Martin Scorsese Presents the Blues - Feels Like Going Home (2003)

Certainly not a definitive history of the blues.......

Feels Like Going Home attempts to tell the story by tracing the blues back through the Mississippi Delta and back in Africa. Blues player Cory Harris takes us from the Mississippi Delta to the African country of Mali to detail how the blues were influenced culturally by the people of tribesmen of Mali and the suffering engendered by slavery which forever separated families on their shores.

This DVD also has some excellent historical footage never before seen by me, including that of Son House explaining why he quit playing the blues around 1942 after the field recordings Alan Lomax made in Mississippi. Son House stopped playing after some of his contemporaries started dying (Charlie Patton, Robert Johnson), and he actually thought he would be next! I was surprised to hear him say this, but he honestly believed that, and as such, moved to New York state. Until some blues enthusiasts found him in the mid 60's, many had no idea where he was....some even claimed to have seen him in movie theaters in Alabama. This was the first time I had ever heard Son House explain why he gave up music for two decades.

A criticism: Much more time could have been spent on the history of the early blues in the United States. The rare footage was wonderful to see, as were the interviews with legends such as Johnny Shines, because he had first-hand knowledge of Robert Johnson and that era. But once Cory Harris goes back to Mali, little is offered as way of a direct and tangible nexus linking the two. In fact, too much time is spent introducing Cory Harris to various tribesman, their families, and then they even highlight the welcoming ceremony of guns for Cory Harris....I thought this was a DVD about the blues! The first 45 minutes were very interesting, but the latter half left much to be desired. September 11, 2006

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