July 28-AUG 4 | I AM THE BLUES
by
From the juke joints to the church, up the mountain and down the bayou,
I AM THE BLUES transports you to the Mississippi crossroads together with the last legends of the blues.
I AM THE BLUES takes the audience on a musical journey through the swamps of the Louisiana Bayou, the juke joints of the Mississippi Delta and Moonshine soaked BBQs in the North Mississippi Hill Country. The film visits blues musicians rooted in the genre’s hayday, many in their 80s, still living in the American deep south and touring the Chitlin’ Circuit. Let Bobby Rush, Barbara Lynn, Henry Gray, Carol Fran, Little Freddie King, Lazy Lester, Bilbo Walker, Jimmy “Duck” Holmes, RL Boyce, LC Ulmer, Lil’ Buck Sinegal and their friends awaken the blues in all of us.
FEATURING:
Bobby Rush: 83 years old, was awarded as “Best Male Soul Artist” at the Blues Music Award and was nominated for the Grammy Award in 2000 and 2014. In 2017, he won his first Grammy Award for his album, “Porcupine Meat.”
Barbara Lynn: 75 years old, an American rhythm and blues and electric blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. She is best known for “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” (1962).
Henry Gray: 92 years old, an African-American blues piano player and singer. He is credited with helping to create the distinctive sound of the Chicago blues piano.
Jimmy “Duck” Holmes: 70 years old, an American blues musician and proprietor of the Blue Front Café on the Mississippi Blues Trail, the oldest surviving juke joint in Mississippi.
Lil’ Buck Sinegal: 73 years old, an American blues and zydeco guitarist and singer. He was inducted into the Louisiana Blues Hall of Fame in 1999.
Lazy Lester: 84 years old, an American blues musician who sings, plays the harmonica and guitar. His career spans the 1950s to the 2010s.
Carol Fran: 84 years old, an African-American soul blues singer, pianist and songwriter. Fran is best known for her string of single releases in the 1950s and 1960s and her later musical association with her husband, blues guitarist Clarence Hollimon.
Little Freddie King: 77 years, an American Delta blues guitarist. His style is based on that of Freddie King, but his approach to country blues is original.
LC Ulmer: an American delta blues musician and performer for over half a century, playing at festivals and clubs throughout the United States and elsewhere, but particularly in the Deep South. He often performed in his younger days as a one-man band. Ulmer died on February 14, 2016, at his home in Ellisville, Mississippi, of natural causes, at the age of 87.
Bud Spires: Harmonica player and longtime musical companion of blues legend Jack Owens. He also accompanied Jimmy “Duck” Holmes. Spires died on March 20, 2016 at the age of 82.