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It's the sound of the 20th century.
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A music created by the poorest people in the richest nation on earth.
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The blues.
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We now hear it as the root note of rock and roll.
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But it first appeared in the early 1900s.
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A black pop format performed by modern men and women using the latest media.
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Later generations heard the blues as authentic folk music
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expressing the pain of an oppressed people.
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Over the last 100 years it has crossed borders from south to north.
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From black to white.
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From weak to powerful.
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You can have the blues anywhere, any time.
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This is the story of how the blues rose up to define a nation and soundtrack a century.
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And how, for generations of its performers, curators and audiences
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the meaning of the blues kept on changing.
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1940s America.
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A nation is booming.
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But for black southerners life is the same as ever.
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I wonder will I ever get back home...
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A country remains racially and economically divided.
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A long time ago. Been a long time.
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Most of the time in the southern state where you went to get food.
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You had to go round to the one that said Coloured Only or Black Only.
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My family didn't have nothing, I didn't have nothing.
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Just picked cotton all day and you eat to live and live to eat.
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I don't know how they raised us like that but that's what it was all about.
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I thought that was a way of life.
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One room for these people and no room for the other people.
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One door for these people, no door. Totally segregated.
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"Mechanical cotton pickers at work in the Mississippi fields.
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This is the first commercial acreage of cotton produced entirely by machinery."
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The mechanisation of the cotton farming industry
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meant that vast numbers of cotton pickers began to search for new work.
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So the African American south began to look north.
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Chicago.
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In the morning, eight o'clock. Chicago.
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732 miles from here.
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Don't you want to go...
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It was sort of like the promised land.
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Down south on the direct siege, you know what I mean?
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And if you were picking cotton for 50 cent a day you come to Chicago,
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they was paying 50 cent an hour.
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The trains all led that way and that's where the money was.
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That's why they went there. Nothing simpler than that. Economics.
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Chicago was the place. There was a stock yard, steel mills, domestic work.
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IT was a panacea for a black person.
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Masses of migrants from the sparsely populated rural south
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were now living freer lives in Chicago's west and south sides.
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A black southern fiesta was brewing
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and the soundtrack would be every black southerner's favourite party music, the blues.
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Here I am driving around and I see signs.
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Elmore James. Tuesday night.
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Or Muddy Waters this weekend.
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Howling Wolf. I couldn't believe it.
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I couldn't visualise that many musician.
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That many entertainers.
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That many juke joints.
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That many ladies in the whole bit was in Chicago in one block.
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God, I thought I was in heaven, man!
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This scene wasn't about the good old days.
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Modern black audiences required a modern black music
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and a generation of forward-thinking blues artists were emerging,
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eager to leave the past behind.
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At the vanguard of this scene,
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one record label in particular was blazing a blues trail.
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Every good record that Mick and I heard was coming out of Chicago.
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And it was basically coming out of Chess.
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Chess honed us in on Chicago blues.
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And we found in there such a wealth of material.
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You didn't really need to look much further.
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Art was never in the picture for the artist or my family.
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It was about making hits which made money.
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The Chess family came from Poland.
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My father didn't like working for people so started with a liquor store in the black neighbourhood.
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He then opened a corner tavern with a jukebox.
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Not only did he see them buying alcohol, he saw them putting nickels in the jukebox.
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Three years later started Chess Records with my uncle. 1950.
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Muddy Waters was their first real star.
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I think I'm responsible for Chicago blues.
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I think I'm the man who set Chicago up for the real blues.
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Muddy had that voice and that very sparse way of playing things.
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The perfectly framed voice. Even talking about it I still get the chills up the back.
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Well, I'm gonna wake up
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Won't be back no more
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In 1948, Muddy Waters released I Can't Be Satisfied.
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This electrified take on the down home blues sold out overnight.
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Can't Be Satisfied.
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This is the country coming into the city.
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And the city sort of melding in to the country.
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And I think at the same time Muddy didn't know what he was up to there.
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Suddenly a sound can be born in the studio.
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Muddy had been playing an acoustic guitar in Mississippi
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now he's in Chicago where things are faster, more modern.
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There's electricity! It's a whole different world.
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So it's just a natural progression, to get an amplifier and plug in.
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Electric guitar.
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Muddy put a band together to convey this new electric sound.
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Blues was entering a new era.
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When blues musicians first began playing electric guitars or amplified instruments,
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it was just basically louder.
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Over a relatively short period of time they discovered electrification
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could create its own sounds and tones that it could have more attack.
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That could have more sustain, have intentional distortion.
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And all of these things became part of the language of blues recording.
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Those hot steamy clubs were the first amplified loud music.
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Guys that got their first pay cheque on Friday, women in red silk dresses.
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Grinding and bumping. This was an amazing time for black culture in Chicago.
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This harder slicker urban blues was perfectly distilled
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in the revolutionary amplified harmonica sounds
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of a former Muddy Waters band member Little Walter.
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Walter was a little wild.
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You had to be careful. He always wants fights about something like that.
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He was a tough guy.
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He was a little guy, they didn't call him Little Walter for nothing,
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but pound for pound he was one tough little dude.
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You wouldn't want to mess with him.
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Boom boom out go the lights
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With his club hit Boom Boom Out Go The Lights,
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Little Walter would usher the blues into some psychologically unsettling territory.
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It's about this lady that he was in love with.
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And she had left him for some other man,
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but he said if you ever get her in your sight,
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boom boom, he going to shoot her, that's what he talking about.
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Boom boom out go the lights
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The woman might be all you had.
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And if somebody's hitting on her,
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he ain't gonna stand for it.
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There'll be some cutting and shooting going on.
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These bluesmen's new sound was as tough as the city that spawned it.
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Despite being a mecca for African Americans,
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life in Chicago could be as brutal as the south they had left behind.
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You had bad luck
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A long long way from home
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You had bad luck
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Honey long long way from home
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Well now since I know you love me
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Honey love will keep you going
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There was all kinds of problems with drinking, with early drug use, cocaine and things.
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And there was a lot of physical abuse.
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These were people trying to survive in a white culture
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that was not that accepting to black people.
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This guy walked in the bar early in the morning with a shopping bag.
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And the guy ordered two bottles of beer.
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And the guy set them up and went back to work
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and all of a sudden he raised his head from filling a box out.
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The guy took the woman's head out and set it beside the other beer.
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He had a drink. Just a woman's head. He had cut her head off at that club.
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But it wasn't just Chicago that was modernising the blues.
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280 miles east of the city a dirty new groove was brewing in Detroit.
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John Lee made no compromises.
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John Lee was John Lee.
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Here come John Lee Hooker with Boogie Chillen'. I'm like saying what is this?
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Just that rhythm.
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HE HUMS
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I'm like, Oh my God.
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With Boogie Chillen', Mississippi migrant John Lee Hooker
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took his primitive modern sound to the top of the black R&B charts in 1949.
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The way he's kind of talking it too,
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it's like this conversation.
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I was walking down Hastings Street
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Everybody was talking about
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Henry's swing club
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In Boogie Chillem' he's talking about Detroit.
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Everybody's having a ball, drinking beer and wine.
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I got there, I said, yes, people.
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It just goes on and on. It's like a narrative of him in Detroit.
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If you're playing with John Lee,
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it was, OK, what key are we in, John?
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And he'd hit the bottom string on his guitar.
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That one.
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It could be F sharp, it could be E flat.
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That was it, whatever his guitar was tuned to, that was it.
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Boom boom boom boom
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Gonna shoot you right down
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Right off your feet
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Take you home with me
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Put you in my house
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Boom boom boom boom
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There is nothing more erotic than John Hooker and a guitar when he's playing in that groove.
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When you talking to me
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It's treacherous how deep that kind of groove goes.
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There's nobody that can cut as deep.
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And he's somebody who didn't lose any of the feel of the really low down Mississippi Delta
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when he moved to Detroit.
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He electrified it.
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Brilliant, wonderful way to express blues.
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He's unlike anybody else.
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Nobody sounds like John Lee Hooker.
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For black audiences, the industrial northern cities
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were now producing some of the most exciting new music in the country.
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But back down south on the banks of the Mississippi,
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life continued at a different pace.
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Lay me down padded on your floor
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Lay me down
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Lay me padded down soft and low
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Lay me padded on your floor
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Memphis was a dirt roads crossroads.
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Everything was smaller, everything was quieter.
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In the north they make cars, here the big factories make tyres.
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In Memphis Tennessee a pioneering southern record producer
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by the name of Sam Phillips had grand musical designs of his own.
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We're here in Sun recording studio.
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The amazing thing about Sun is how small it is.
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This little shoe box, you can't believe the sounds that came out of here.
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And in large part that's because of the way Sam designed the room
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with a ceiling that is made to still the sound.
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So it's not flying all about the room.
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I think the records are testament to his success.
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A lot of people holler about I don't like no blue
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but when you ain't got no money
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and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food,
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you damn sure got the blues.
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In 1951 Sam Phillips cut a record
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by Mississippi native Chester Arthur Burnett aka Howling Wolf.
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His debut, How Many More Years,
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was instantly noticed by Leonard Chess, who signed him up immediately.
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Howling Wolf began with the great record producer, Sam Phillips.
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He called my father and said, "I've got a great artist here."
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My father heard it right away.
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It was the kind of artist my father would jump at. Original, different.
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Wrote his own material.
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You can't belive what I say
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And you better believe what I say
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You wanna set up crazy
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That you just wanna have your way
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And you can't do that with me
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His voice it was, wow.
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It was so, I still feel it, from the first time I saw him.
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Oh, stop your train darling
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I'll cope all right
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Don't you hear me crying
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Oooh
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Oooh
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I don't think there's a person that can listen to Howling Wolf's music
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and not be absolutely awestruck.
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The enormity of the power of his singing style
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and his raw and his ferocity.
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Oh moving in
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Wolf was probably the most intimidating and in a great way overwhelming
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for a young woman or for any age.
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He stands as the most powerful of all the blues singers, I think.
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I think Sam Phillips had a commercial sensibility.
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And I'm sure it must have dawned on him that if a white person were singing this music
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he would get an audience for it.
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Sam Phillips kept up a steady stream of blues releases
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with the likes of BB King, Bobby Blue Bland and Junior Parker
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until 1954 when he struck gold with a white boy
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singing an Arthur Crudup blues track.
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Well, that's all right, Mama
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That's all right with you
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That's all right, Mama
252
00:17:32,760 --> 00:17:34,480
Just any way you do
253
00:17:35,360 --> 00:17:39,280
Things changed when Elvis Presley walked in that door.
254
00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:44,320
To me Elvis hits eternity with the first record That's All Right Mama.
255
00:17:44,320 --> 00:17:48,680
Elvis took that black art and embraced it and sang it to a white audience.
256
00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:53,360
And became a portal through which white people could experience black culture.
257
00:17:56,800 --> 00:18:00,160
He snuck across an invisible racial barrier.
258
00:18:00,160 --> 00:18:05,480
All these rhythms got smuggled in this very attractive young man
259
00:18:05,480 --> 00:18:08,720
and once he unleashed that
260
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:10,960
there was no putting that back in the box
261
00:18:10,960 --> 00:18:13,400
and putting the lid on it and locking it back up.
262
00:18:14,720 --> 00:18:17,520
A tectonic shift was stirring in American pop culture.
263
00:18:17,520 --> 00:18:20,360
Musical and racial categories were becoming redundant.
264
00:18:20,360 --> 00:18:25,440
Blues and country, black and white were all morphing into a brand new sound.
265
00:18:25,440 --> 00:18:26,840
Rock and roll.
266
00:18:27,680 --> 00:18:31,520
So when an aspiring blues performer Chuck Berry walked into Chess Records
267
00:18:31,520 --> 00:18:35,080
with a cover of a country song, Leonard Chess's eyes lit up.
268
00:18:35,560 --> 00:18:36,880
Ida Red, Ida Red
269
00:18:36,880 --> 00:18:39,120
I'm a plumb fool about Ida Red
270
00:18:39,120 --> 00:18:42,720
My father and my uncle had that ear for something different.
271
00:18:42,720 --> 00:18:45,240
And as soon as they heard that Ida Red song,
272
00:18:45,240 --> 00:18:48,160
they told him change the lyric, come back.
273
00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:50,520
Maybelline, why can't you be true
274
00:18:50,520 --> 00:18:52,840
Oh Maybelline
275
00:18:53,640 --> 00:18:55,040
Why can't you be true
276
00:18:57,000 --> 00:18:59,880
I remember hearing Maybelline when it came out on the radio.
277
00:18:59,880 --> 00:19:02,960
It struck me as like that's a hillbilly song.
278
00:19:02,960 --> 00:19:05,200
Chuck Berry's a black guy doing a hillbilly song.
279
00:19:05,200 --> 00:19:06,840
This is cool!
280
00:19:08,120 --> 00:19:10,920
When I first heard Chuck Berry I thought he was a white person.
281
00:19:10,920 --> 00:19:13,200
All my friends thought he was white.
282
00:19:13,200 --> 00:19:15,160
And all the girls thought he was white too.
283
00:19:17,040 --> 00:19:19,840
It changed everything with Chuck. We never had a record like that.
284
00:19:19,840 --> 00:19:22,480
We never sold records to white people before.
285
00:19:22,480 --> 00:19:24,240
This was a big change.
286
00:19:24,240 --> 00:19:29,040
People were hearing Chuck Berry records and thought they were hearing a white person.
287
00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:33,640
People were hearing Elvis Presley records and thought they were hearing a black person.
288
00:19:33,640 --> 00:19:36,960
Oh Maybelline, why can't you be true
289
00:19:37,640 --> 00:19:40,680
Oh Maybelline, why can't you be true
290
00:19:41,600 --> 00:19:44,640
You started back doing the things you used to do
291
00:19:49,800 --> 00:19:52,440
Rock and roll was musical desegregation.
292
00:19:52,440 --> 00:19:56,120
And this new mood began to echo the racial politics of the time.
293
00:19:56,960 --> 00:19:59,440
In 1954, the US Supreme Court
294
00:19:59,440 --> 00:20:02,720
ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
295
00:20:02,720 --> 00:20:06,200
The early rumblings of the civil rights movement were beginning to stir
296
00:20:06,200 --> 00:20:10,640
and for African Americans this was a time to look toward the future.
297
00:20:10,640 --> 00:20:13,640
This new movement would call for a new soundtrack.
298
00:20:29,720 --> 00:20:34,320
Blues ended for young black people. They began to buy soul music.
299
00:20:35,200 --> 00:20:37,800
And then Motown hit really strong.
300
00:20:37,800 --> 00:20:42,120
It was just a cultural change, a new sound for a new generation.
301
00:20:43,360 --> 00:20:45,360
They equate blues with slavery.
302
00:20:45,360 --> 00:20:48,840
They wanted to try to upgrade themselves.
303
00:20:48,840 --> 00:20:51,640
Back in the 60s when I talked to black people,
304
00:20:51,640 --> 00:20:54,200
especially like when I was in jail, about the blues,
305
00:20:54,200 --> 00:20:57,080
they said don't talk that slave shit to me.
306
00:20:57,080 --> 00:20:58,720
They was uninterested.
307
00:20:58,720 --> 00:21:02,320
They didn't listen to what they called plantation music, stuff like that.
308
00:21:05,360 --> 00:21:09,840
By the end of the 50s the hits had dried up for even the most famous blues artists.
309
00:21:10,600 --> 00:21:13,080
I leave you honey
310
00:21:13,080 --> 00:21:16,680
My time has just run out
311
00:21:16,680 --> 00:21:19,840
Young black Americans had left the blues for dead.
312
00:21:20,400 --> 00:21:22,400
I leave you running
313
00:21:24,080 --> 00:21:26,560
My time has just run out
314
00:21:30,480 --> 00:21:32,440
You never wanted me baby
315
00:21:33,760 --> 00:21:36,400
I've come to find out
316
00:21:36,400 --> 00:21:39,240
I worked with black guys in the factory
317
00:21:39,240 --> 00:21:41,120
and we'd sit there on the break
318
00:21:41,120 --> 00:21:45,800
and I'd say something like, "I went to hear Muddy Waters."
319
00:21:45,800 --> 00:21:50,160
"Muddy Waters? What's wrong with you? That's old folks' music."
320
00:21:57,520 --> 00:22:00,160
The blues had been largely abandoned by its own audience.
321
00:22:00,160 --> 00:22:04,600
So when Muddy Waters turned up at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960
322
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,480
he was yesterday's news.
323
00:22:06,480 --> 00:22:10,080
But against all odds, in front of a largely white audience
324
00:22:10,080 --> 00:22:12,120
his set went down a storm.
325
00:22:13,240 --> 00:22:15,120
Got my mojo working
326
00:22:15,120 --> 00:22:18,280
But it just don't work on you
327
00:22:20,720 --> 00:22:22,680
Got my mojo working
328
00:22:22,680 --> 00:22:25,400
But it just don't work on you
329
00:22:59,680 --> 00:23:03,440
He plays his electric blues in front of a fully white audience.
330
00:23:03,440 --> 00:23:07,400
He does this great performance of I Got My Mojo.
331
00:23:07,400 --> 00:23:09,200
Got my mojo working
332
00:23:10,880 --> 00:23:12,360
Got my mojo working
333
00:23:14,320 --> 00:23:16,640
Got my mojo working
334
00:23:17,560 --> 00:23:19,680
Got my mojo working
335
00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:26,880
Got my mojo working but it just don't work on you
336
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:33,840
All of a sudden we're getting tons of album orders from Boston.
337
00:23:33,840 --> 00:23:35,400
And that was the big turning point.
338
00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:41,000
That's when we noticed white people admiring the blues in album form.
339
00:23:42,400 --> 00:23:47,680
Suddenly the blues looked like it might have a future after all and its future looked white.
340
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:04,040
At the dawn of the 60s
341
00:24:04,040 --> 00:24:06,560
a group of white educated blues enthusiasts
342
00:24:06,560 --> 00:24:09,000
were beginning to look back past rock and roll
343
00:24:09,000 --> 00:24:10,880
and the electric blues that had spawned it.
344
00:24:11,960 --> 00:24:16,840
They heard something deeper in the blues and began a quest to unearth the real thing.
345
00:24:26,080 --> 00:24:28,760
In the footsteps of pioneering musicologist Alan Lomax,
346
00:24:28,760 --> 00:24:33,480
and at the forefront of this new generation of blues hunters, was Sam Charters.
347
00:24:34,640 --> 00:24:36,680
It was an incredible adventure.
348
00:24:36,680 --> 00:24:39,440
This was one of the most exciting periods of my life.
349
00:24:41,960 --> 00:24:45,160
I set out 1959 with my wife in the car.
350
00:24:45,160 --> 00:24:47,760
And I just set off and went to Memphis.
351
00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:51,040
And from that moment on one singer led me to another.
352
00:24:52,400 --> 00:24:54,960
Sam Charters set about documenting his mission
353
00:24:54,960 --> 00:24:58,040
to track down these obscure, long-forgotten bluesmen
354
00:24:58,040 --> 00:25:00,320
with a book, The Country Blues,
355
00:25:00,320 --> 00:25:03,360
as well as filming and recording his discoveries.
356
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,000
What I wanted to get was the sense of wonder I had
357
00:25:07,000 --> 00:25:08,720
that I could knock on a door
358
00:25:08,720 --> 00:25:11,480
and the door could open and there would be a man.
359
00:25:11,480 --> 00:25:14,520
Wrinkled but still active and everything.
360
00:25:14,520 --> 00:25:17,640
He'd say, "Come on in, I'll play it for you."
361
00:25:19,720 --> 00:25:25,240
My feeling was get every voice I can, get every verse I can.
362
00:25:25,240 --> 00:25:26,800
Get every word I can.
363
00:25:34,400 --> 00:25:39,160
But this wasn't just a romantic musical quest, it was a political one too.
364
00:25:39,160 --> 00:25:43,080
We were on the other side of a barrier.
365
00:25:43,080 --> 00:25:46,240
The racial divide was so total.
366
00:25:46,240 --> 00:25:52,280
That we had no conception of what society was on the other side.
367
00:25:52,840 --> 00:25:56,920
And to discover the fear, the level of danger.
368
00:25:56,920 --> 00:26:01,320
I started to go by train from New York down to Memphis.
369
00:26:01,320 --> 00:26:04,640
The train got south of Washington
370
00:26:04,640 --> 00:26:07,160
and it stopped in the middle of a field.
371
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:12,960
And every black person got up and walked to a car at the back.
372
00:26:14,040 --> 00:26:16,160
1960!
373
00:26:16,160 --> 00:26:18,440
What on earth was going on?
374
00:26:18,440 --> 00:26:22,760
What I was attempting to do was to say, "Listen! Listen.
375
00:26:22,760 --> 00:26:25,520
Here's something beautiful."
376
00:26:26,000 --> 00:26:31,960
And if you listen to that you'll understand the human being who is singing it.
377
00:26:44,040 --> 00:26:49,080
Sam Charters' book, The Country Blues, and also the LP he produced to go with it,
378
00:26:49,080 --> 00:26:52,640
really kind of changed the world in terms of blues.
379
00:26:52,640 --> 00:26:58,280
Suddenly a generation was inspired to go out and find people like Mississippi John Hurts,
380
00:26:58,280 --> 00:27:00,800
Skip James, Sun House, Booker White.
381
00:27:02,440 --> 00:27:05,040
Really Sam Charters started all of that.
382
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:06,840
What we now call the blues revival.
383
00:27:10,120 --> 00:27:12,160
Charters was not alone in his mission.
384
00:27:12,160 --> 00:27:14,720
Other white blues enthusiasts like Dick Waterman
385
00:27:14,720 --> 00:27:18,720
were also searching for these forgotten old southern blues musicians.
386
00:27:20,200 --> 00:27:25,600
This is a clarion call for racial equality in the United Sates.
387
00:27:25,600 --> 00:27:30,760
Especially among the young left Liberals.
388
00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:36,600
This opened the door for racial equality on a musical level.
389
00:27:37,360 --> 00:27:42,280
And nothing fits that better than an old black man.
390
00:27:43,000 --> 00:27:49,440
People were finding all these old artists that we assumed were only these mythical characters.
391
00:27:49,440 --> 00:27:52,480
Coming out of an old scratchy recording.
392
00:27:52,480 --> 00:27:58,080
And they were going to the rural south and finding they were perfectly alive and well
393
00:27:58,080 --> 00:28:00,120
and still performing in their communities.
394
00:28:01,720 --> 00:28:07,480
Before you knew it, Sun House was back, Skip James was back.
395
00:28:07,480 --> 00:28:11,360
All of these people long thought to be dead
396
00:28:11,360 --> 00:28:15,480
were now suddenly back and performing.
397
00:28:18,920 --> 00:28:21,160
These elderly, often penniless bluesmen
398
00:28:21,160 --> 00:28:23,960
who hadn't made a living out of music for nearly three decades
399
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:28,200
were brought north and improbably given a new lease of life.
400
00:28:37,600 --> 00:28:39,120
And to their new white audiences
401
00:28:39,120 --> 00:28:44,400
this was the unmediated sound of the blues as a pure American folk art.
402
00:28:45,160 --> 00:28:50,080
In 1964 everybody was gathered for the Newport Folk Festival.
403
00:28:50,760 --> 00:28:53,720
They just brought Skip James from the hospital.
404
00:28:54,200 --> 00:28:56,280
And nobody knew if he could sing.
405
00:28:56,840 --> 00:29:02,360
I had to simply introduce Skip James as this great singer,
406
00:29:02,360 --> 00:29:05,360
and turn the microphone over to him.
407
00:29:06,280 --> 00:29:10,560
This man sits down and fingers the guitar
408
00:29:10,560 --> 00:29:15,160
and he hits the first step, he brings his head up,
409
00:29:15,160 --> 00:29:23,080
and he sings, "I'd rather be the devil than to be that woman's man."
410
00:29:23,840 --> 00:29:27,000
And there was a gasp. Wow!
411
00:29:28,720 --> 00:29:31,680
I'd rather be the devil
412
00:29:35,040 --> 00:29:38,480
I'd rather be the devil
413
00:29:39,560 --> 00:29:41,960
Than be that woman's man
414
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:49,040
I thought I was gonna faint right there on the spot.
415
00:29:49,600 --> 00:29:52,200
You lay down all your love
416
00:29:52,840 --> 00:29:55,920
You know this day that I sing
417
00:29:58,160 --> 00:30:01,280
And boy he was back!
418
00:30:01,280 --> 00:30:04,560
Just an explosion! Who is this guy?
419
00:30:05,040 --> 00:30:08,800
The woman that I love
420
00:30:11,240 --> 00:30:16,480
It was just amazing to be a young white college age kid
421
00:30:16,480 --> 00:30:19,640
getting to interact and learn so much
422
00:30:19,640 --> 00:30:23,840
from these what really I would consider old masters.
423
00:30:26,080 --> 00:30:28,800
You know he got lucky
424
00:30:30,400 --> 00:30:32,000
He'll get her back again
425
00:30:32,880 --> 00:30:38,160
These were people who had learned their music and created their music by living it.
426
00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:42,120
It was first person music. People singing about their own lives.
427
00:30:42,120 --> 00:30:45,080
It was people who lived very hard lives.
428
00:30:45,080 --> 00:30:46,800
I was a comfortable middle-class kid.
429
00:30:49,360 --> 00:30:52,280
When I come to her again
430
00:30:54,480 --> 00:30:57,440
Backstage at the blues festivals that I got to hang out at,
431
00:30:57,440 --> 00:30:59,800
rightfully so it was a big party,
432
00:30:59,800 --> 00:31:05,840
and Dick would tell me don't let so-and-so have too much.
433
00:31:05,840 --> 00:31:08,720
Sun House in particular was very famous.
434
00:31:08,720 --> 00:31:12,000
If he didn't have his airplane bottle of vodka
435
00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:14,120
sometimes he couldn't remember his lyrics.
436
00:31:14,120 --> 00:31:16,960
You know I'm so sorry today, girl
437
00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,720
Than I ever know, girl
438
00:31:23,080 --> 00:31:25,560
He had to have some to jog his memory
439
00:31:25,560 --> 00:31:28,800
but if he had one too many then he wouldn't remember them.
440
00:31:30,520 --> 00:31:33,240
But when you give love
441
00:31:34,280 --> 00:31:38,000
They never had any idea what was happening.
442
00:31:38,000 --> 00:31:42,560
There was a strange audience of people they hadn't been allowed to look in their eyes.
443
00:31:42,560 --> 00:31:44,280
And suddenly here was this audience.
444
00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:49,800
And they had no idea what they were hearing, they just knew that the audience seemed to like it.
445
00:31:49,800 --> 00:31:51,320
So they did it.
446
00:31:53,320 --> 00:31:55,200
Can you imagine the culture shock?
447
00:31:55,200 --> 00:31:59,840
You had to take your hat off, step out into the street,
448
00:31:59,840 --> 00:32:01,840
be careful of your speech.
449
00:32:01,840 --> 00:32:04,800
And the script flips over.
450
00:32:04,800 --> 00:32:08,760
You're 67 years old, here are these white kids.
451
00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:12,720
"Oh my God, you're so-and-so! I know all the lyrics!"
452
00:32:12,720 --> 00:32:15,280
And then it's like...
453
00:32:17,160 --> 00:32:19,360
They didn't know what it was.
454
00:32:23,000 --> 00:32:25,880
The meaning of the blues had changed.
455
00:32:25,880 --> 00:32:28,800
What had been a black pop phenomenon till the 60s
456
00:32:28,800 --> 00:32:33,720
had now been reframed as a music of pain and alienation from the old Delta.
457
00:32:36,720 --> 00:32:40,440
And these old musicians, practically unknown when first recorded,
458
00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:44,360
were now performing songs that spoke to this new white vision.
459
00:32:45,600 --> 00:32:52,440
There is a yearning on the part of wealthier, whiter middle-class audience
460
00:32:52,440 --> 00:32:54,960
for something that is primal.
461
00:32:54,960 --> 00:32:58,120
To do with the rhythms of life as it used to be known.
462
00:32:58,120 --> 00:33:01,400
That we lost in the industrial revolution.
463
00:33:03,800 --> 00:33:06,880
The Delta was a vibrant place.
464
00:33:06,880 --> 00:33:09,120
Muddy Waters left for Chicago on the train.
465
00:33:09,880 --> 00:33:14,360
By the time the blues hunters turned up in the early 60s,
466
00:33:14,360 --> 00:33:18,400
those trains had stopped running a long time ago and the tracks were grown over with grass.
467
00:33:18,400 --> 00:33:22,080
This was a world that seemed like a modernity had never come near it.
468
00:33:22,080 --> 00:33:25,560
Understandably it was hard for anyone who went there
469
00:33:25,560 --> 00:33:28,160
to imagine that it had ever been any other way.
470
00:33:46,040 --> 00:33:49,760
But for this new generation of fans, one enigmatic country blues artist in particular,
471
00:33:49,760 --> 00:33:55,600
would come to embody all of the darkness and gothic mystery of the Mississippi Delta.
472
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:00,920
There were a number of black people. especially ministers, who were very religious.
473
00:34:00,920 --> 00:34:07,320
They thought if you could go to a crossroad where two dirt roads intersect, at midnight...
474
00:34:07,320 --> 00:34:10,760
They'd sit there with two roads going on each side of you
475
00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,040
and the one behind you at midnight.
476
00:34:14,040 --> 00:34:15,920
And you play the best you can.
477
00:34:15,920 --> 00:34:19,680
And you hear somebody coming up behind you playing guitar.
478
00:34:19,680 --> 00:34:22,760
Don't look around, Satan will walk up behind you.
479
00:34:22,760 --> 00:34:26,040
Tap you on the shoulder, you hand him over the guitar,
480
00:34:26,040 --> 00:34:30,400
and once he plays that guitar you have made a deal with the devil,
481
00:34:30,400 --> 00:34:33,440
you have sold your soul to the devil.
482
00:34:33,440 --> 00:34:37,640
When you get up the next day, you can play anything you want on guitar.
483
00:34:37,640 --> 00:34:39,560
That's the story I heard when I was a kid.
484
00:34:41,680 --> 00:34:44,240
Early morning
485
00:34:44,240 --> 00:34:46,520
You knocked up on my door
486
00:34:46,760 --> 00:34:51,360
You stand at a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, at night.
487
00:34:52,960 --> 00:34:54,600
And tell me you're not scared.
488
00:34:57,200 --> 00:34:59,960
You stand in the dark, it's an isolated place.
489
00:34:59,960 --> 00:35:03,120
There's panthers still in the Mississippi Delta.
490
00:35:03,120 --> 00:35:05,600
And I said hello
491
00:35:07,360 --> 00:35:10,960
I believe it's time to go
492
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:15,240
Robert Johnson. The bluesman who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads.
493
00:35:16,120 --> 00:35:18,440
This myth grew to fill a void of historical fact.
494
00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:20,760
He was the ultimate blues mystery
495
00:35:20,760 --> 00:35:24,240
and became the most seductive blues rediscovery of the 60s.
496
00:35:26,360 --> 00:35:30,040
Robert Johnson had always been kind of just this mystery.
497
00:35:30,040 --> 00:35:32,600
We knew nothing about him.
498
00:35:32,600 --> 00:35:34,320
Except we had heard he was dead.
499
00:35:37,720 --> 00:35:40,160
But one blues hunter would make a breakthrough.
500
00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:48,280
People love myths or they love stories.
501
00:35:48,280 --> 00:35:51,040
Johnson's the perfect man. Nothing was known about him.
502
00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:02,240
I first started asking about Robert Johnson around 1964.
503
00:36:02,240 --> 00:36:04,840
But there was very little information on Johnson.
504
00:36:04,840 --> 00:36:10,520
And in 1965 I went to the Department of Vital Statistics in Mississippi.
505
00:36:11,280 --> 00:36:13,560
To search for a death certificate on Robert Johnson.
506
00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:18,720
And this is the death certificate I received on the 11th day of January 1968.
507
00:36:18,720 --> 00:36:23,960
The man is dead in August 1938. At age 27.
508
00:36:23,960 --> 00:36:30,480
But the death certificate caused a lot of controversy because no one knew where he died.
509
00:36:32,080 --> 00:36:34,320
Some say he died in a bar room brawl,
510
00:36:34,320 --> 00:36:36,280
others that he was the victim of syphilis
511
00:36:36,280 --> 00:36:40,240
or maybe he was poisoned and died howling like a dog.
512
00:36:41,120 --> 00:36:44,480
Even until recently the whereabouts of his grave was much disputed.
513
00:36:47,520 --> 00:36:50,040
Here we are at the grave site
514
00:36:50,040 --> 00:36:54,040
of the legendary Robert Johnson in Greenwood, Mississippi.
515
00:36:54,040 --> 00:36:58,680
This is the place where he took sick and died in 1938.
516
00:36:58,680 --> 00:37:01,920
For a long time people weren't even sure where he was buried.
517
00:37:01,920 --> 00:37:03,960
Up until just a few years ago
518
00:37:03,960 --> 00:37:07,920
there were three different places that would tell you they had the remains of Robert Johnson.
519
00:37:07,920 --> 00:37:10,760
But now this has become the official location
520
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:12,840
of the body of Robert Johnson.
521
00:37:13,200 --> 00:37:17,760
I think the reason why Johnson has become so interesting and so famous to us
522
00:37:17,760 --> 00:37:19,560
is because we don't know a lot about him.
523
00:37:19,560 --> 00:37:21,040
He's really kind of a phantom.
524
00:37:23,560 --> 00:37:29,720
All this began in 1961 when Robert Johnson, King Of The Delta Blues Singers, was released.
525
00:37:30,320 --> 00:37:32,560
While the search for forgotten bluesmen continued,
526
00:37:32,560 --> 00:37:35,120
a dead artist virtually unknown in his own lifetime
527
00:37:35,120 --> 00:37:39,520
was suddenly being hailed as the greatest blues artist ever.
528
00:37:40,960 --> 00:37:44,320
The record cover, the picture, was the black poet.
529
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:50,000
The idea of this lone figure in his own world.
530
00:37:50,000 --> 00:37:53,000
He's hunched over his guitar, he isn't looking out at the audience.
531
00:37:53,000 --> 00:37:54,680
He's looking into his own soul.
532
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,120
Robert has become that portal figure
533
00:37:58,120 --> 00:38:01,920
for a whole white world to enter into the black experience.
534
00:38:08,200 --> 00:38:13,280
If you were someone like the Rolling Stones and you had already heard Muddy Waters,
535
00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:16,200
this just sounded like where all of that came from.
536
00:38:16,200 --> 00:38:20,760
But with a complexity in the guitar work that you'd never heard.
537
00:38:20,760 --> 00:38:22,960
It felt like the roots of everything.
538
00:38:22,960 --> 00:38:25,320
You better come home
539
00:38:27,360 --> 00:38:30,560
The structure of the songs are so unique.
540
00:38:30,560 --> 00:38:36,960
Come Out In My Kitchen. These are not the everyday blues.
541
00:38:38,240 --> 00:38:40,160
He raised the bar.
542
00:39:01,240 --> 00:39:03,520
There's visuals in that music.
543
00:39:03,520 --> 00:39:07,080
Can't you hear that wind howl?
544
00:39:07,080 --> 00:39:08,760
HE HUMS
545
00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:12,760
You can feel it and you can see it.
546
00:39:12,760 --> 00:39:15,000
It's so beautiful.
547
00:39:23,640 --> 00:39:28,880
Johnson somehow crystallised the whole point of it.
548
00:39:28,880 --> 00:39:32,760
What could be done. Everybody still reaching for that bar.
549
00:39:32,760 --> 00:39:35,520
He was the perfect artist.
550
00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,840
When rock came along and you wanted to understand where it came from.
551
00:39:40,720 --> 00:39:43,600
The rediscovery of Delta blues artists like Robert Johnson
552
00:39:43,600 --> 00:39:47,320
may have been making waves among the folk festival and coffee house crowds.
553
00:39:48,720 --> 00:39:51,320
But the sound of young black America was now Motown
554
00:39:51,320 --> 00:39:55,800
and for mainstream audiences, the blues remained a dead music.
555
00:40:01,720 --> 00:40:07,400
So when a group of scruffy London blues fanatics arrived in the land of their idols in 1964,
556
00:40:07,400 --> 00:40:09,560
they were confused by what they found.
557
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:11,640
I'm the little red rooster
558
00:40:12,280 --> 00:40:18,720
By the time we got to America we were well aware that these guys were not in the mainstream.
559
00:40:20,320 --> 00:40:22,920
We couldn't understand why
560
00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:25,240
especially when we got into an American cars,
561
00:40:25,240 --> 00:40:28,960
and they got 15 channels, and there's always a blues channel,
562
00:40:28,960 --> 00:40:30,880
a black channel playing this stuff.
563
00:40:30,880 --> 00:40:34,680
You know, "Why do you want to listen to this?"
564
00:40:34,680 --> 00:40:40,000
You know, they just didn't go down that end of the dial.
565
00:40:41,120 --> 00:40:45,960
Mick and I and the boys would walk in in '64 to juke joints in Mississippi.
566
00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:49,560
And be considered a novelty of course!
567
00:40:51,120 --> 00:40:53,040
But at the same time a pleasant novelty.
568
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,920
And plied with drinks and other stuff.
569
00:40:56,920 --> 00:41:00,680
If we went into a white club we'd be treated like that because of the hair.
570
00:41:01,960 --> 00:41:07,680
I remember driving Brian Jones back to their hotel and people screaming "Homo! Homo!"
571
00:41:07,680 --> 00:41:09,720
cos he had shoulder-length hair!
572
00:41:09,720 --> 00:41:11,880
Are you guys wearing wigs?
573
00:41:20,480 --> 00:41:22,640
As part of their blues pilgrimage
574
00:41:22,640 --> 00:41:24,480
the Rolling Stones recorded at Chess,
575
00:41:24,480 --> 00:41:27,120
where they came face to face with their idols.
576
00:41:27,680 --> 00:41:30,800
I just wanna make love to you
577
00:41:30,800 --> 00:41:32,840
I'm only 21. I'd died and gone to heaven.
578
00:41:34,320 --> 00:41:36,800
Everybody was very supportive
579
00:41:36,800 --> 00:41:40,800
cos you feel you're walking into the lion's den at that age.
580
00:41:41,600 --> 00:41:46,000
And to come out with everybody's goodwill is yeah, OK.
581
00:41:46,000 --> 00:41:49,120
Now we can talk!
582
00:41:49,120 --> 00:41:53,840
They were drinking hard liquor out of the bottle. Jack Daniels out of the bottle, you know.
583
00:41:54,320 --> 00:42:00,360
And the black artists would pour it in a water glass and sip it, it was a different style.
584
00:42:00,360 --> 00:42:04,040
I know a lot more about the blues by meeting the people
585
00:42:04,040 --> 00:42:05,920
than you would by listening.
586
00:42:06,640 --> 00:42:08,640
I slept at Muddy's house.
587
00:42:08,640 --> 00:42:12,600
I woke up at Howling Wolf's but that's another story!
588
00:42:16,600 --> 00:42:20,800
When the Stones broke big a year later, America was suddenly all ears.
589
00:42:22,120 --> 00:42:24,960
We just thought more people should hear the blues.
590
00:42:25,480 --> 00:42:30,480
And then as we got popular we found we were more in a position to do that.
591
00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:33,200
We were missionaries in a way!
592
00:42:35,400 --> 00:42:38,960
An invitation to perform on a top teenage TV show called Shindig
593
00:42:38,960 --> 00:42:41,720
presented them with an irresistible opportunity.
594
00:42:42,880 --> 00:42:47,080
I was at the 1965 Shindig taping.
595
00:42:47,080 --> 00:42:54,440
Where the Rolling Stones would not be on Shindig unless Howling Wolf could be on.
596
00:42:54,760 --> 00:42:57,720
ABC thought it was an animal act!
597
00:42:58,640 --> 00:43:01,600
A howling wolf? Sure! Whatever you like.
598
00:43:01,600 --> 00:43:03,000
Bring a howling wolf.
599
00:43:03,000 --> 00:43:05,600
They had no idea who Howling Wolf was.
600
00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:07,040
And probably wished they didn't.
601
00:43:07,040 --> 00:43:12,840
These are tight white cats from LA and it's the early 60s.
602
00:43:12,840 --> 00:43:15,600
It's about time you shut up and we had Howling Wolf on stage.
603
00:43:16,800 --> 00:43:19,680
How many more years
604
00:43:20,560 --> 00:43:23,880
Since I have let you go feel right
605
00:43:26,920 --> 00:43:29,440
How many more years
606
00:43:31,920 --> 00:43:34,080
The audience loved Howling Wolf.
607
00:43:34,080 --> 00:43:37,040
And they were like, he overwhelmed them.
608
00:43:40,920 --> 00:43:46,680
The Stones had managed to smuggle a 54-year-old, six foot three inch, 21 stone
609
00:43:46,680 --> 00:43:50,200
forgotten Mississippi bluesman onto primetime television.
610
00:43:50,200 --> 00:43:55,880
Mainstream America sat up and watched the Wolf smash through a racial barrier.
611
00:43:56,800 --> 00:44:01,680
From that a lot of guys who felt that their music was being drifted off
612
00:44:01,680 --> 00:44:04,280
because of Motown and R&B
613
00:44:05,360 --> 00:44:07,400
found a whole new audience.
614
00:44:11,120 --> 00:44:17,240
They went and told the world who these great people was.
615
00:44:17,240 --> 00:44:21,160
And then that's why white America was saying let me go see.
616
00:44:23,280 --> 00:44:27,320
The Rolling Stones were the first pop stars to insist they were playing the blues.
617
00:44:28,480 --> 00:44:30,360
With them a new wave of American white kids
618
00:44:30,360 --> 00:44:33,880
picked up electric guitars and started playing blues licks.
619
00:44:34,640 --> 00:44:39,400
I didn't know any white people who listened to blues music before the English bands come over.
620
00:44:39,400 --> 00:44:42,160
All of a sudden everybody's name was a blues band.
621
00:44:42,160 --> 00:44:44,560
All of a sudden it was like Santander Blues Band.
622
00:44:44,560 --> 00:44:48,760
Or Steve Miller Blues Band.
623
00:44:50,440 --> 00:44:53,240
But for those who still saw blues as an acoustic folk art
624
00:44:53,240 --> 00:44:55,800
these electric blues bands were imposters.
625
00:44:57,080 --> 00:44:59,160
So when pioneering musicologist Alan Lomax
626
00:44:59,160 --> 00:45:02,960
introduced the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at Newport in 1965
627
00:45:02,960 --> 00:45:06,360
these two opposing visions of the blues would collide.
628
00:45:07,440 --> 00:45:09,400
I think amongst the white folk fans
629
00:45:09,400 --> 00:45:12,360
there was the feeling that if you didn't have an acoustic guitar,
630
00:45:12,360 --> 00:45:14,040
if you had an electric guitar,
631
00:45:14,040 --> 00:45:15,760
you weren't the real thing.
632
00:45:16,640 --> 00:45:19,080
In 1965 we went to Newport.
633
00:45:19,080 --> 00:45:21,760
It was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
634
00:45:21,760 --> 00:45:26,120
Alan Lomax, who was the curator of the workshop,
635
00:45:26,120 --> 00:45:30,840
just took great offence at the fact that these guys were plugged in and playing loud.
636
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:34,480
He didn't like the idea of this group at all.
637
00:45:34,480 --> 00:45:35,680
They were electric.
638
00:45:35,680 --> 00:45:42,360
Lomax said you've heard the real thing, you've heard blues musicians from the south play this music.
639
00:45:43,320 --> 00:45:46,880
Now we're gonna hear some kids from Chicago
640
00:45:48,880 --> 00:45:51,400
with the help of all these amplifiers up here
641
00:45:52,360 --> 00:45:53,800
try and play the blues.
642
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:14,440
They just tore it up. They were bad to the bone.
643
00:46:22,680 --> 00:46:24,720
And there was me standing on the sidelines
644
00:46:24,720 --> 00:46:28,400
just almost jumping out of my skin with my friends
645
00:46:28,400 --> 00:46:32,320
because we were so knocked out by the sound they were putting out.
646
00:46:45,640 --> 00:46:48,560
Albert Grossman, who was managing the Paul Butterfield Band,
647
00:46:48,560 --> 00:46:51,760
said, "That was a real chicken shit introduction."
648
00:46:51,760 --> 00:46:53,880
And the next thing they're throwing punches.
649
00:46:53,880 --> 00:46:58,160
We looked over and these two big old guys are engaged in fisticuffs!
650
00:46:58,160 --> 00:47:02,640
And rolling around in the dirt there on the side of the stage.
651
00:47:03,800 --> 00:47:07,600
That was an interesting indication of how the old guard
652
00:47:07,600 --> 00:47:14,600
decided they were going to be the people who defined what the blues were.
653
00:47:22,880 --> 00:47:27,920
The blues represented a certain kind of idealised Americana.
654
00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:32,280
It represented a kind of communitarian vision.
655
00:47:34,040 --> 00:47:38,520
Putting electric guitar on it was like sticking a dollar sign in front of it.
656
00:47:39,240 --> 00:47:45,480
He was upset because these people with their decades and centuries honed style of making music
657
00:47:45,480 --> 00:47:49,600
and singing were just kind of being swept aside.
658
00:47:56,320 --> 00:47:59,520
What fascinated Alan was where the music came from.
659
00:47:59,520 --> 00:48:03,560
I don't like the word pure but I like the word basic.
660
00:48:03,560 --> 00:48:07,080
That they were finding all the original forms of the blues.
661
00:48:07,080 --> 00:48:10,600
But then I'm not sure he liked what happened to it.
662
00:48:10,600 --> 00:48:14,000
Because it did partly become commercialised.
663
00:48:17,800 --> 00:48:20,680
You can understand, he's from his era.
664
00:48:20,680 --> 00:48:23,400
He's been honking around these penitentiaries
665
00:48:23,400 --> 00:48:25,720
looking for the original thing.
666
00:48:27,200 --> 00:48:28,920
Looking for fool's gold.
667
00:48:33,280 --> 00:48:35,840
Preserving this vision of an authentic acoustic blues
668
00:48:35,840 --> 00:48:38,280
was rapidly becoming an irrelevance.
669
00:48:39,080 --> 00:48:41,240
A new generation of white American blues rock fans
670
00:48:41,240 --> 00:48:43,840
were rediscovering the electric blues greats.
671
00:48:47,080 --> 00:48:49,880
One bluesman who had no nostalgia for acoustic guitars
672
00:48:49,880 --> 00:48:53,000
and depression-era Mississippi was BB King.
673
00:48:55,520 --> 00:48:59,720
His urbane uptown blues sound instantly struck a chord with this new breed of fan.
674
00:49:10,560 --> 00:49:16,000
In my opinion BB King is the greatest blues singer, guitar player, that ever recorded.
675
00:49:16,000 --> 00:49:18,480
And his longevity speaks for that.
676
00:49:18,480 --> 00:49:22,560
He had class and dignity and that's what white people wanted to see.
677
00:49:23,720 --> 00:49:26,720
You never said, BB King, see a funky show.
678
00:49:26,720 --> 00:49:28,760
You'll see something outrageous.
679
00:49:28,760 --> 00:49:33,480
You went to hear very finely honed, beautifully played music.
680
00:49:42,920 --> 00:49:48,240
He just exudes this quality of, like, royalty.
681
00:49:49,240 --> 00:49:54,560
I think he's raised blues to be something that's full of pride.
682
00:50:11,520 --> 00:50:15,600
While BB King's refined brand of blues was filling up auditoriums across the States,
683
00:50:15,600 --> 00:50:19,680
the influence of the blues was beginning to underpin new musical directions.
684
00:50:22,800 --> 00:50:29,520
As the 60s became the 70s, its licks, attitude and mythology
685
00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,840
evolved into the foundations of rock culture.
686
00:50:39,440 --> 00:50:42,320
Songs well over three decades old,
687
00:50:42,320 --> 00:50:44,960
by the likes of Robert Johnson and Skip James,
688
00:50:44,960 --> 00:50:47,800
were being reimagined as a brand new sound.
689
00:50:47,800 --> 00:50:50,160
Blues rock became hard rock.
690
00:50:52,000 --> 00:50:54,680
Hard rock became heavy metal.
691
00:50:54,680 --> 00:50:58,920
What was left of the blues seemed lost in cliche and excess.
692
00:51:01,160 --> 00:51:05,280
But by the dawn of the 80s a new wave of musicians and audiences
693
00:51:05,280 --> 00:51:08,840
began to cast their eyes back past the bloated beast of rock,
694
00:51:08,840 --> 00:51:12,560
and in doing so kick started another blues revival.
695
00:51:14,440 --> 00:51:17,240
The success of new artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray
696
00:51:17,240 --> 00:51:22,080
proved beyond question that the blues was a music with vast commercial potential.
697
00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:25,080
Now even yuppies liked the blues.
698
00:51:32,800 --> 00:51:35,720
There was a burst of interest in blues in the 80s.
699
00:51:35,720 --> 00:51:38,160
Especially led by Stevie Ray Vaughan.
700
00:51:38,160 --> 00:51:43,160
Stevie was at the forefront of the 80s and early 90s blues revival.
701
00:51:43,760 --> 00:51:46,160
There was a resurgence of the blues
702
00:51:46,160 --> 00:51:50,640
and in R&B the music was a little more simple, more accessible.
703
00:51:50,640 --> 00:51:54,840
I think that the public heard it as something new.
704
00:51:57,280 --> 00:52:00,560
From out of the shadows and into this bright new musical landscape
705
00:52:00,560 --> 00:52:04,440
emerged a familiar figure with an unfamiliar sound.
706
00:52:10,600 --> 00:52:14,480
It turned a lot of people on to blues who ordinarily would never have listened to blues.
707
00:52:14,480 --> 00:52:16,400
Or know anything about it.
708
00:52:16,400 --> 00:52:19,360
Santander wanted to cut John Lee Hooker with The Healer.
709
00:52:19,360 --> 00:52:22,320
And that was a big thing. I was so proud of him.
710
00:52:22,320 --> 00:52:28,000
Because you couldn't forget him from Boogie Chillem' but he was kind of being forgotten.
711
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:37,160
The Healer made 72-year-old John Lee Hooker into a global megastar.
712
00:52:37,160 --> 00:52:39,000
It was great for John.
713
00:52:40,520 --> 00:52:41,840
It was great for blues.
714
00:52:42,200 --> 00:52:47,160
Blues a healer all over the world
715
00:52:50,080 --> 00:52:51,640
Blues a healer
716
00:52:54,200 --> 00:52:55,760
He appreciated the success.
717
00:52:55,760 --> 00:52:58,520
He dressed nice, people knew him.
718
00:53:00,040 --> 00:53:05,080
As a man coming from Mississippi and moving up and being successful,
719
00:53:05,080 --> 00:53:07,040
I think that was it.
720
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:09,120
That was as good as it gets.
721
00:53:13,600 --> 00:53:17,520
When I saw who was going to collaborate on that record I couldn't wait to be part of it.
722
00:53:18,680 --> 00:53:22,320
And luckily I'm In The Mood hadn't been chosen and that was my favourite song.
723
00:53:24,760 --> 00:53:25,840
I'm in the mood
724
00:53:28,000 --> 00:53:29,120
Oh
725
00:53:29,440 --> 00:53:32,760
He and I start going together without any rehearsal.
726
00:53:32,760 --> 00:53:36,320
It was a moment that will remain a highlight for me.
727
00:53:37,480 --> 00:53:39,840
Now now no now now
728
00:53:43,440 --> 00:53:44,640
I try but you love nobody
729
00:53:45,760 --> 00:53:48,960
- I hear you call
- Nobody nobody
730
00:53:50,000 --> 00:53:51,880
It felt exactly like it sounds.
731
00:53:52,640 --> 00:53:54,960
And it just went on and on and the end of it
732
00:53:54,960 --> 00:53:58,440
I literally asked for a towel, that's how deep it was.
733
00:54:00,440 --> 00:54:03,240
I wanna thank you, baby.
734
00:54:07,240 --> 00:54:09,760
The revival of John Lee Hooker in the early 90s
735
00:54:09,760 --> 00:54:12,560
pointed to a wider trend in American culture.
736
00:54:12,560 --> 00:54:16,880
The blues was now firmly embedded at the heart of the great American narrative,
737
00:54:16,880 --> 00:54:19,720
and big brands were quick to take note.
738
00:54:19,720 --> 00:54:25,840
I think advertisers use the blues because it speaks to rough authenticity.
739
00:54:25,840 --> 00:54:27,560
To being genuine.
740
00:54:27,560 --> 00:54:29,480
To being unvarnished.
741
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,720
These are jeans worn by working people who are out there in the real world,
742
00:54:33,720 --> 00:54:36,000
Not slick. It's anti-slick music.
743
00:54:42,920 --> 00:54:45,600
There was a big campaign going on at that time.
744
00:54:45,600 --> 00:54:46,960
It was hip to be blue!
745
00:54:50,000 --> 00:54:54,320
Blues was now being used to sell everything from jeans to beer.
746
00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,560
Now of course blues is being used in Viagara commercials.
747
00:54:58,560 --> 00:55:01,520
Why would you let something like erectile dysfunction get in your way?
748
00:55:02,880 --> 00:55:05,240
Isn't it time you talked to your doctor about Viagara?
749
00:55:05,240 --> 00:55:07,880
I'm very scared this is the new blues demographic!
750
00:55:07,880 --> 00:55:11,600
But if I eventually need an ED mediation,
751
00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:14,560
I'm using the one that uses the blues in commercials!
752
00:55:14,560 --> 00:55:17,880
Seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours.
753
00:55:22,920 --> 00:55:27,520
In 2012, President Obama hosted an evening of blues at the White House.
754
00:55:27,520 --> 00:55:33,280
After 100 years, a music created by a generation of Americans who had nothing
755
00:55:33,280 --> 00:55:37,160
was being used as the ultimate emblem of the American dream.
756
00:55:37,160 --> 00:55:42,440
It's a once in a lifetime and I still pinch myself now.
757
00:55:42,440 --> 00:55:44,440
And say is that really you?
758
00:55:45,680 --> 00:55:48,400
That's a long way from picking cotton on a farm!
759
00:55:48,400 --> 00:55:50,040
Picking the guitar at the White House.
760
00:55:52,520 --> 00:55:58,960
Then he come up and made a speech after we finished playing.
761
00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:04,520
I said, "Mr President, I understand you can sing Sweet Home Chicago."
762
00:56:04,520 --> 00:56:07,480
Come on, Mr President, sing it!
763
00:56:07,480 --> 00:56:12,000
Come home, baby don't you wanna go
764
00:56:12,800 --> 00:56:19,240
Sweet Home Chicago, Robert Johnson's 1936 anthem of black migration from the despair of the south,
765
00:56:19,240 --> 00:56:21,960
being sung by the most powerful man in the world.
766
00:56:21,960 --> 00:56:26,120
The blues narrative has seemingly reached its symbolic peak.
767
00:56:26,120 --> 00:56:27,720
Sweet home Chicago
768
00:56:29,840 --> 00:56:35,040
I was overjoyed. I cried after we finished the show.
769
00:56:35,040 --> 00:56:38,040
Because that's a dream come true.
770
00:56:38,040 --> 00:56:40,880
I never thought something like that would happen
771
00:56:40,880 --> 00:56:43,200
to a blues guy to be up in the White House
772
00:56:43,200 --> 00:56:45,560
playing for the president of the United States.
773
00:57:06,280 --> 00:57:07,880
Over the last 100 years,
774
00:57:07,880 --> 00:57:12,400
the blues has transcended racial, musical and national boundaries.
775
00:57:12,400 --> 00:57:18,280
Its icons, songs and stories now form part of the DNA of a nation.
776
00:57:22,040 --> 00:57:24,480
And for what remains the poorest region in the country,
777
00:57:24,480 --> 00:57:29,000
the blues is beginning to provide a much-needed economic boost.
778
00:57:29,000 --> 00:57:33,080
People of the 30s, 40, 50s, 60s in the south
779
00:57:33,080 --> 00:57:37,680
would be amazed that a large part of the tourism economy here in Mississippi
780
00:57:37,680 --> 00:57:40,320
is about blues history.
781
00:57:40,320 --> 00:57:46,240
To see modern day south embracing black culture, I think that's a remarkable change.
782
00:57:48,160 --> 00:57:52,440
Whatever you're listening to now, there's not one thing you're listening to
783
00:57:52,440 --> 00:57:55,480
that isn't in some way influenced by the blues.
784
00:57:55,480 --> 00:58:03,040
That's I think why they're talking about it is that it's very simple in concept
785
00:58:03,040 --> 00:58:05,640
but to deliver it is another thing.
786
00:58:07,560 --> 00:58:11,520
All over the world wherever I travel, there's people playing blues.
787
00:58:11,520 --> 00:58:16,080
Even if they don't understand the words their heart knows that feeling.
788
00:58:16,080 --> 00:58:18,200
And they want more, they gotta have more.
789
00:58:18,200 --> 00:58:20,960
That's the beauty of the blues.
790
00:58:20,960 --> 00:58:23,040
You can't deny it, it ain't going away.
791
00:58:25,320 --> 00:58:27,360
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