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Red, White and Blues
Soundtrack - Various Artists
Hip-O Records
(Release date: September 9, 2003)
- Tom Jones & Jeff Beck - Going Down Slow
- Louis Armstrong & His All Stars - Back O' Town Blues (live)
- Dixie Four - St. Louis Man
- Big Bill Broonzy - Black, Brown, and White Blues
- Sister Rosetta Tharpe with Marie Knight - Up Above My Head I hear Music In Te Air
- The Lonnie Donegan Skiffle Group - Rock Island Line
- Lulu with Jeff Beck - Cry me A River
- Miles Davis - Generique
- Tom Jones with Jeff Beck - Love Letters
- Humphrey Lyttelton - Bad Penny Blues
- Little Joe Cook (aka Chris Farlowe) - Stormy Monday Blues, parts 1 & 2
- Tom Jones & Jeff Beck - Hard Times
- Ray Charles - Tell The Truth (live)
- Spencer Davis Group - Hey Darling
- Fleetwood Mac - Shake Your Money Maker
- John Mayall's Bluesbreakers with Eric Clapton - Have You Heard
- Cream - Crossroads
- Jeff Beck - Rollin & Tumblin
- Tom Jones - Lawdy Miss Clawdy
- Lulu with Jeff Beck - Drown In My Own Tears
[Note: There was some confusion caused by Amazon's initial track listing for this album, which at one time showed a pair of live Van Morrison tracks: "Rambler's Blues" and "How Long Blues", as well as other discrepancies such as John Lennon with the Plastic Ono Band doing "Yer Blues" (not on the actual soundtrack CD), and Otis Redding doing "I've Been Loving You Too Long" (again, not on the CD). I can only guess that the confusion was between this soundtrack album, and material featured in the movie itself (Van does sing in the movie). Note that the DVD of this movie is now available as either a single movie, or as part of the full 7 movie set]
Notes:
Soundtrack album to the Mike Figgis film, one of seven in the PBS series "The Blues" (the
image at right shows the covers of all 7 DVDs).
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Order the movie on DVD through Amazon.com
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The full set of 7 movies is also available through Amazon.com
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Director Mike Figgis joins musicians such as Van Morrison, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, and Tom Jones, performing and talking about the music of the early sixties British invasion that reintroduced the blues sound to America.
During the 1960s, the UK was the location for a vibrant social revolution. London, Liverpool, Birmingham, Manchester and Newcastle all had their own music scenes. Musicians from Belfast and Glasgow moved to London to be part of the club scene there.
The post-war traditional jazz and folk revival movements produced the fertile ground for a new kind of blues music - entirely influenced by the authentic black blues of the USA, and, for the most part, entirely ignored by the good citizens of the US. It was new in the sense that certain key musicians took the blues and molded it in an entirely personal way to fit the new awareness of the UK in the sixties. Importantly, for the most part they continued to pay homage to the originators of the music and to make a huge global audience aware of the likes of Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters, Howlin' Wolf, Freddie King, etc.
Mike Figgis' film examines the circumstances of this vibrant period. Figgis himself participated, albeit in a minor way, in this period of history, playing in a blues band with Bryan Ferry, a band that was the nucleus for the first Roxy Music.
A series of musical interviews with the key players of the blues movement is augmented with a live session at the famous Abbey Road recording studios. Tom Jones, Jeff Beck, Van Morrison, and Lulu all improvise around some classic blues standards, accompanied by a superb band made up of younger and not-so-younger-musicians. The results are electrifying.
Says Figgis: "I'm interested in why there was such excitement about this black music among Europeans. To that end, I've put together a group of these musicians, augmenting the line-up with some younger talent as well. Hopefully the resulting recording session of some blues standards, and the discussions that follow, shine some light on why at a particular moment the blues was reinterpreted abroad and reintroduced in a new form that was universally embraced."
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