Regular Price $24.98

Starring: Big Jack Johnson,  Jack Owens (II),  Roosevelt Barnes,  Junior Kimbrough,  Lonnie Pitchford, 
Directed By: Robert Mugge, 
Rated: NR (Not Rated)
Release Date: 1993
Studio: Fox Lorber
Format: Color,  DVD-Video,  NTSC, 

Editorial Reviews and DVD Information about Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

Amazon.com
This superb documentary vividly illustrates the enduring vitality of country blues, an idiom that most mainstream music fans had presumed dead or, at best, preserved through more scholarly tributes when filmmaker Robert Mugge and veteran blues and rock writer Robert Palmer embarked on their 1990 odyssey into Mississippi delta country. What Arkansas native and former Memphis stalwart Palmer knew, and Mugge captured on film, was that the blues was not only alive but still intimately woven into the daily lives of rural blacks.

Palmer, a former rock musician and Memphis Blues Festival cofounder best known for his bylines in The New York Times and Rolling Stone, had already chronicled the saga of Southern blues in his seminal book that provides the film's title. He's an astute guide, and Mugge underlines this role by pairing him with British rocker Dave Stewart (Eurythmics), whose avid interest in the music makes him an effective foil.

The film's real triumph, however, rests in the team's success in capturing modern day blues survivors and inheritors playing in the bars, juke joints, and barns of delta country. Palmer, who had returned several years earlier to the delta to capture these artists for his scrappy Fat Possum label, introduces us to the now-amplified but still elemental blues of R.L. Burnside, the late Junior Kimbrough, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes, and other keepers of the faith. Mugge, whose profiles of Al Green, Sonny Rollins, and other musicians probed their cultural and artistic contexts with intelligence and sensitivity, captures both the music and the milieu in crisp color footage. Deep Blues thus triumphs as a testament to the blues' deep roots and an unintentional eulogy for Palmer, who would pass away in the mid-'90s just as the gut-bucket music of Burnside and Kimbrough served notice that the blues were alive and kicking. --Sam Sutherland

Customer Reviews for Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

Real Blues
For those that love real rural blues this must be one of the best insights into the lives and music of the last of the old time juke joint musicians. It has all the drive and raw power that most of us white kids seldom get a chance to experience even when we were lucky enough to see some of these guys on tour. Go and buy this one and see a little of the life of these great characters and experience some their great driving electric blues.Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

Worth the price just to see Roosevelt Barnes
This is a wonderful DVD. The highlights for me were seeing
R. L. Burnside at his home and getting to see Roosevelt Barnes
perform Heart Broken Man. Sadly both of these great performers are no
longer around.Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

the best concised book on the blues
this is the the best concised book on the blues. few books provide so much insight in so few wordsDeep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

definitive history of the blues
this is a serious history of the blues treating the blues with the same respect & seriousness given jazz, classical and other forms. it is a wonderful book combining interviews with blues legends like muddy waters and howling wolf with in-depth musical and cultural analysis.

for serious blues lovers or the novice looking for a deeper understanding of the music's roots, the culture that spawned and the incredible musicians who created it.Deep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads

Bitter Lemon Revival
Hi,my name is Steve Kaplan.I play the keytar behind Big Jack Johnson in the movie DEEP BLUES.I just released a cd called "BITTER LEMON REVIVAL".If you liked the movie call 901-355 7210 and order my cd for 12$ plus shipping and handling tot 13.95$ Order today!!! They could pull this ad anytime! Sincerely
Lemon Bitter KaplanDeep Blues: A Musical Pilgrimage to the Crossroads