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These are the user uploaded subtitles that are being translated: 1 00:00:03,760 --> 00:00:07,480 The blues is one of the greatest inventions of the 20th century. 2 00:00:07,480 --> 00:00:10,440 BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 3 00:00:14,120 --> 00:00:17,440 # I woke up this morning 4 00:00:17,440 --> 00:00:20,200 # Feeling round for my shoes... # 5 00:00:20,200 --> 00:00:22,880 It's such simple music, it seems timeless. 6 00:00:22,880 --> 00:00:28,240 # Well, I woke up this morning feeling round... # 7 00:00:28,240 --> 00:00:32,680 But the blues does have a history and it keeps changing. 8 00:00:34,640 --> 00:00:37,240 For the 1920's New York record industry, 9 00:00:37,240 --> 00:00:40,600 the blues was a parade of powerful women on stage, 10 00:00:40,600 --> 00:00:43,680 singing about sex, sadness and feeling blue. 11 00:00:43,680 --> 00:00:46,200 # I woke up this morning 12 00:00:46,200 --> 00:00:50,600 # With an awful aching head... # 13 00:00:52,720 --> 00:00:56,160 This is the story of how a folk art met up with new media 14 00:00:56,160 --> 00:00:58,680 and became the bedrock of American music. 15 00:00:59,680 --> 00:01:03,120 # Woke up this morning I looked round for my shoes... # 16 00:01:03,120 --> 00:01:07,040 From the Deep South came the blues that gave birth to rock 'n' roll. 17 00:01:09,040 --> 00:01:12,120 In the 1960's, white kids got the blues. 18 00:01:12,120 --> 00:01:15,200 # I am the little red rooster 19 00:01:15,200 --> 00:01:18,920 # Too lazy to crow for... # 20 00:01:18,920 --> 00:01:23,840 The blues ended the 20th century as the ultimate brand of authenticity. 21 00:01:27,840 --> 00:01:31,720 Music that could be celebrated by prisoners and presidents. 22 00:01:31,720 --> 00:01:34,280 This is music with humble beginnings. 23 00:01:34,280 --> 00:01:36,680 # Woke up this morning 24 00:01:36,680 --> 00:01:40,240 # And found my baby gone... # 25 00:01:57,120 --> 00:02:01,160 It's a bent note here. It's something that says, 26 00:02:01,160 --> 00:02:04,960 "I've been somewhere and you've been there, too, 27 00:02:04,960 --> 00:02:07,680 "but we don't necessarily want to talk about it." 28 00:02:07,680 --> 00:02:10,040 And blues is kind of like that. 29 00:02:10,040 --> 00:02:13,920 It's kind of a mystery and long may it stay a mystery, you know. 30 00:02:15,840 --> 00:02:18,240 The blues may have had its roots in Africa, 31 00:02:18,240 --> 00:02:20,920 but the music was born in the USA. 32 00:02:20,920 --> 00:02:24,720 # I'm going down in Louisiana... # 33 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:31,320 Why is it that there is no blues in Cuba, no blues in Puerto Rico, 34 00:02:31,320 --> 00:02:33,720 no blues in St Kitts and Nevis? 35 00:02:33,720 --> 00:02:36,200 Why is that not happening? 36 00:02:36,200 --> 00:02:39,280 # I'm going down in New Orleans... # 37 00:02:41,760 --> 00:02:46,240 In 1865, the American Civil War freed the slaves. 38 00:02:46,240 --> 00:02:50,280 By around 1900, the blues had emerged in the deep south. 39 00:02:50,280 --> 00:02:53,680 Their musical roots may have been ripped from the African soil, but to 40 00:02:53,680 --> 00:02:57,920 talk to each other, black Americans needed to forge a new language. 41 00:02:59,680 --> 00:03:03,240 In the United States, the music was broken up, 42 00:03:03,240 --> 00:03:04,560 the people were broken up. 43 00:03:04,560 --> 00:03:06,840 They were not parts of the same tribe, 44 00:03:06,840 --> 00:03:11,520 so there was nothing to express it except the blues. 45 00:03:11,520 --> 00:03:16,440 # Well, you know, I just found out 46 00:03:16,440 --> 00:03:20,640 # My trouble just begun... # 47 00:03:20,640 --> 00:03:23,760 From the start, the blues spoke in the first person, 48 00:03:23,760 --> 00:03:26,880 talking about moving on and leaving your troubles behind. 49 00:03:26,880 --> 00:03:32,560 # I'm going down in New Orleans... # 50 00:03:32,560 --> 00:03:35,760 The blues comes actually as a release from the kind 51 00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:40,200 of strict localism, you call it, you know, being confined. 52 00:03:40,200 --> 00:03:44,440 And it's... you suddenly get songs about people travelling, 53 00:03:44,440 --> 00:03:47,760 and people going to see this and people what they met on the road. 54 00:03:55,720 --> 00:04:00,120 BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 55 00:04:01,280 --> 00:04:05,120 # I'm on my way but I don't know where... # 56 00:04:08,640 --> 00:04:12,000 Appropriately, a railroad station was the setting for a crucial 57 00:04:12,000 --> 00:04:14,240 early encounter with the blues. 58 00:04:14,240 --> 00:04:18,080 Here, a college-educated black man named WC Handy, 59 00:04:18,080 --> 00:04:21,880 the leader of a coloured band, met a "lean loose-jointed Negro" vagrant. 60 00:04:25,200 --> 00:04:28,920 We're in Tutwiler, Mississippi and this place is famous in blues 61 00:04:28,920 --> 00:04:33,040 lore because some time around 1903 this is the spot where 62 00:04:33,040 --> 00:04:36,920 WC Handy recalled that he had first heard the blues. 63 00:04:43,840 --> 00:04:48,200 He was sitting here and heard a musician playing 64 00:04:48,200 --> 00:04:51,640 a guitar by pulling a knife across the strings, 65 00:04:51,640 --> 00:04:54,680 and Handy recalled it was the weirdest sound he had ever heard. 66 00:05:01,080 --> 00:05:04,040 The blues was being improvised all over the south 67 00:05:04,040 --> 00:05:06,360 for pleasure and profit. 68 00:05:11,520 --> 00:05:14,240 FRANTIC BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 69 00:05:17,520 --> 00:05:19,840 Later, Handy heard in Cleveland, Mississippi, 70 00:05:19,840 --> 00:05:22,960 not too far away from here, an African American string band 71 00:05:22,960 --> 00:05:25,960 playing the blues, and that was also a really pivotal moment 72 00:05:25,960 --> 00:05:28,640 because that's when he realised, he saw people throwing 73 00:05:28,640 --> 00:05:32,480 coins at their feet and realised that he could make money off it. 74 00:05:34,560 --> 00:05:36,800 The sort of music Handy heard is played 75 00:05:36,800 --> 00:05:39,080 today by The Ebony Hillbillies. 76 00:05:47,400 --> 00:05:51,320 Early blues music was dance music designed for adults to 77 00:05:51,320 --> 00:05:54,640 get them to come to some place and drink and have a good time, 78 00:05:54,640 --> 00:05:57,880 and so it's mating music, essentially. 79 00:05:57,880 --> 00:05:59,640 It's about men and women. 80 00:06:02,160 --> 00:06:06,440 The driving instrumental part of the blues certainly 81 00:06:06,440 --> 00:06:11,320 comes from early fiddle music, slave fiddle players, banjo players, 82 00:06:11,320 --> 00:06:14,320 but the blues was purposely formed as the dance music 83 00:06:14,320 --> 00:06:17,520 so the musicians would make money, you know, to come to dance halls. 84 00:06:23,080 --> 00:06:24,840 Oh, he got me! 85 00:06:26,800 --> 00:06:29,000 - He got you too?! - Yeah, me too! 86 00:06:32,920 --> 00:06:35,080 At the turn of the century, the blues was being 87 00:06:35,080 --> 00:06:38,320 played by the poorest people on whatever came to hand. 88 00:06:45,240 --> 00:06:49,120 THEY SING 89 00:06:54,360 --> 00:06:55,920 You see old slavery pictures, 90 00:06:55,920 --> 00:06:59,080 guys working on the railroad track, they get to hitting the hammer the 91 00:06:59,080 --> 00:07:03,760 same way, you know, then they make up a song - ha-poom, ha-poom, ha-poom. 92 00:07:07,360 --> 00:07:09,720 I've heard guys that have put a piece on wire on the side 93 00:07:09,720 --> 00:07:13,280 of a house and played, take the tambourine and play, they take a 94 00:07:13,280 --> 00:07:18,520 washing tub, they take a wash board, take spoons, you know, anything 95 00:07:18,520 --> 00:07:22,480 that you put together like that with a feeling, somebody will listen. 96 00:07:27,800 --> 00:07:30,600 Handy translated the weird sounds that he heard 97 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:32,200 into a publishing empire. 98 00:07:36,040 --> 00:07:38,520 In WC Handy Park in Memphis, 99 00:07:38,520 --> 00:07:42,000 a statue commemorates the writer, composer and publisher 100 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:45,480 who gave himself the title, "Father of the Blues". 101 00:07:50,120 --> 00:07:54,120 Around 1914, in the era before records and radio, 102 00:07:54,120 --> 00:07:58,640 Handy's Memphis Blues and St Louis Blues became sheet music hits. 103 00:08:00,800 --> 00:08:04,480 What's really significant about Handy hearing this music is 104 00:08:04,480 --> 00:08:07,760 that within a decade he was writing these and making good 105 00:08:07,760 --> 00:08:12,000 money off of this music, so we often talk about blues as a folk 106 00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:17,680 music, but almost from its inception it was also commercialised. 107 00:08:22,200 --> 00:08:23,560 Soon this new musical form 108 00:08:23,560 --> 00:08:26,280 was crisscrossing the southern states of America. 109 00:08:32,000 --> 00:08:36,280 Today we think of minstrel shows as crude caricatures of black music, 110 00:08:36,280 --> 00:08:40,440 but at the beginning of the 20th century, dozens of African American 111 00:08:40,440 --> 00:08:44,080 minstrels were putting on tent shows across the south. 112 00:08:44,080 --> 00:08:48,520 # Woke up this morning Same thing on my mind 113 00:08:48,520 --> 00:08:52,720 # Woke up this morning Same thing on my mind... # 114 00:08:52,720 --> 00:08:56,040 Minstrel shows and their successors, the medicine shows, which toured 115 00:08:56,040 --> 00:09:00,560 the south right through the first half of the 20th century, were 116 00:09:00,560 --> 00:09:04,680 in a sense, academies for musicians who wanted to become professional. 117 00:09:08,600 --> 00:09:12,080 The tent shows travelled through the countryside, where audiences 118 00:09:12,080 --> 00:09:15,840 heard versions of the latest tunes from the big city. 119 00:09:17,600 --> 00:09:21,000 They were almost like travelling salesmen for songs. 120 00:09:21,000 --> 00:09:23,400 They would pick up stuff all over the place, 121 00:09:23,400 --> 00:09:25,560 whether from the vernacular, 122 00:09:25,560 --> 00:09:29,040 from songs that were being sung in plantations, 123 00:09:29,040 --> 00:09:31,720 or by professional troupes, 124 00:09:31,720 --> 00:09:35,200 by musical comedy troupes that was available on sheet music, 125 00:09:35,200 --> 00:09:37,400 and they mixed it altogether. 126 00:09:37,400 --> 00:09:40,280 LIVELY BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 127 00:09:43,320 --> 00:09:46,840 The men and women writing and performing the blues were ambitious. 128 00:09:46,840 --> 00:09:50,320 They used the latest media to bring their music to the public. 129 00:09:53,880 --> 00:09:57,320 It was New York, the capital of the new recording industry, 130 00:09:57,320 --> 00:10:00,440 that made the blues a driving force in popular music. 131 00:10:06,520 --> 00:10:10,560 Initially, the record business ignored black musicians. 132 00:10:10,560 --> 00:10:14,280 You have to remember that in this period, in the teens and '20s, 133 00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:18,840 the money in songs was in publishing, it was not in recording. 134 00:10:18,840 --> 00:10:21,200 And Perry Bradford, who was a black songwriter, 135 00:10:21,200 --> 00:10:26,120 he was a contemporary and a competitor of WC Handy, 136 00:10:26,120 --> 00:10:30,840 was writing these songs and he wanted to get hits. 137 00:10:30,840 --> 00:10:34,240 # I can't eat a bite 138 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:37,160 # For the man I love... # 139 00:10:37,160 --> 00:10:40,160 In 1920, Perry Bradford scored a big hit with 140 00:10:40,160 --> 00:10:43,080 Crazy Blues, sung by Mamie Smith. 141 00:10:43,080 --> 00:10:47,520 # So I got the crazy blues 142 00:10:47,520 --> 00:10:52,280 # If my baby went away... # 143 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,360 It's said to have sold a million copies. No-one knows for sure, 144 00:10:56,360 --> 00:11:00,280 but what is certain is that it launched the blues as pop music. 145 00:11:00,280 --> 00:11:03,560 # Now I got the crazy blues... # 146 00:11:06,080 --> 00:11:07,440 In the early 1920's, 147 00:11:07,440 --> 00:11:10,720 record companies began to release race records - 148 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:13,920 music by black performers for black audiences. 149 00:11:13,920 --> 00:11:20,960 # The blues ain't nothing but your lover on your mind... # 150 00:11:22,440 --> 00:11:25,200 The first successful blues singers were women. 151 00:11:25,200 --> 00:11:30,040 The threat to whites was not black women, it was 152 00:11:30,040 --> 00:11:35,320 black men, so the black men on the stage were forced to black up. 153 00:11:35,320 --> 00:11:36,800 Black women were not. 154 00:11:36,800 --> 00:11:40,360 They could perform with their own skin, 155 00:11:40,360 --> 00:11:43,360 but a black man had to be a clown. 156 00:11:43,360 --> 00:11:46,400 He had to put on funny clothes and do funny dances. 157 00:11:52,560 --> 00:11:56,160 There was always interaction, although not always favourable, 158 00:11:56,160 --> 00:12:01,400 between American white males and black women. 159 00:12:01,400 --> 00:12:04,720 They were allowed to do or be vocal or say certain things that the 160 00:12:04,720 --> 00:12:07,560 black males wouldn't be able to say or do. 161 00:12:07,560 --> 00:12:13,880 # The blues ain't nothing but a slow aching heart... # 162 00:12:18,440 --> 00:12:21,440 They were more showbiz in their own way, 163 00:12:21,440 --> 00:12:25,040 even though they were as gut blues as anybody else, 164 00:12:25,040 --> 00:12:28,080 but they had to dress it up and there is nothing like a dressed up 165 00:12:28,080 --> 00:12:30,520 lady to turn the interests, I think. 166 00:12:30,520 --> 00:12:33,200 # I love my man 167 00:12:33,200 --> 00:12:36,320 # But he treats me like a dog... # 168 00:12:38,320 --> 00:12:41,800 Luckily they were some of the most phenomenally great singers. 169 00:12:41,800 --> 00:12:43,720 Even through those old records, 170 00:12:43,720 --> 00:12:48,000 you can tell the timbre of their voice and their delivery was amazing 171 00:12:48,000 --> 00:12:49,760 cos this was out pre-microphone, 172 00:12:49,760 --> 00:12:53,040 so you know these girls had to be able to project. 173 00:12:55,720 --> 00:13:00,560 In segregated 1920's America, the blues queens performed on a black 174 00:13:00,560 --> 00:13:04,960 theatre circuit and they lived their lives in a black underworld. 175 00:13:06,480 --> 00:13:10,960 When the artists used to perform and travel around, they would have 176 00:13:10,960 --> 00:13:15,520 to stay in people's houses, which turned out to be things that we 177 00:13:15,520 --> 00:13:18,920 called the buffet flats in which you could get entertainment, food, 178 00:13:18,920 --> 00:13:20,440 you could get a bed 179 00:13:20,440 --> 00:13:24,520 and you could get a bed with someone else in it if you wanted. 180 00:13:24,520 --> 00:13:26,960 # Woke up this morning 181 00:13:26,960 --> 00:13:31,640 # When chickens were crowing for days... # 182 00:13:32,960 --> 00:13:36,040 The blues may have been a view from the bottom of society, 183 00:13:36,040 --> 00:13:41,800 but in 1923 the blues produced its first superstar, Bessie Smith. 184 00:13:41,800 --> 00:13:44,920 A dark brown woman from Chattanooga Tennessee, 185 00:13:44,920 --> 00:13:48,120 she was a veteran of ten years touring with minstrel shows. 186 00:13:48,120 --> 00:13:52,120 # Some people call me a hobo 187 00:13:52,120 --> 00:13:55,080 # Some call me a bum 188 00:13:55,080 --> 00:13:57,520 # Nobody knows my name 189 00:13:57,520 --> 00:14:00,560 # Nobody knows what I've done... # 190 00:14:02,040 --> 00:14:07,600 Bessie Smith was talking about the woes of life with women 191 00:14:07,600 --> 00:14:10,320 and that's probably why she was so popular. 192 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:14,160 She talked about domestic violence, which is what we call it now. 193 00:14:14,160 --> 00:14:16,840 She talked about even fighting back. 194 00:14:16,840 --> 00:14:18,480 Come on out. You're gonna move. 195 00:14:18,480 --> 00:14:23,400 Don't you hit me. Now wait a minute there! Grab the woman. 196 00:14:25,920 --> 00:14:28,640 Emerging from a dirt poor background, 197 00:14:28,640 --> 00:14:31,640 Bessie Smith at her peak commanded 2,000-a-week 198 00:14:31,640 --> 00:14:32,960 for her live performances. 199 00:14:32,960 --> 00:14:36,400 # Woke my baby 200 00:14:36,400 --> 00:14:40,080 # He's done left this town... # 201 00:14:43,240 --> 00:14:47,200 Bessie Smith lives the blues, especially those sexual songs, 202 00:14:47,200 --> 00:14:50,880 because she had a reputation and she lived up to it. 203 00:14:50,880 --> 00:14:54,480 One of my favourites is Sugar in My Bowl, you know. 204 00:14:54,480 --> 00:14:58,840 # I need a little sugar in my bowl 205 00:14:58,840 --> 00:15:01,920 # I need a little hot dog on my roll 206 00:15:01,920 --> 00:15:05,440 # I could stand some loving for so bad 207 00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:09,440 # I feel so funny I feel so sad... # 208 00:15:09,440 --> 00:15:14,480 You know, it's just something to entice. 209 00:15:14,480 --> 00:15:17,640 You know, you're going to listen to things that entice you. 210 00:15:17,640 --> 00:15:20,520 You're going to eat food that entices you, you know. 211 00:15:20,520 --> 00:15:23,880 Why not have a little spiciness in the music? 212 00:15:30,240 --> 00:15:34,000 The blues was black music making a lot of money for its superstars, 213 00:15:34,000 --> 00:15:37,760 but the structure of the music came out of work songs and churches. 214 00:15:38,880 --> 00:15:43,520 If it wasn't for Cavalry, where I would be? 215 00:15:43,520 --> 00:15:45,600 Yeah! Yeah! 216 00:15:45,600 --> 00:15:47,640 The call and response between the preacher 217 00:15:47,640 --> 00:15:51,280 and the congregation came ultimately from Africa. 218 00:15:51,280 --> 00:15:55,840 In tribal music, one singer sang a line and the others sang it back. 219 00:15:55,840 --> 00:15:59,640 - Oh a hill called Cavalry. - Yeah! 220 00:15:59,640 --> 00:16:03,400 In the blues, the second voice became an instrumental voice. 221 00:16:03,400 --> 00:16:07,880 - Y'all praying with me? - Yeah! - Y'all praying with me? - Yeah! 222 00:16:07,880 --> 00:16:11,640 The call and response, when you sing the blues, 223 00:16:11,640 --> 00:16:17,400 you say a word, a lyric, whatever and then you play behind that, you know. 224 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:21,400 For instance, I said, "Thank you, sir." Duh, duh, duh. 225 00:16:21,400 --> 00:16:23,760 You know, "Thank you, sir." Duh, duh, duh. You know. 226 00:16:23,760 --> 00:16:26,040 - At Cavalry. - At Cavalry. 227 00:16:26,040 --> 00:16:29,600 We hear... the words. 228 00:16:29,600 --> 00:16:31,080 Yeah! 229 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:34,920 The call and response, you can go back to early Africa, 230 00:16:34,920 --> 00:16:39,480 and it's usually based on a form of people returning from a hunt, 231 00:16:39,480 --> 00:16:42,640 saying, "I caught this blah, blah, blah." 232 00:16:42,640 --> 00:16:45,680 And the people say, "Yeah, you sure you caught that." 233 00:16:45,680 --> 00:16:49,120 It's acknowledgement and confirmation. 234 00:16:49,120 --> 00:16:51,520 You know, "Did you hear that?" "Yes, I heard that." 235 00:16:51,520 --> 00:16:54,360 "What did I say?" "This is what you said." "What does it mean?" 236 00:16:54,360 --> 00:16:55,520 "It means this." 237 00:16:55,520 --> 00:16:59,840 - We're going to show them on a hill called Calvary. - Yeah! 238 00:17:01,760 --> 00:17:04,160 Religion spoke of the life to come, 239 00:17:04,160 --> 00:17:07,400 but the blues was rooted in the here and now. 240 00:17:10,720 --> 00:17:14,560 # I hate to see 241 00:17:14,560 --> 00:17:18,720 # The evening sun go down... # 242 00:17:26,760 --> 00:17:29,480 The music evolved into the 12-bar blues, 243 00:17:29,480 --> 00:17:31,880 turning sadness into stoicism 244 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:34,560 and misfortune into humour. 245 00:17:34,560 --> 00:17:38,280 The blues is definitely more than just a sadness. 246 00:17:38,280 --> 00:17:40,640 Because basically a blues, especially 247 00:17:40,640 --> 00:17:43,600 if you deal with the 12-bar, it's set up like a joke. 248 00:17:43,600 --> 00:17:45,600 You know, you repeat the line twice, 249 00:17:45,600 --> 00:17:47,680 then you've got the punch line at the end. 250 00:17:47,680 --> 00:17:49,760 "I've got a man that treats me like a rat. 251 00:17:49,760 --> 00:17:51,800 "I've got a man that treats me like a rat. 252 00:17:51,800 --> 00:17:54,520 "He gets me so worried I don't know where I'm at." 253 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:56,640 It's a happy music, it truly is. 254 00:17:56,640 --> 00:18:02,200 It's just that some of the subject matter of the blues 255 00:18:02,200 --> 00:18:05,440 sometimes had that sad feeling, 256 00:18:05,440 --> 00:18:09,160 but truly, it is not a sad music. 257 00:18:09,160 --> 00:18:12,120 VINTAGE BLUES RECORDING 258 00:18:18,080 --> 00:18:21,440 # When the blues come and take me... # 259 00:18:25,000 --> 00:18:29,920 In 1926, race records got into a new market and a new type of southern 260 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:35,440 solo artist, Blind Lemon Jefferson, a street singer from Texas. 261 00:18:35,440 --> 00:18:38,800 His high lonesome voice and solitary guitar sounded like another 262 00:18:38,800 --> 00:18:42,200 world from the Vaudeville women who had dominated blues recordings. 263 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:48,160 It was a different kind of blues. 264 00:18:48,160 --> 00:18:52,120 It's one-on-one. A person is just kind of howlin' at the moon. 265 00:18:52,120 --> 00:18:55,920 There's no ulterior motive 266 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:59,400 for a cat to do what he does 267 00:18:59,400 --> 00:19:04,400 because he's expressin' his or her soul to the universe. 268 00:19:04,400 --> 00:19:06,560 # You're so good lookin'... # 269 00:19:10,760 --> 00:19:13,160 Blind Lemon Jefferson may have sounded like a voice 270 00:19:13,160 --> 00:19:16,880 howling at the moon, but he was backed by a business plan. 271 00:19:16,880 --> 00:19:19,800 Paramount Records employed black producer Jay Mayo Williams 272 00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:22,440 to run their race records division. 273 00:19:22,440 --> 00:19:26,120 In his catalogue, Williams appealed to his customers, asking 274 00:19:26,120 --> 00:19:28,560 if they could recommend any new blues talent. 275 00:19:30,200 --> 00:19:34,800 And, by God, someone working in a record store in Dallas wrote 276 00:19:34,800 --> 00:19:37,240 to Paramount Records and said there's this guy 277 00:19:37,240 --> 00:19:41,000 plays down by the tracks here, who gets these huge crowds 278 00:19:41,000 --> 00:19:43,920 and if we had a record of him we could sell a bunch of them. 279 00:19:43,920 --> 00:19:45,920 And that was Blind Lemon Jefferson 280 00:19:45,920 --> 00:19:48,440 and the record company thought he sounded terrible, 281 00:19:48,440 --> 00:19:52,280 but they gave it a try and, by God, it sold all over the country. 282 00:19:52,280 --> 00:19:56,800 MUSIC: "One Kind Favor" by Blind Lemon Jefferson 283 00:19:58,960 --> 00:20:03,880 # Well, there's one kind favour I ask of you... # 284 00:20:03,880 --> 00:20:07,520 He became a recording star and his success transported him 285 00:20:07,520 --> 00:20:10,400 far away from singing on street corners in Texas. 286 00:20:16,920 --> 00:20:20,520 # It's a long, long lane, ain't got no end 287 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:25,640 # It's a long, long lane, ain't got no end 288 00:20:26,800 --> 00:20:31,280 # It's a long, long lane It ain't got no end 289 00:20:31,280 --> 00:20:35,160 # It's a bad wind that never change... # 290 00:20:36,720 --> 00:20:40,400 He did all right for himself. They say he owned his own car, he had 291 00:20:40,400 --> 00:20:45,040 his own chauffeur to drive him around. He was a doozy. 292 00:20:46,640 --> 00:20:49,040 That's it. I don't know about ragged. 293 00:20:49,040 --> 00:20:51,200 Some people say he was mighty sophisticated. 294 00:20:51,200 --> 00:20:55,320 Some people say he had some of the wildest suits you ever seen. 295 00:20:57,240 --> 00:21:01,480 # Have you ever heard a coffin sound? 296 00:21:01,480 --> 00:21:06,960 # Have you ever heard a coffin sound? # 297 00:21:06,960 --> 00:21:09,760 The success of Blind Lemon Jefferson gave birth to a new 298 00:21:09,760 --> 00:21:13,320 style of the blues, as if the vagrant with a guitar 299 00:21:13,320 --> 00:21:16,880 heard by WC Handy at the railroad station had come back to life. 300 00:21:16,880 --> 00:21:20,480 But this time he was selling a lot of records. 301 00:21:20,480 --> 00:21:23,880 THEY SING TOGETHER 302 00:21:26,040 --> 00:21:28,760 All over the south, the songsters were auditioning. 303 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:35,280 They were street musicians with a big repertory of songs, 304 00:21:35,280 --> 00:21:38,200 but the record companies wanted just one thing. 305 00:21:38,200 --> 00:21:41,200 The reason these fellows got pressed so hard into the blues is 306 00:21:41,200 --> 00:21:44,920 because the recording companies found out that blues was big 307 00:21:44,920 --> 00:21:49,880 business, so all these musicians who'd run around singing pop 308 00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:54,480 songs and ballads of the day end up writing a bunch of blueses. 309 00:21:54,480 --> 00:21:57,280 HE SINGS 310 00:22:01,520 --> 00:22:03,960 The record company would simply go to the 311 00:22:03,960 --> 00:22:06,960 songsters and they would go to the south, go to Atlanta. 312 00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:09,600 They would just say, "Everybody come who wants to sing for us." 313 00:22:09,600 --> 00:22:12,240 They'd get a hotel, everyone would stay four or five people to 314 00:22:12,240 --> 00:22:15,000 a room, they would go and hear the songs. 315 00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,040 They would pick the blues and nothing else. 316 00:22:26,120 --> 00:22:28,960 There was one region that supplied spectacular blues 317 00:22:28,960 --> 00:22:30,960 talent for this southern market. 318 00:22:30,960 --> 00:22:33,720 The Mississippi Delta was a flat area 319 00:22:33,720 --> 00:22:36,360 formed by the Mississippi and Yazoo rivers. 320 00:22:37,880 --> 00:22:41,520 # I'd rather be the Devil... # 321 00:22:48,520 --> 00:22:50,840 It was amazingly fertile soil for cotton 322 00:22:50,840 --> 00:22:53,440 and it proved equally fertile for music. 323 00:22:56,800 --> 00:22:58,920 But this was no ancient landscape 324 00:22:58,920 --> 00:23:01,920 of big plantations filled with former slaves. 325 00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,960 There was virtually nobody in the Mississippi Delta 326 00:23:04,960 --> 00:23:08,440 until quite late because it was flooded. 327 00:23:08,440 --> 00:23:10,920 They had to build the levees on the Mississippi river. 328 00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:12,960 You needed the army corps of engineers 329 00:23:12,960 --> 00:23:14,880 in order to get the modern Deltas. 330 00:23:19,560 --> 00:23:21,760 And what that meant was the population 331 00:23:21,760 --> 00:23:23,560 that was there at the beginning 332 00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:27,720 of the 20th century when blues was happening was very, very young. 333 00:23:31,120 --> 00:23:34,680 In the Delta everybody was ready to get into the new style, which 334 00:23:34,680 --> 00:23:37,960 was blues, and so it becomes this huge blues centre, 335 00:23:37,960 --> 00:23:41,320 not because it's ancient, but for exactly the opposite reason. 336 00:23:44,560 --> 00:23:47,680 VINTAGE BLUES MUSIC 337 00:24:01,040 --> 00:24:03,600 Will Dockery's farm was hacked out of the wilderness 338 00:24:03,600 --> 00:24:07,640 in the 1890's to become one of the biggest plantations in the Delta. 339 00:24:09,040 --> 00:24:12,800 When Mr Will first got here there were bears and panthers, er, 340 00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:15,320 and the whole place was covered in woods. 341 00:24:15,320 --> 00:24:19,960 And so he set about to clear it, and he needed help, and so that's 342 00:24:19,960 --> 00:24:23,360 how he got so many people to come here cos he realised that these 343 00:24:23,360 --> 00:24:27,120 thousands of acres that he wanted to clear needed lots of helpers. 344 00:24:39,920 --> 00:24:43,840 By 1920, there were more than 2,000 workers living on Dockery. 345 00:24:43,840 --> 00:24:47,280 It was like a small town, a town which needed 346 00:24:47,280 --> 00:24:49,480 entertaining on a Saturday night. 347 00:24:49,480 --> 00:24:51,640 Well, once you had this commissary situation 348 00:24:51,640 --> 00:24:54,440 and people standing out here in front of it being paid on Saturday 349 00:24:54,440 --> 00:24:57,960 afternoon, it was the perfect place for these blues singers to come. 350 00:25:05,000 --> 00:25:09,160 The greatest entertainer based at Dockery was Charlie Patton, 351 00:25:09,160 --> 00:25:11,440 the father of the Delta blues. 352 00:25:11,440 --> 00:25:15,040 Patton sang at the top of his voice. 353 00:25:15,040 --> 00:25:18,000 He liked to clown, throw the guitar behind his head. 354 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:20,560 He liked to talk to people in the audience, 355 00:25:20,560 --> 00:25:23,360 but he was a performer. He was an entertainer. 356 00:25:26,920 --> 00:25:30,560 # She's tryin' to keep it here 357 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:35,760 # My rudder got sucked in 358 00:25:35,760 --> 00:25:39,400 # She's tryin' to keep it here... # 359 00:25:50,640 --> 00:25:54,800 He had a lot of the extremes. He had a lot of the hard lives 360 00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,080 and he had a lot of women. 361 00:25:57,080 --> 00:26:03,280 He played... Every blues man gets a little but he had a lot! 362 00:26:05,360 --> 00:26:11,600 # But I got something to find them something with... # 363 00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:18,800 He had him a rough wife and they lived a rough life, 364 00:26:18,800 --> 00:26:21,800 and that's what killed him in his 40's... 365 00:26:23,680 --> 00:26:25,600 And that's what almost got him killed 366 00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,040 a few times before that, I'd wager! 367 00:26:29,080 --> 00:26:32,760 VINTAGE BLUES RECORDING 368 00:26:39,880 --> 00:26:43,480 The blues singers travelled the south and performed on isolated 369 00:26:43,480 --> 00:26:48,680 plantations, but talent scouts connected them to recording studios. 370 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,360 The most important venue was a furniture store 371 00:26:51,360 --> 00:26:55,560 in Jackson, Mississippi, owned by a white man, HC Speir. 372 00:26:57,200 --> 00:27:00,120 Well, really he's the godfather of Delta blues. 373 00:27:00,120 --> 00:27:04,880 He is to Delta blues and Mississippi blues what Sam Phillips was 374 00:27:04,880 --> 00:27:08,040 to rock and roll with his Sun label in the 1950's. 375 00:27:08,040 --> 00:27:11,800 # Will you kill a man? Yes, I will... # 376 00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:16,440 Gayle Dean Wardlow tracked down HC Speir 377 00:27:16,440 --> 00:27:19,200 and interviewed him before his death. 378 00:27:19,200 --> 00:27:22,680 This is HC Speir, Jackson, Mississippi. 379 00:27:22,680 --> 00:27:28,720 By 1926, I became a talent scout through all the southern states. 380 00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:32,120 Well, he would walk up when he was on the streets 381 00:27:32,120 --> 00:27:34,080 and listen to a musician play. 382 00:27:34,080 --> 00:27:36,560 He was looking for four original songs. 383 00:27:36,560 --> 00:27:39,280 The reason many bluesmen never got recorded is 384 00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:41,680 they didn't have enough original material. 385 00:27:41,680 --> 00:27:45,240 VINTAGE BLUES RECORDING 386 00:27:51,400 --> 00:27:53,840 Speir told tales of drunken blues singers 387 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:57,120 and bootleg liquor that fuelled Saturday night parties. 388 00:27:58,720 --> 00:28:01,480 People came to drink and they came to dance 389 00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:03,600 and they were drinking moonshine. 390 00:28:03,600 --> 00:28:04,840 And, you know, some of this 391 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:08,000 moonshine was made through lead radiators, so I mean it had 392 00:28:08,000 --> 00:28:11,880 a high lead content, but there was always booze to be found at a party. 393 00:28:19,440 --> 00:28:23,480 HC Speir said the bluesman, he said he don't fit. 394 00:28:23,480 --> 00:28:26,560 He said he got to have a drink before he can make a record 395 00:28:26,560 --> 00:28:31,960 and he smells a little bit, but he says they're great guitar players. 396 00:28:35,480 --> 00:28:39,320 He said the Delta blues was kind of like the meat barrel - 397 00:28:39,320 --> 00:28:42,880 it smells a little bit. And someone like Bessie Smith, 398 00:28:42,880 --> 00:28:46,680 the city singers, they had dolled it up and put perfume on their blues. 399 00:28:57,040 --> 00:28:59,920 Speir got a letter from Charlie Patton in the Delta 400 00:28:59,920 --> 00:29:03,160 and basically Patton said, "I think I'm as good as anyone who's 401 00:29:03,160 --> 00:29:06,040 "been recorded and I would like to audition for you." 402 00:29:07,400 --> 00:29:09,960 Speir got Patton a record contract. 403 00:29:09,960 --> 00:29:13,760 Patton was good. Patton was one of the best talents I ever had 404 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,240 and he was one of the best sellers, too, on record. 405 00:29:17,440 --> 00:29:19,320 His records made him famous 406 00:29:19,320 --> 00:29:22,480 and he passed on his tips to the next generation. 407 00:29:22,480 --> 00:29:26,080 I done started to make records, I was ploughing, 408 00:29:26,080 --> 00:29:29,240 ploughing on the plantation, 409 00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:34,240 and a man come through picking the guitar called Charlie Patton, 410 00:29:34,240 --> 00:29:36,720 and I liked his sounds. 411 00:29:36,720 --> 00:29:40,080 And so, every night that I'd get off of work, 412 00:29:40,080 --> 00:29:44,000 I'd go to his house and he'd learn me how to pick the guitar, 413 00:29:44,000 --> 00:29:46,200 so I got good with it. 414 00:29:47,720 --> 00:29:51,160 For the musicians who started life on these plantations, 415 00:29:51,160 --> 00:29:54,520 Howlin' Wolf, Muddy Waters, BB King and many more, 416 00:29:54,520 --> 00:29:56,960 the blues offered a way out. 417 00:29:56,960 --> 00:30:00,480 Excuse me. These guys never picked cotton in their life, 418 00:30:00,480 --> 00:30:03,320 that's why they're playing the blues, you know, 419 00:30:03,320 --> 00:30:06,240 to get out of the cotton fields, they were playing. 420 00:30:07,480 --> 00:30:10,360 The black families working in these cotton fields were share 421 00:30:10,360 --> 00:30:14,680 croppers and for many, it was a modernised form of slavery. 422 00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:27,320 # Cos it's harder than ever been before... # 423 00:30:28,880 --> 00:30:31,800 Mississippi was the poorest state in the Union. 424 00:30:31,800 --> 00:30:36,640 Segregation was total and the white man's word was the rule of law. 425 00:30:37,880 --> 00:30:40,520 A white shop keeper like HC Speir 426 00:30:40,520 --> 00:30:44,560 understood why this was fertile soil for the blues. 427 00:30:44,560 --> 00:30:46,120 You take the Negro. 428 00:30:46,120 --> 00:30:51,320 For 100 years, he's been deprived of so many privileges. 429 00:30:51,320 --> 00:30:56,360 They could get into the fields and become more satisfied with themselves 430 00:30:56,360 --> 00:30:58,000 by singing, you understand. 431 00:30:58,000 --> 00:31:02,120 It was singing off something that has happened to them. 432 00:31:02,120 --> 00:31:06,200 A white man would take him and keep him for a week or two and not pay 433 00:31:06,200 --> 00:31:09,760 him anything, and even maybe kill one or two now and then. 434 00:31:09,760 --> 00:31:12,240 BELL TOLLS 435 00:31:15,080 --> 00:31:18,000 It isn't what we hear. It's what we don't hear. 436 00:31:18,000 --> 00:31:21,800 What we don't hear in the blues is the real reason for the blues - 437 00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:24,280 the segregation and the discrimination. 438 00:31:24,280 --> 00:31:27,000 The control was total. 439 00:31:27,000 --> 00:31:31,680 # Sing this song and I ain't gonna sing no more... # 440 00:31:32,840 --> 00:31:38,040 Well, to me, the blues is the expression where a people 441 00:31:38,040 --> 00:31:40,600 couldn't express themselves. 442 00:31:40,600 --> 00:31:44,280 Those riffs and those songs came off of the expression of not being 443 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:48,560 able to say to their slave master vocally that "I don't like this". 444 00:31:50,840 --> 00:31:54,760 # Down 61 Highway 445 00:31:54,760 --> 00:31:58,000 # It be the only road I know... # 446 00:31:59,040 --> 00:32:02,720 What is the cause of we being on the Highway 61? 447 00:32:02,720 --> 00:32:08,000 129 women and children here starving 448 00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:13,560 and suffering, but we, who have the bite, are dividing with them. 449 00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:21,440 Thousands of black people began to vote with their feet, 450 00:32:21,440 --> 00:32:25,160 leaving poverty in the south for jobs in the north. 451 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:28,480 Their numbers were boosted by the Wall Street crash in 1929 452 00:32:28,480 --> 00:32:30,600 and the depression that followed. 453 00:32:32,320 --> 00:32:35,600 It signalled hard times for the music industry. 454 00:32:35,600 --> 00:32:39,160 Sales of records slumped and the blues recording sessions dried up. 455 00:32:39,160 --> 00:32:42,920 # Lordy, some folks sat down 456 00:32:42,920 --> 00:32:46,600 # Greyhound busses don't run. # 457 00:32:47,840 --> 00:32:51,520 Delta bluesmen like Son House and Skip James 458 00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,920 made records that were commercial flops. 459 00:32:53,920 --> 00:32:56,240 # I'm so tired of here 460 00:32:56,240 --> 00:32:57,800 # So tired of New Orleans 461 00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:00,120 # I'm so tired of... # 462 00:33:00,120 --> 00:33:02,680 Their music would lie buried like a time capsule. 463 00:33:07,200 --> 00:33:10,080 But in the 1960's, they would be rediscovered 464 00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,880 and acclaimed as masters of the Delta blues by a young white 465 00:33:13,880 --> 00:33:17,560 audience who adopted the blues as their own. 466 00:33:17,560 --> 00:33:21,840 # If that don't settle my drunken spree 467 00:33:21,840 --> 00:33:25,160 # I'll never get drunk again... # 468 00:33:25,160 --> 00:33:27,600 The path that led these young white people to the 469 00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:31,400 blues began with a new kind of record scout driving south - 470 00:33:31,400 --> 00:33:32,720 the folklorist. 471 00:33:32,720 --> 00:33:36,640 # Be my woman, girl, I'll 472 00:33:36,640 --> 00:33:39,480 # Be your man... 473 00:33:39,480 --> 00:33:41,560 # Be my woman... # 474 00:33:41,560 --> 00:33:44,760 The only white people so far involved in the blues had 475 00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,360 been record manufacturers looking for hits. 476 00:33:49,320 --> 00:33:52,960 But the folklorists were looking for music they wanted to preserve. 477 00:33:56,000 --> 00:33:58,240 THEY SING 478 00:33:58,240 --> 00:34:00,680 John Lomax had grown up in Texas 479 00:34:00,680 --> 00:34:04,320 and had a long-standing love of folk music. 480 00:34:04,320 --> 00:34:08,400 # His wife and his sister too... # 481 00:34:08,400 --> 00:34:12,360 In 1933, he and his son, Alan, received a grant 482 00:34:12,360 --> 00:34:15,600 from the Library of Congress to motor through the south, 483 00:34:15,600 --> 00:34:19,000 visiting big penitentiaries to make recordings. 484 00:34:19,000 --> 00:34:24,640 My son and I conceived the idea this summer that the best way 485 00:34:24,640 --> 00:34:28,560 to get real Negro singing in the Negro idiom was to find 486 00:34:28,560 --> 00:34:32,560 the Negro who had the least contact with the whites. 487 00:34:32,560 --> 00:34:35,480 People have written that my grandfather 488 00:34:35,480 --> 00:34:38,840 was obsessed with the prisons 489 00:34:38,840 --> 00:34:41,840 and he wanted to capture something isolated. 490 00:34:41,840 --> 00:34:44,760 But he wanted to find the oldest material, 491 00:34:44,760 --> 00:34:47,480 which is a very important thing to do. 492 00:34:47,480 --> 00:34:51,520 It's like archaeology. It was very scientific. 493 00:34:51,520 --> 00:34:54,280 THEY SING 494 00:35:03,840 --> 00:35:07,600 Prisons in the south were huge farms, which were run for profit. 495 00:35:14,000 --> 00:35:16,160 I think you could almost call it 496 00:35:16,160 --> 00:35:19,280 an extension of slavery in the 20th century. 497 00:35:19,280 --> 00:35:23,840 And the men had to work from sun up to sun down what they called 498 00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:25,160 "from cane to caint", 499 00:35:25,160 --> 00:35:27,960 from when you can't see in the morning until when you 500 00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:32,560 can't see in the night. You know, the whole of the day in unbearable heat. 501 00:35:32,560 --> 00:35:36,080 ALL SING TOGETHER 502 00:35:45,520 --> 00:35:49,000 The music sung by black prisoners inspired an extraordinary 503 00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,360 passion in the young Alan Lomax. 504 00:35:51,360 --> 00:35:54,200 He would spend the rest of his life recording music 505 00:35:54,200 --> 00:35:58,000 created by people at the bottom of society. 506 00:35:58,000 --> 00:36:01,680 I had heard all the symphonies there were, 507 00:36:01,680 --> 00:36:04,160 and the chamber music and the best jazz, 508 00:36:04,160 --> 00:36:07,720 and I said, "This is the greatest music." 509 00:36:07,720 --> 00:36:12,280 There were 50 black men, who were working under the whip and the gun, 510 00:36:12,280 --> 00:36:17,080 and they had the soul to make the most wonderful song I'd ever heard. 511 00:36:21,400 --> 00:36:25,240 The most spectacular discovery the Lomaxes made in jail was 512 00:36:25,240 --> 00:36:30,120 a 45-year-old prisoner, Huddie Ledbetter, known as Lead Belly. 513 00:36:30,120 --> 00:36:33,360 HE SINGS SOMBRELY 514 00:36:37,440 --> 00:36:39,240 He was a convicted murderer 515 00:36:39,240 --> 00:36:42,760 and had a fantastic repertory of blues and ballads. 516 00:36:44,600 --> 00:36:46,960 # Take this hammer 517 00:36:46,960 --> 00:36:48,320 # Haaa! 518 00:36:48,320 --> 00:36:50,400 # If he asks you 519 00:36:50,400 --> 00:36:51,800 # Haaa... # 520 00:36:56,240 --> 00:36:58,720 He had a big, penetrating voice. 521 00:36:58,720 --> 00:37:03,840 He was a dynamic presence, almost frightening to some people. 522 00:37:03,840 --> 00:37:05,800 He was, in one sense, a great performer, 523 00:37:05,800 --> 00:37:07,760 you knew it from the second you saw him. 524 00:37:07,760 --> 00:37:10,800 But another way you thought, "This guy is beyond performance." 525 00:37:10,800 --> 00:37:17,680 # My girl, my girl, don't lie to me 526 00:37:17,680 --> 00:37:22,800 # Tell me where did you sleep last night. # 527 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:26,360 When Lead Belly got out of jail and met the media it became 528 00:37:26,360 --> 00:37:30,760 clear how much American journalists enjoyed writing about bad black men. 529 00:37:30,760 --> 00:37:33,160 Life Magazine published a profile, 530 00:37:33,160 --> 00:37:36,200 "Bad Nigger Makes Good Minstrel". 531 00:37:36,200 --> 00:37:38,720 He was called a "Murderous Minstrel", 532 00:37:38,720 --> 00:37:40,480 a "Sweet singer of the swamplands 533 00:37:40,480 --> 00:37:44,360 "here to do a few tunes between homicides". 534 00:37:44,360 --> 00:37:48,560 # I'm going where the cold wind blows... # 535 00:37:50,520 --> 00:37:52,800 This narrative had been shaped by reporters 536 00:37:52,800 --> 00:37:56,480 and the like who wanted to see, number one, a murderer who was 537 00:37:56,480 --> 00:37:59,120 out walking around and a murderer who sang songs that people 538 00:37:59,120 --> 00:38:01,480 enjoyed, which was, you know, it's priceless. 539 00:38:01,480 --> 00:38:07,720 # My girl, my girl Don't you lie to me... # 540 00:38:07,720 --> 00:38:12,920 In February, 1935, John Lomax took Lead Belly to a mansion 541 00:38:12,920 --> 00:38:17,200 in Connecticut where a newsreel crew staged and filmed a re-construction 542 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:21,920 of Lead Belly's journey from singing convict to grateful performer. 543 00:38:21,920 --> 00:38:24,360 Lead Belly, what are you doing here? 544 00:38:24,360 --> 00:38:26,360 Boss, I've come here to be your man. 545 00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,120 I've come here to work for you the rest of my life. 546 00:38:29,120 --> 00:38:34,840 It is scripted in kind of cringing detail to 547 00:38:34,840 --> 00:38:39,200 show Lead Belly as a servile, 548 00:38:39,200 --> 00:38:42,280 compliant... 549 00:38:42,280 --> 00:38:45,240 plantation negro 550 00:38:45,240 --> 00:38:50,800 who John Lomax shepherds out of confinement. 551 00:38:50,800 --> 00:38:52,840 Thank you sir, boss. 552 00:38:52,840 --> 00:38:55,000 I'll drive you all over the United States. 553 00:38:55,000 --> 00:38:57,080 I'll tie your shoestrings for you 554 00:38:57,080 --> 00:38:59,360 and you won't have to tie your shoestrings 555 00:38:59,360 --> 00:39:00,720 as long as I work for you. 556 00:39:00,720 --> 00:39:03,280 Later, John Lomax was embarrassed by this newsreel, 557 00:39:03,280 --> 00:39:05,920 while Lead Belly was angry because he didn't get paid. 558 00:39:06,920 --> 00:39:08,760 Thank you, sir boss. Thank you, sir. 559 00:39:08,760 --> 00:39:11,760 Despite growing tension between them, Lead Belly performed 560 00:39:11,760 --> 00:39:15,240 with Lomax at Harvard University and literary conferences. 561 00:39:16,720 --> 00:39:21,240 He got a new audience that was unexpected 562 00:39:21,240 --> 00:39:26,160 and that was educated, middle class whites who were very liberal. 563 00:39:26,160 --> 00:39:29,280 He didn't really have an audience among blacks. 564 00:39:32,160 --> 00:39:35,520 Lead Belly was never a success with black audiences, and white society 565 00:39:35,520 --> 00:39:39,880 saw him as wild-eyed and dangerous, an embodiment of his race. 566 00:39:39,880 --> 00:39:43,800 However Lead Belly did find support in left wing circles. 567 00:39:43,800 --> 00:39:47,840 We do not preach the sure hope of socialism in the lives 568 00:39:47,840 --> 00:39:50,680 of these young comrades of ours... 569 00:39:51,880 --> 00:39:54,680 As the blues entered white liberal society, 570 00:39:54,680 --> 00:39:57,520 the music could now be heard in the context of civil rights. 571 00:39:58,520 --> 00:40:00,720 The blues were getting political. 572 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:04,920 # I want all the coloured people to listen to me 573 00:40:04,920 --> 00:40:07,360 # Don't ever try to get a home in Washington DC 574 00:40:07,360 --> 00:40:09,800 # Cos it's a bourgeois town 575 00:40:09,800 --> 00:40:11,800 # Oooh, it's a bourgeois town 576 00:40:13,720 --> 00:40:17,800 # I got the bourgeois blues and I'm sure gonna spread the news... # 577 00:40:17,800 --> 00:40:20,840 The only support for blacks in the south 578 00:40:20,840 --> 00:40:25,800 in the '30s was the Communist Party, so there was a great symbiosis 579 00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,360 between the communists and this black. 580 00:40:28,360 --> 00:40:31,840 And in 1936, a meeting of the American Communist Party, they did 581 00:40:31,840 --> 00:40:38,200 officially recognise the blues as the voice of the proletarian black. 582 00:40:38,200 --> 00:40:40,480 UPBEAT BLUES MUSIC 583 00:40:46,400 --> 00:40:50,680 But proletarian black record buyers were dancing to a different beat. 584 00:40:50,680 --> 00:40:54,240 The blues records that dominated the Harlem hit parade of the 1930's 585 00:40:54,240 --> 00:40:56,680 were by the Count Basie Orchestra. 586 00:40:56,680 --> 00:41:00,520 # Don't the moon look lonesome shining through the trees? 587 00:41:02,040 --> 00:41:07,760 # Don't the moon look lonesome shining through the trees? 588 00:41:07,760 --> 00:41:13,200 # Don't your house look lonesome when your baby pack up to leave? # 589 00:41:13,200 --> 00:41:16,240 You say to dance you must have a beat. 590 00:41:16,240 --> 00:41:19,240 Every beat you put your foot down on a beat 591 00:41:19,240 --> 00:41:21,520 and that's what Basie does for you. 592 00:41:21,520 --> 00:41:25,680 You can dance to Basie, it don't matter what he plays, any sound. 593 00:41:25,680 --> 00:41:29,760 And that's why dah-dah, 594 00:41:29,760 --> 00:41:31,800 dah-dah, dah-dah... 595 00:41:31,800 --> 00:41:33,920 That's so pronounced you can't miss it! 596 00:41:35,520 --> 00:41:38,960 # You can't love me, baby, and treat me that way... # 597 00:41:41,000 --> 00:41:44,000 Count Basie's band combined the blues sound of Bessie Smith 598 00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,600 with the latest developments in swing. 599 00:41:46,600 --> 00:41:49,320 It was a very successful formula. 600 00:41:49,320 --> 00:41:53,160 He took an eight-bar phrase, made it a 12-bar phrase 601 00:41:53,160 --> 00:41:55,840 and now you got the blues. 602 00:41:55,840 --> 00:41:59,440 And he had 16 guys who can shout it. 603 00:41:59,440 --> 00:42:01,480 Oh, God, they were great! 604 00:42:01,480 --> 00:42:03,960 # In the evening 605 00:42:03,960 --> 00:42:08,200 # In the evening 606 00:42:08,200 --> 00:42:11,840 # Mama, when the sun goes down... # 607 00:42:11,840 --> 00:42:14,320 The blues singers were getting more sophisticated. 608 00:42:14,320 --> 00:42:16,320 The new style of blues crooners, 609 00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,600 like Leroy Carr, were no longer shouting the blues. 610 00:42:19,600 --> 00:42:23,160 We have electrical recording - simple as that. 611 00:42:23,160 --> 00:42:27,360 You didn't need to shout, so these singers could be more intimate. 612 00:42:27,360 --> 00:42:31,640 There's another innovation comes at the same time - radio. 613 00:42:31,640 --> 00:42:33,800 So, an intimate voice, 614 00:42:33,800 --> 00:42:38,320 singing softly in a radio late at night - irresistible. 615 00:42:38,320 --> 00:42:42,120 # Well, it's hard to tell Hard to tell 616 00:42:42,120 --> 00:42:44,840 # Which one will treat you the best 617 00:42:44,840 --> 00:42:48,200 # When the sun goes down... # 618 00:42:48,200 --> 00:42:51,800 This melody was not lost on a young man in Mississippi. 619 00:42:51,800 --> 00:42:55,400 # Well, it's hard to tell It's hard to tell 620 00:42:55,400 --> 00:42:58,600 # When all your love's in vain 621 00:42:58,600 --> 00:43:01,880 # All your love's in vain... # 622 00:43:01,880 --> 00:43:05,600 In 1936, a 25-year-old walked into HC Speir's 623 00:43:05,600 --> 00:43:10,440 store in Jackson, Mississippi - his name was Robert Johnson. 624 00:43:10,440 --> 00:43:12,200 He had a bunch of songs 625 00:43:12,200 --> 00:43:14,880 and he wanted an audition to make some records. 626 00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,760 # Well, I felt lonesome I was lonesome 627 00:43:17,760 --> 00:43:21,600 # And I could not help but cry 628 00:43:21,600 --> 00:43:23,840 # All my love's in vain... # 629 00:43:23,840 --> 00:43:27,760 Robert Johnson really used his ears and he listened to everything 630 00:43:27,760 --> 00:43:29,680 that was going on around him. 631 00:43:29,680 --> 00:43:32,240 And he took in everything that was 632 00:43:32,240 --> 00:43:35,160 goin' on around him, all the popular musicians, 633 00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,840 he took them off other instruments and arranged them for his instrument. 634 00:43:39,840 --> 00:43:44,920 He's the first person we have from the blues world who had heard 635 00:43:44,920 --> 00:43:48,320 all the blues records and, as a result, 636 00:43:48,320 --> 00:43:52,800 he's the first person who doesn't just play a style from his place. 637 00:43:52,800 --> 00:43:57,560 He's like already this compendium of the greatest blues 638 00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:01,680 styles of the '20s and early '30s, and he's putting it all together. 639 00:44:07,760 --> 00:44:10,760 # I woke up this morning 640 00:44:10,760 --> 00:44:14,360 # Looking round for my shoes... # 641 00:44:14,360 --> 00:44:18,800 In his short lifetime, Robert Johnson recorded 29 songs. 642 00:44:18,800 --> 00:44:21,560 He remained almost totally unknown. 643 00:44:24,520 --> 00:44:27,400 But beginning in the 1960's, Johnson's songs would see him 644 00:44:27,400 --> 00:44:31,880 acclaimed as, "King of the Delta Blues Singers". 645 00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:36,160 # I got these old walking blues... # 646 00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:41,480 I think he brought the idea of writing them yourself 647 00:44:41,480 --> 00:44:45,280 and playing them yourself to a new peak, you know, where it 648 00:44:45,280 --> 00:44:49,280 became important that you were actually singing your own songs. 649 00:44:52,320 --> 00:44:54,960 # I've been mistreated 650 00:44:54,960 --> 00:44:58,200 # And I don't mind dying 651 00:45:01,400 --> 00:45:02,840 # Well... # 652 00:45:02,840 --> 00:45:05,320 His guitar playing is on the virtuoso scale. 653 00:45:05,320 --> 00:45:08,600 This is... You're listening to an orchestra. 654 00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:11,880 You're not listening to one guy - this is impossible. 655 00:45:28,080 --> 00:45:32,480 In New York City, Robert Johnson had one very important fan. 656 00:45:35,800 --> 00:45:39,440 John Hammond was a record producer from a wealthy background who 657 00:45:39,440 --> 00:45:41,400 combined left wing politics, 658 00:45:41,400 --> 00:45:45,160 man-about-town sophistication with a very discerning ear. 659 00:45:47,240 --> 00:45:52,120 He discovered and encouraged Count Basie, Billie Holiday and Bob Dylan. 660 00:45:54,400 --> 00:45:57,440 Hammond described Johnson as "the greatest Negro blues singer 661 00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,120 "who has cropped up in recent years", in a Communist magazine. 662 00:46:01,120 --> 00:46:04,720 He asked the magazine to sponsor a concert he was planning, 663 00:46:04,720 --> 00:46:08,360 which would showcase the rich heritage of black music. 664 00:46:10,200 --> 00:46:13,520 I'm sure John had never bothered to join anything, 665 00:46:13,520 --> 00:46:17,600 but he didn't mind contributing to the Communist Party 666 00:46:17,600 --> 00:46:21,560 if they would help make it possible to have this concert. 667 00:46:24,240 --> 00:46:27,240 Hammond sent scouts down south to locate Robert Johnson, 668 00:46:27,240 --> 00:46:29,760 but they returned with the news that Johnson had died 669 00:46:29,760 --> 00:46:31,760 in mysterious circumstances. 670 00:46:35,280 --> 00:46:37,560 Nevertheless, the show went on. 671 00:46:42,400 --> 00:46:46,600 In December of 1938, John Hammond put on a concert here at 672 00:46:46,600 --> 00:46:51,040 Carnegie Hall, the most prestigious classical music venue in New York. 673 00:46:51,040 --> 00:46:53,520 He called it, From Spirituals to Swing 674 00:46:53,520 --> 00:46:56,080 and the idea was that he was taking swing music, 675 00:46:56,080 --> 00:47:01,000 which everyone knew as a pop music, and trying to show its depth, 676 00:47:01,000 --> 00:47:05,800 put it in context of spirituals, of blues, of African music, 677 00:47:05,800 --> 00:47:08,560 and suggest that this was serious art. 678 00:47:08,560 --> 00:47:11,480 This was something they should take with the same seriousness 679 00:47:11,480 --> 00:47:13,600 as European classical music. 680 00:47:15,000 --> 00:47:17,480 UPTEMPO BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 681 00:47:26,320 --> 00:47:29,240 Hammond began the show by playing two Robert Johnson records. 682 00:47:37,920 --> 00:47:41,240 Then, as a substitute, he brought on another blues singer - 683 00:47:41,240 --> 00:47:42,640 Big Bill Broonzy. 684 00:47:42,640 --> 00:47:46,040 # Way down yonder in New Orleans 685 00:47:46,040 --> 00:47:49,280 # Looking for a girl that I had never seen... # 686 00:47:51,080 --> 00:47:53,200 Broonzy was based in Chicago. 687 00:47:53,200 --> 00:47:56,680 He had released over 100 records under his own name. 688 00:47:56,680 --> 00:48:00,160 He wore sharp suits and played the latest musical styles, 689 00:48:00,160 --> 00:48:03,280 but because Hammond was in love with the idea the blues came from the 690 00:48:03,280 --> 00:48:07,480 primitive countryside, he presented Broonzy as a simple farmhand. 691 00:48:11,840 --> 00:48:14,960 Hammond wrote, "Big Bill Broonzy was prevailed 692 00:48:14,960 --> 00:48:18,040 "upon to leave his Arkansas farm and mule, 693 00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,760 "and make his very first trek to the big city to 694 00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,600 "appear before a predominantly white audience." 695 00:48:25,000 --> 00:48:28,840 He was completely a Chicago musician, 696 00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:34,840 but his job in that concert was to represent the rural blues, 697 00:48:34,840 --> 00:48:37,000 and so they turned him into that. 698 00:48:37,000 --> 00:48:40,640 And Big Bill Broonzy was no fool and realised that that was a good 699 00:48:40,640 --> 00:48:46,840 part to play and kept playing it in New York, in London, in Paris. 700 00:48:46,840 --> 00:48:50,520 # I got the key to the highway 701 00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:55,600 # And I'm bound to go... # 702 00:48:55,600 --> 00:48:57,320 # Hey 703 00:48:57,320 --> 00:48:59,560 # Hey-hey 704 00:48:59,560 --> 00:49:02,520 # Hey, Lord, Lordy, Lord 705 00:49:02,520 --> 00:49:05,440 # Hey, Lord, Lord, Lord... # 706 00:49:06,840 --> 00:49:08,880 The blues was being re-defined. 707 00:49:08,880 --> 00:49:11,760 It was no longer just black pop music. 708 00:49:11,760 --> 00:49:16,520 It was now folk art from the era before records and radio. 709 00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,960 Its new middle class white audience heard the blues as music 710 00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:22,560 endangered by the modern world. 711 00:49:22,560 --> 00:49:26,360 ARCHIVE: Musicians and sociologists can now study American folk songs 712 00:49:26,360 --> 00:49:29,960 that have never been transcribed and would otherwise be lost 713 00:49:29,960 --> 00:49:33,040 if the Library officials did not go into the field to record 714 00:49:33,040 --> 00:49:35,160 unknown primitive singers. 715 00:49:36,880 --> 00:49:42,400 In 1941, John Lomax's son, Alan, was at the Archive of Folk Song 716 00:49:42,400 --> 00:49:46,040 at the Library of Congress and he was heading back into the field. 717 00:49:46,040 --> 00:49:48,920 # It ain't what you do It's the way that you do it 718 00:49:48,920 --> 00:49:51,880 # It ain't what you do It's the way that you do it 719 00:49:51,880 --> 00:49:55,280 # It ain't what you do It's the way that you do it 720 00:49:55,280 --> 00:49:57,520 # That's what gets results... # 721 00:49:57,520 --> 00:50:00,240 Working with a team of black academics, Lomax set out to 722 00:50:00,240 --> 00:50:03,840 examine every aspect of music in the Mississippi Delta. 723 00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:09,000 They visited juke joints to discover what the locals were listening to. 724 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:12,280 It wasn't Robert Johnson's blues but recordings by urban, 725 00:50:12,280 --> 00:50:14,080 black hit makers. 726 00:50:15,720 --> 00:50:18,240 In Lomax's notes there's a wonderful 727 00:50:18,240 --> 00:50:23,480 account of late one night he's wandering around, 728 00:50:23,480 --> 00:50:25,640 stumbles across 729 00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:30,160 a juke joint on the edge of a cotton field and opens the door to find the 730 00:50:30,160 --> 00:50:35,880 whole place lit up and everybody in there jitterbugging to Fats Waller. 731 00:50:35,880 --> 00:50:38,920 # It ain't what you do It's the way that you do it 732 00:50:38,920 --> 00:50:42,880 # It ain't what you play It's the way that you play it... # 733 00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:44,920 This could have been any place. 734 00:50:47,920 --> 00:50:51,680 In his field trip through the Delta, Lomax recorded one man who 735 00:50:51,680 --> 00:50:56,920 was to become a blues legend - a 28-year-old tractor driver, 736 00:50:56,920 --> 00:51:00,040 McKinley Morganfield, also known as Muddy Waters. 737 00:51:06,200 --> 00:51:08,360 # Like blowing my horn 738 00:51:08,360 --> 00:51:14,360 # I woke up this morning and found my little baby gone... # 739 00:51:14,360 --> 00:51:19,240 Muddy Waters had a profitable sideline distilling illegal liquor, 740 00:51:19,240 --> 00:51:22,920 so he was suspicious of this white man and his recording equipment. 741 00:51:22,920 --> 00:51:27,560 Muddy thinks that Alan Lomax is going to bust Muddy for bootlegging 742 00:51:27,560 --> 00:51:31,360 moonshine and so Muddy doesn't trust this guy as far as he can throw him. 743 00:51:31,360 --> 00:51:35,840 The way Alan Lomax wins Muddy's trust is Alan, white, 744 00:51:35,840 --> 00:51:39,640 drinks out of the cup that Muddy has just had a sip out of, 745 00:51:39,640 --> 00:51:44,400 and Muddy thinks, "Oh, my God. Even the revenue agent wouldn't 746 00:51:44,400 --> 00:51:47,080 "drink after a black man. This guy must be serious." 747 00:51:47,080 --> 00:51:49,880 I want to know the facts, 748 00:51:49,880 --> 00:51:52,600 how you felt and why you felt the way you did. 749 00:51:52,600 --> 00:51:54,600 That's a very beautiful song. 750 00:51:54,600 --> 00:51:59,920 Well, I just felt blue and the song fell into my mind, 751 00:51:59,920 --> 00:52:03,760 and it came to me and I start to singing and went on. 752 00:52:03,760 --> 00:52:06,720 # I feel mistreated, girl, you know now 753 00:52:06,720 --> 00:52:09,760 # I don't mind dying... 754 00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:22,480 # Yeah I've been mistreated, baby, now 755 00:52:22,480 --> 00:52:25,200 # And I don't mind dying... # 756 00:52:30,280 --> 00:52:33,360 Alan Lomax would return to the blues all his life, 757 00:52:33,360 --> 00:52:38,200 but he had an uneasy relationship with its commercial popularity. 758 00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:40,040 He always felt, of course, that it was 759 00:52:40,040 --> 00:52:42,760 the music of the people who were singing it. 760 00:52:42,760 --> 00:52:45,720 It wasn't an industrial music, it wasn't big business music, 761 00:52:45,720 --> 00:52:48,720 it was actual music that had come from the hearts of people, 762 00:52:48,720 --> 00:52:50,200 and from the lives they lived. 763 00:52:51,240 --> 00:52:54,560 Alan did not see the blues as a commercial form of music. 764 00:52:54,560 --> 00:52:56,880 He was more interested in documenting, 765 00:52:56,880 --> 00:53:00,880 like, the country-style blues, the early proto blues 766 00:53:00,880 --> 00:53:04,040 and field hollers and those sorts of things. 767 00:53:17,560 --> 00:53:21,000 At the same time that Alan Lomax was recording Muddy Waters, 768 00:53:21,000 --> 00:53:23,840 new media were reaching the Delta. 769 00:53:23,840 --> 00:53:25,640 The first blues radio programme 770 00:53:25,640 --> 00:53:28,080 began to broadcast from Helena, Arkansas, 771 00:53:28,080 --> 00:53:31,640 and they publicised themselves with a touring road show. 772 00:53:31,640 --> 00:53:34,360 UPTEMPO BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 773 00:53:40,640 --> 00:53:42,640 # Ain't that a pity? 774 00:53:42,640 --> 00:53:45,600 # I declare it's a crying shame... # 775 00:53:45,600 --> 00:53:50,160 It starts out light as air, white as snow, that's world famous King 776 00:53:50,160 --> 00:53:53,520 Biscuit Flour, the perfect flour for all your baking needs. 777 00:53:55,560 --> 00:53:59,280 King Biscuit Time was sponsored by a local flour manufacturer. 778 00:53:59,280 --> 00:54:00,920 Aimed at black listeners, 779 00:54:00,920 --> 00:54:03,800 its broadcasts were timed to catch the workers at lunchtime 780 00:54:03,800 --> 00:54:07,000 on the plantations, including Muddy Waters. 781 00:54:09,000 --> 00:54:14,040 Muddy used to hear the show on the air every day at 12.15 782 00:54:14,040 --> 00:54:18,440 and Muddy was out on the farmland listening to the show... 783 00:54:18,440 --> 00:54:21,320 and as so many others were. 784 00:54:21,320 --> 00:54:23,520 That's how they knew about it. 785 00:54:23,520 --> 00:54:27,520 They said, "They should hear our kind of blues. We're the blues artists." 786 00:54:27,520 --> 00:54:31,240 UPTEMPO BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 787 00:54:44,200 --> 00:54:47,000 Muddy Waters was beginning to get gigs at the juke joints 788 00:54:47,000 --> 00:54:48,480 in the Delta. 789 00:54:48,480 --> 00:54:53,360 The Blue Front Cafe started in the 1940's in Bentonia, Mississippi. 790 00:54:55,560 --> 00:54:58,240 SASSY BLUES MUSIC PLAYS 791 00:55:13,960 --> 00:55:18,440 Juke joint music, drinking, gambling, eating... 792 00:55:18,440 --> 00:55:20,200 I mean, you name it. 793 00:55:20,200 --> 00:55:25,360 You'd have people come by, they'd have a harmonica in their pocket, 794 00:55:25,360 --> 00:55:29,000 a guitar strapped across their back and they would play solo. 795 00:55:29,000 --> 00:55:31,880 Set a cap or a bucket down in front of them, 796 00:55:31,880 --> 00:55:34,200 and some of them would contribute, nickels, dimes, 797 00:55:34,200 --> 00:55:36,880 pennies or whatever, and they'd play for that. 798 00:55:36,880 --> 00:55:38,720 SASSY BLUES CONTINUES 799 00:55:56,000 --> 00:55:57,960 CROWD CHEERING 800 00:56:02,800 --> 00:56:05,640 But blacks were leaving the south in large numbers, 801 00:56:05,640 --> 00:56:09,440 pushed off the land by new machines on the plantations, and pulled 802 00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:13,520 towards the north especially Chicago by jobs in the factories. 803 00:56:15,880 --> 00:56:18,600 The motivation for Muddy Waters to put on his best suit, 804 00:56:18,600 --> 00:56:21,760 have his picture taken and leave Mississippi 805 00:56:21,760 --> 00:56:24,520 arrived in the shape of a record sent by Alan Lomax. 806 00:56:27,520 --> 00:56:30,000 In an evening at the White House devoted to celebrating 807 00:56:30,000 --> 00:56:35,320 the blues, America's first black President focused on that moment. 808 00:56:35,320 --> 00:56:40,440 Lomax sent Muddy two pressings from their sessions 809 00:56:40,440 --> 00:56:43,240 together along with a cheque for 20. 810 00:56:44,240 --> 00:56:47,480 Later in his life, Muddy recalled what happened next. 811 00:56:47,480 --> 00:56:50,640 He said, "I carried that record up to the corner 812 00:56:50,640 --> 00:56:53,520 "and I put it on the juke box. 813 00:56:53,520 --> 00:56:58,960 "Just played it and played it and said, 'I can do it. 'I can do it.'" 814 00:57:00,400 --> 00:57:04,960 In many way, that right there is the story of the blues. 815 00:57:04,960 --> 00:57:08,240 # Well, I feel... # 816 00:57:09,360 --> 00:57:15,120 Heading for Chicago, Muddy caught the train out of the Delta in 1943. 817 00:57:21,040 --> 00:57:24,280 # Well, babe, I just can't be satisfied 818 00:57:24,280 --> 00:57:26,240 # And I just... # 819 00:57:28,960 --> 00:57:30,840 The trains were segregated. 820 00:57:30,840 --> 00:57:33,680 Black Americans rode in carriages at the back 821 00:57:33,680 --> 00:57:35,880 and the journey itself was an education. 822 00:57:38,000 --> 00:57:41,040 They had a coloured car and a regular car. 823 00:57:41,040 --> 00:57:43,120 One thing I always remember in the coloured car, 824 00:57:43,120 --> 00:57:46,000 they left the windows open, so you'd go through the tunnels, you'd 825 00:57:46,000 --> 00:57:48,520 get all that stuff in your face. 826 00:57:51,080 --> 00:57:54,280 In terms of learning about 827 00:57:54,280 --> 00:57:57,680 the real history of this country, 828 00:57:57,680 --> 00:58:02,440 you know, nothing is sharper than that teaching. 829 00:58:02,440 --> 00:58:05,240 # Well, I know my little old baby 830 00:58:05,240 --> 00:58:07,480 # She gonna jump and shout 831 00:58:07,480 --> 00:58:10,880 # That old train be late, man, and... # 832 00:58:10,880 --> 00:58:14,160 In Chicago, Muddy plugged his guitar into electricity. 833 00:58:14,160 --> 00:58:15,760 The music made by Muddy 834 00:58:15,760 --> 00:58:19,480 and other musicians from the south didn't just change Chicago - 835 00:58:19,480 --> 00:58:21,120 it changed the world. 836 00:58:29,720 --> 00:58:32,760 Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd72522

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