

I would say Furry Lewis
is the most important
male figure in my life,

other than my father
and my grandfather.

[playing
"Let Me Call You Sweetheart"]

♪ Won't you let me
Call you sweetheart ♪

♪ I'm in love with you ♪

♪ Let me hear you whisper
That you love me too ♪

♪ Keep your love light
Gleaming
♪

♪ In your eyes so blue ♪

♪ Let Furry
Call you sweetheart ♪

♪ I'm in love with you ♪

[crowd cheering, applauding]

♪ Oh they hung Jeff Davis
On the sour apple tree ♪

[♪]

♪ Oh they hung Jeff Davis
On the sour apple tree ♪

♪ As we go marching on ♪

Take your time with guitar,
sing it long for me.

Do a Glory, Glory, Hallelujah.

[playing "Battle Hymn
of the Republic"]

[♪]

[Lee]
I think the reason
that Furry tolerated
me playing with him

is that I didn't get in the
way.

My job was to make him sound
good, you know?

And which he already sounded
good. He didn't need me.

My thing was to boost
his thing up, you know?

'Cause wasn't any doubt,
you know, who the master was,

you know,
because I was learning from
him.

[distant conversation]

[Bob Palmer]
Barth and I went
down at one point trying
to find Joe Callicott

because Barth was such
a big fan of his records.

And we heard he was living down
there in North Mississippi.

We got put in jail overnight
the first time we went looking.

But the next weekend
we found him.

["You Don't Know My Mind" by
Mississippi Joe Callicott
playing]

♪ Blow, gonna blow my mind ♪

♪ And when ya see me
Laughin' ♪

♪ I'm laughin'
To keep from cryin' ♪

♪ I'm going to the racetrack
See my pony run ♪

♪ Win some money
I'm gonna save you some, baby ♪

These two long-haired guys came
to our house, you know, looking
for this guy Joe Callicott,

and we had never heard
of Joe Callicott, you know.

And I thought, "That sounds
like a made-up name," you know?

My mom was at the door
and I saw 'em, I thought,
"Man, it looks kind of funky."

You know, kind of suspicious,
you know?

You know, we'd never seen
anybody with long hair, really.

So I stayed back there with
a shotgun, you know? [laughs]

[Joe Callicott]
Well, I'm here.
I don't hardly know what to do.

[audience laughs]

I'm up here
amongst all these folks

before the whole congregation.

[♪]

♪ I've been around
A very long time ♪

♪ Well, I've been around
A very long time ♪

[Brown] It changed my life.

I'd heard him playing music
over there and started
paying attention, you know.

He was like my best friend,
you know, and mentor,

you know, and teacher.
And he was cool.

You know, just the coolest cat
you ever wanted to be.

His last words he was telling me
about, you know,

drive for yourself
and the other fella too,

because I was getting
my driver's license, you know.

And that was the thing he told
me, you know, watch out
for the other people.

But when he died he rolled
over in the bed and said,

"Kenny, be a good boy
and drive for yourself
and the other fella too."

And that was were the last words
his wife told me he said.

♪ I'm going to save you some ♪

♪ Told me that
You love me free ♪

♪ And you told me
That you love me ♪

[song fades]

[Bob Palmer]
Bill Barth
was staying at McIntire's
Beatnik Manor flophouse.

He started canvassing
for records with the money
he'd earned

modeling nude for classes
at the Memphis College of Art.

One time, he thought he heard
an old record playing
inside a house,

so he knocked on the front
door.

Inside he saw a wizened
little gnome of a man
playing guitar and singing,

Nathan Beauregard.

Some said he was over 100.

Turns out they found his draft
card recently, and he was only
in his 70s back then.

♪ I'd go to jail
For a spoonful ♪

♪ Go to jail
For a spoonful ♪

♪ Spoonful
You go to jail by ♪

♪ I'd fight my father for ♪

♪ Oh, fight my father
For a spoonful ♪

♪ Fight my father for a
Spoonful ♪

♪ Fight my father ♪

♪ [indistinct] ♪

♪ [indistinct] ♪

♪ Had no business gardnening ♪

♪ Had you know you gonna
Cheat it up ♪

♪ Ain't but a litte bit... ♪

[interviewer]
How did you happen
to pick up the guitar?
Did you hear somebody--

[Beauregard]
I first started
learning on the old banjo.

You seen
the little round thing?

[interviewer]
Banjo, yeah.
I see. Uh-huh.

But you don't recall when
they first started going crazy
about them blues, do you?

[Beauregard]
Yeah,
that's what most people
was after now, the blues.

Everyone you meet now
mostly just wants the blues.

♪ You just can't tell now ♪

♪ What's on
A sweet woman's mind ♪

[♪]

♪ Yeah, you can't tell ♪

♪ What's on a woman's mind ♪

♪ When you think
She loving you ♪

♪ Yet she's putting you down ♪

[Bob]
The man had been born a slave.

He's over 100 years old
and he's still playing guitar
at the scene.

[Johnson] He was 98.
No, he was 100--

and I think it was figured out
he was 102 years old.

[T. Dwayne Moore]
We definitely know
that he wasn't 100 years old

at the time he was rediscovered.

This was a real person.
Just want you to know him.

You know, he was a real
human being.

Who had experiences in
Mississippi, in Ashland.

Did a lot more than play music.

He did go blind,
but he wasn't blind at birth.
We know that now.

So the problem
with Nathan Beauregard in saying
that he's 100 years old,

is that it's not true
and it's a falsehood.

And if you repeat this over
and over, eventually those
become stereotypes.

He was there to entertain them,
show them the blues,

be a representative
of this African-American
culture and history,

but only a representative
of what they perceived it
as and what they knew.

♪ We lay down
On my bed ♪

[Robinson] It's difficult to
create a real history

when we've got these colorblind
histories.

Ones that both erase
the structures of racism

and then also erase
the histories
that got us to this point.

To them, you don't really get
the depths of it.

You don't feel the depths of
it because it hurts.

Mr. Beauregard and John Wilkins,

I mean, they were sharing
their souls.

[Johnson] Everybody just loved
these old guys.

And then it's kind of
a southern attitude
of these cute old Black men.

You know,
these cute old Black folks.

Some of it, you know,
quite frankly,
some of it was paternalistic

and we didn't even realize it
at the time, but it was.

[projector whirring]

There's a subtlety to what
we might think of
as appropriation.

It's really an erasure.

It is an obliteration
so that those people don't even
exist in the landscape.

It was a blues song,
"That's No Way To Get Along."

And after he start--
come on other side,
religious side,

my daddy kept the same music,
but he wrote the song
"Prodigal Son."

♪ Now the prodigal son
Left home by himself ♪

♪ Home by himself ♪

♪ Ah, the prodigal son
Left home by himself ♪

The Rolling Stones
recorded
that song on the blues style.

-[record scratches]
-[rewind audio]

["Prodigal Son" by
The Rolling Stones playing]

♪ Poor boy took his father's
Bread started down the road ♪

♪ Started down the road ♪

♪ Took all he had
And started down the road ♪

♪ Going out in this world,
Where God only knows ♪

[Nate Beauregard singing]
♪ And the last word her mama
Heard him say ♪

♪ The last word
Her mama heard him say ♪

We get a little rewards off
his music the seven of us,

but it ain't which way
it should be.

I don't think none of them
got treated right

because they didn't get
the money they should have
gotten,

you know,
and their music still--

my daddy's music still going.

They taking advantage

because people didn't know,
you know.

And people still
taking advantage of it.

You know, if you don't know,
they still doing it.

[projector whirring]

♪ And the poor boy
Got all he had ♪

♪ And he started on down
The road ♪

♪ Started on down the road ♪

♪ He got all he had and he
Started on down the road ♪

♪ Got all he had and he started
On down the road ♪

1969 marked the 150th birthday
of the city of Memphis.

Bill Barth, who had remained
the Blue's Show's prime mover

suggested that celebration
include an expanded version
of the Blue's Show.

And the city, desperate for good
publicity since the death
of Martin Luther King, agreed.

[dissonant tones]

[Chris] And so we ended up over
at Robert Wilkins house

'cause we needed to talk to him
about the show,

"Prodigal Son"
and the
Rolling Stones,
and this and that.

I remember Barth
being on Reverend Wilkins phone
in the house

sitting going,
"Yes, I'm calling collect
from Robert Wilkins house.

Yes, I'll hold." And then
he got somebody on the phone
and started telling his tale.

A few minutes later,
I'm back out on the porch
and Barth comes out and says,

"Excuse me, Reverend Wilkins,
but Mick Jagger wants to talk to
you on the telephone."

And Robert Wilkins
doesn't get up, he doesn't get
up out of his chair or anything.

He kind of just leans over
and says, "Tell the boy
I'll talk to him in person."

And so that put the thing in
the works for the
Rolling Stones

to come and do a benefit
for the old Blues guys

for the Memphis Country Blues
Society for our show.

And they said, "If you guys
can get the city together
to get us plane tickets,

we'll come and play
for Union Scale,"

which was like
50 bucks a band, you know,
or something like that.

And so when we went back to
the city of Memphis,
back to Brandon Davis,

he just freaks out.
It was just too much for him.

All he could see was trouble,
trouble, trouble, trouble.

["Brighter Than Day"” by
The Insect Trust playing]

♪ The fire before night ♪

♪ But before the day
Can wash it away ♪

♪ Start over again ♪

[♪]

There were two great white vans
full of television equipment
behind the show,

and strange men wearing
khaki shorts,
blue knit golf shirts

and little yellow canvas hats

bossing around a forest
of cameras and microphones

muttering to each other
in alien accents.

♪ I'm driving away
It's brighter than day ♪

♪ City behind, come burning
My mind I'm driving away ♪

♪ It's brighter than day
Awake in the night ♪

Barth had been trying to talk
to people on the city council,

get some support from 'em,
something,

and we getting nowhere
and getting nothing from 'em.

And then they realized
that the Goodyear Blimp

was coming overhead
and PBS was filming.

And once the city was aware
of that, they had a banner
that they hung up backstage.

I mean, the show had almost
already started when somebody's
up there doing that.

I'm going to Brown tonight.
Y'all like hearing
me play Brown?

[♪]

♪ And I'm going on brown ♪

♪ I'm going to take that
Right hand road ♪

And people came from Europe,
from all over the country.

Not in massive numbers,
but in numbers,

along with the people
from the region of the south.

♪ Right hand ♪

[Peter Guralnick] So my brother
Tommy and I headed south.

We drove down
in this Volkswagen.

Driving down, I'd recognized
all the local signs.

I mean, I was going to
Brownsville, I'm gonna take
that right hand road.

I mean, everything about it.
I mean, you know, my--

Tommy and I just laughed
at ourselves quoting
blues lyrics back and forth.

♪ And that woman I love,
She got great long curly hair ♪

That year,
having a three day festival,
it really expanded somewhat.

I mean, before that we really
hadn't been able to draw

too much of the whole
Memphis soul music thing.

That was a whole
different circuit.

[Alexander] So even though
we are considered a soul artist,

when just all said and done,
it all is really
comes from blues

and gospel anyway.

When you hear all this music
coming up, gets all in
your bones and stuff like that.

Thank you very much.
This time,
it's a great pleasure for me

to introduce a fast coming
rising group.

Ladies and gentlemen,
a great big hand
for the upcoming Bar-Kays.

[♪]

♪ You don't know like I know ♪

♪ What that woman
Has done for me ♪

♪ 'Cause in the morning
She's my water ♪

♪ In the evening
She's my cup of tea ♪

♪ Yes, as long as I live ♪

♪ [indistinct] ♪

♪ Everything's
Gotta be alright ♪

I mean, because at that time,
you know,

we didn't have a vocalist.
So, you know, as you could see.

[laughs]
I was trying to do the vocals.

So that was kind of special
to say the least.

♪ Got to, got to, got to get ♪

♪ All of that tender lovin' ♪

♪ Get it ready
Get it ready ♪

♪ Ow, get it ready for me ♪

[♪]

♪ Somebody help me ♪

[♪]

♪ Nobody know
I don't know ♪

♪ Nobody knows
Like I know ♪

♪ You don't know
You don't know ♪

♪ You don't know ♪

[Jeffries]
It was, like, 105 degrees,

and they came out and cameras
went up and everything got ready

and they did their whole set.

And it was,
like, brutal during,

'cause there was dancing
and everything involved
with their whole set.

And at the end of it, the camera
guy said, "Okay, let's do
it again, we got our levels."

[laughs]

It was a rude awakening
for us in the realities
of what goes on.

You better do the whole thing.

[laughs] I'm going home, y'all.
I'm going home.

[Nelson] That was unusual
for the blues festivals

to have The Bar-Kays on stage
because The Bar-Kays are cool.

[chuckles] You know what
I mean? They're new cool.

In '69,
I was running away from home.

I grew up in West Memphis
and at that time,

parents would let
you roam for miles.

And I roamed to Memphis a lot.
There was a 25 cent bus.

But I remember Woodstock
was happening that summer

and I wanted to be there,
you know.

It was like the summer
of love and I'm 15 years old.

And so I left home,

and I thought if I came
to Overton Park,
I could get a ride.

I started hanging out
with the hippies that were here.

I literally felt
for the first time
I had found my tribe.

[♪]

[announcer] The only way we can
sing blues like this

is to actually feel them
deep down inside the soul.

Ladies and gentlemen,
Bukka White.

[crowd cheering]

[♪]

[Jeffries] I remember, you know,
Marcia holding the umbrella

with such a beautiful
juxtaposition.

You know,
it was like well said
in terms of whoever staged that.

[Hare] I was a dancer.

I probably wanted to dance
with the umbrella

and they probably made me
sit down with the umbrella.

[Gordon] In this photo,
you see Marcia,

"I don't need
nobody protecting me."

You know, "And I certainly don't
need anybody protecting me
from these Black people,

because look, I'm helping them.

They've helped me.
I'm helping them."

You know, and it was
an inversion of what society
understood.

[♪]

[Hatley]
I mean, my parents grew up
in Jim Crow, Mississippi.

Like, they had actual,
for real deal segregation.

One of my great-uncles
was actually killed
by a white man

because he confronted him
about saying something
to his daughter in a store.

These things are
very real to me.

♪ ...dollar bill ♪

♪ Oh, this seargent
Told my mother ♪

♪ He went take two
Hundred dollar bills ♪

[♪]

[audience applause]

Without a doubt.
Thank you.

[indistinct]

♪ Mama, yeah
And I know ♪

♪ Lordy, I know
My time has come ♪

1969. Yes, indeed.

[♪]

♪ Oh, I love you darling ♪

[crowd applauding]

♪ What time can I get
A train going ♪

[♪]

[♪]

[♪]

[muffled conversation]

[announcer]
Young man coming on now
comes from Houston, Texas.

[crowd cheering, applauding]

His name is Johnny Winter.

[cheering, applauding]

[man] I have an announcement
to make now.

I'm gonna have Mrs. Mary Palmer,
Bob Palmer's wife,
speak to you for a minute.

She's been taking tickets here
for the last couple of days,

spending her days
and nights up there, the gate.

And she has something
she wants to say to you.

[Mary Palmer]
800 people paid admission here.

There are well over
3,000 people out there.

This is a benefit, people.

We try to make a little money
for these people

who have made such great music
in your great city
all of their lives.

It's your city, it's your music,

you should be proud
of them both.

And damn it,
why can't you even pay
for your own tickets, people?

I'd like to pass a hat for these
people who've never had any
recognition all their lives.

It's their music
you're listening to.

It's their music you are loving.

Now, please, please, people,
for them.

[crowd applauding]

My one and only public speech.
[laughing]

There were people
climbing the walls to get in.

And I think there were a huge
bunch of people there

that wanted to see Johnny Winter
and didn't care about
the blues people at all.

[indistinct lyrics]

[music fading]

[Palmer] By now,
there must be in the world
a million guitar virtuosos,

but there are very
few real blues players.

The reason for this is that
the blues demand
such dedication.

This dedication
lies beyond technique.

It makes being a blues player
something like being a priest.

Virtuosity
in playing blues licks

is like virtuosity
in celebrating the mass.

It is empty, it means nothing.

Johnny Winter can play rings
around Furry Lewis,
the comparison is ludicrous.

♪ I ain't gonna look
But I take my time ♪

But when Furry Lewis
at Winter's age sang

"My mother's dead,
my father's just wills to be,"

he was singing his life,
and that is blues.

♪ I've sold my gin
I've sold it straight ♪

♪ The police run me
To my woman's gate ♪

♪ She come to the door
She nod her head ♪

♪ She said, "Furry, you welcome
To my foldin' bed" ♪

Ha-ha!

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[ominous tones]

[record static]

[orchestral instrument notes
overlapping]

[♪]

[bird chirping]

In the early '60s,
young Black and white musicians
based in and around Memphis

embarked on an effort
to revive interest
in that city's blues tradition.

For their efforts, some of
these white performers have
been exposed to the criticism

that only Black people
can sing the blues
with any authenticity.

This is an arguable position,
but it's one that
I don't think stands up.

In 1969, it would be difficult
to maintain, for me anyway,

that melancholia
and the ability
to express it musically

is the exclusive property
of the Black man.

[feedback screeches]

It's ours.

It's ours.
[laughs] You know?

We could just simply because
it is ours. It's our legacy.

[birds chirping]

[light blues playing]

[♪]

[♪]

Things I've done here,
most likely when I was
supervising over here,

I kept the grass cut.
[laughing]

[conversation din]

[laughs] Oh, I feel great.
I feel great. Back in the play.

Plus I got my three daughters
with me this time
and everything.

It just feel great to come
back and redo it again.
Brings back old memories.

How my daddy sat there
and talked to Furry Lewis
and all those guys, you know.

And my God, I remember coming
here years ago, years ago,

a young guy,
a real young guy then.

[♪]

[Hatley] The blues is about
having nothing and creating joy.

Putting the joy in the survival
on record.

We need that right now.
People need that.

♪ The prodigal son left home
By himself, home by himself ♪

♪ Ah, the prodigal son
Left home by himself ♪

♪ The prodigal son
Left home by himself ♪

♪ And that's the way
For me to get along ♪

[Hatley] All I could see
when I was too young
and too ignorant

was that the pain
and the sadness was mine,
and I didn't want it.

But I had to get that
to get the joy of it,

to get the survival of it,
and I'm not gonna let it go.

♪ And he told his son,
"Go and kill my fattest calf,
kill my fattest calf" ♪

♪ He told his son
"Kill my fattest calf" ♪

♪ When told his son
"Go and kill my fattest calf" ♪

♪ And that'd be the way
To get along ♪

♪ We gon' sit down and eat
And we all be merry and glad ♪

♪ All be merry and glad ♪

♪ We all sit down and eat
And we all be merry and glad ♪

♪ We all sit down and eat
And we all be merry and glad ♪

♪ That'd be the way
To get along
♪

[♪]

[crowd cheering, applauding]

[Rev. John] All right.

Now this,
we gonna do another one.

["See That My Grave Is Kept
Clean" by Furry Lewis playing]

[Furry]
This song here now
has been delegated

to see that my grave
is kept clean.

♪ Whoa, one kind favor
I ask of you ♪

♪ One kind favor
I ask of you ♪

♪ Just one kind favor
I ask of you ♪

♪ Just see that my grave
Kept clean ♪

♪ My heart stopped beatin'
My hand got cold ♪

♪ Heart stopped beatin'
My hand got cold ♪

♪ My heart stopped beatin'
And my hand got cold ♪

♪ It wasn't long before
I was in this shady grove ♪

♪ Whoa
Two white horses in a line ♪

♪ Two white horses in a line ♪

♪ There is two white horses
In a line ♪

♪ They gon' take me
To my burying ground ♪

♪ Have you ever heard
Your coffin sound ♪

♪ Ever heard
Your coffin sound ♪

♪ Ever heard your ♪

♪ Oh, you know
Furry's in the ground ♪

♪ Have you ever heard
Your coffin sound ♪

♪ You can dig my grave
With a silver spade ♪

♪ Dig my grave
With a silver spade ♪

♪ Dig my grave with
A silver spade ♪

♪ You can let me down
With a golden chain ♪

♪ Whoa
Every link in my Jesus name ♪

♪ Every link in my Jesus name ♪

♪ Every last
In my Jesus name ♪

♪ Every link in my Jesus name ♪

♪ One kind favor I ask of you ♪

♪ One kind favor
I ask of you ♪

♪ Just one kind favor
I ask of you ♪

♪ Just see that my grave
Kept clean ♪