Always
for Pleasure |
The
Blues According to Lightnin' Hopkins |
Chicago
Blues
Chicken Real |
Chulas
Fronteras |
Del
Mero Corazon |
Dry
Wood |
God Respects
Us When We Work But Loves Us When We Dance |
Hot
Pepper |
Ian Dury in Concert
Pete Docherty and the
Libertines
Reggae |
Remember
a Day |
The
Sun's Gonna Shine |
Tonite
Let's All Make Love in London |
A
Well Spent Life |
OTHER
MATERIAL
|
ALWAYS
FOR PLEASURE
(
1978. colour) Director: Les
Blank
Always for Pleasure is a look at Mardi Gras in New Orleans and the myriad musical
traditions supporting the annual celebrations. The ritual traditions of the
jazz funeral or blacks masquerading as 'Indians' are some of the rich offerings
of the street pageantry that show the cultural history of the city. The film
captures the intense and intricate social competition symbolised by the dance.
Among those appearing in the film are the Wild Tchoupitoulas, Professor Longhair
and Kid Thomas Valentine.
THE
BLUES ACCORDING TO LIGHTNIN'
HOPKINS
(
1969, colour) Director: Les Blank
with Skip Gerson
In his own words and his 'own' music, Texas bluesman Lightnin' Hopkins reveals
the inspiration for his blues.
He sings, jives and ponders. He boogies at an outdoor barbecue and a black
rodeo and takes us with him on a visit to his boyhood home of Centerville in
Texas. The film reaches past the impish bluesman into the Blues, into the red-clay
Texas, into hard times, into blackness and the senses.
CHICAGO
BLUES
(1970,
Colour) Director: Harley Cokliss
This film relates the tale of how Country Blues of the rural South of America
moved North, mainly to Chicago. Terrific performances by the likes of Buddy
Guy, Muddy Waters, Junior Wells and many others.
CHICKEN
REAL
(
1971, colour) Director: Les Blank
An industrial short made for the world's second largest poultry producer, this
film incorporates some subversive satire in its promotion of the modern assembly-line
approach to mass-manufactured food. The music was recorded in North Carolina
- by a group playng all the chicken songs they knew!
CHULAS
FRONTERAS
(
1976, colour ) Director: Les
Blank
A magnificent introduction to the most exciting Nortena musicians working today:
Los Algres de Teran, Lydia Mendosa, Flaco Jimenez and others. The Mexican-
Americans live on the Texan side of the border. To the south lies Mexico and
poverty; to the north is America, hostility and little hope of deliverence.
They belong to neither area and migrate from state to state with the seasons
for work in the fields. Blank makes clear the role that the Chicago music has
in redeeming their lives by giving utterance to a collective pain. This music
and the spirit of the people is seen embodied in their strong familiy life
and sheer enjoyment of domestic rituals.
DEL
MERO CORAZON
(
1979, colour ) Director: Les
Blank
This is a lyrical journey through the heart of Chicago culture, as reflected
in the love songs of the Tex-Mex Nortena music tradition, Love songs are the
poetry of daily life - a poetry of passion and death, hurt and humour, pleasures
and torn desire. In the film these songs travel from intimate family gatherings
to community dance halls; they are passed along changed into new songs but
always sung from the heart. Artists appearing include Leo Arza, Chavela Ortiz,
Brown Express, Little Joe and la Familia.
DRY
WOOD
(
1973, colour ) Director: Les
Blank with Skip Gerson
This is the first part of a two-part documentary on the life and music of the
French-speaking blacks in south-west Louisiana's Cajun country. Dry Wood features
the music of 'Bois Sec' Ardoin, his sons and Canray Fontenot. Theirs is an
older, rural style of Cajun music which, in the film, weaves together incidents
in the lives of the Fontenot and Ardoin families. The highlights include a
rollicking country Mardi Gras, work in the rice fields, a 'Men Only' supper
and a hog-butchering party that takes the hog from kill to sausage.
GOD
RESPECTS US WHEN WE WORK BUT
LOVES US WHEN WE DANCE
(1967-68,
Colour ) Director: Les Blank.
A time-capsule
report on a specific high point of the hippie counterculture movement
of the Sixties, seen at the Los Angles 1967 Easter Sunday 'Love-In'.
It is a finely shot panaroama of the action as well as the more meditative
moments.
HOT
PEPPER
(
1973, colour ) Director: Les
Bank
Hot Pepper is the second part of Blank's Cajun documentary and plunges the
viewer deep into the music of Clifton Chenier andits sources in rural and urban
Louisiana. The great French accordionist mixes rock and blues in his unique
version of 'Zydeco' music , a pulsating combination of Cajun French with African
undertones. Clifton belts it out in sweaty music halls and the film winds his
music through the bayous and byways of the countryside and into the streets
and homes of his people.
Ian Dury in Concert
Produced and Directed by Marek Pytel
Exclusive footage of Ian Dury and
the Blockheads in concert in London,
1980, as part of the Do it Yourself
tour.
PETE
DOCHERTY AND THE LIBERTINES
Exclusive
footage, live and in the studio,
of Pete Docherty and the Libertines,
prior to the band's sensational implosion.
REGGAE (1970, colour) Directed by: Horace
Ové
Reggae, music of the awakening soul of black people, originated in Africa,
was reborn in Jamaica from whence it came to Britain and expresses the feelings
and hopes of a dispossessed people who emerged from slavery not so very long
ago. The film traces the ancestry of the music, at the same time it places
the black West Indian within his social context - exploited at home in the
West Indies, unwanted in England.
The film centres around the Wembley Reggae Festival, featuring the Pyramids,
Pioneers, Black Faith, Millie, Maytals, Desmond Dekker and Mike Raven.
REMEMBER
A DAY (UK,
2000). Director: Nigel Lesmoir-Gordon.
Remember
a Day is a film narrating the acid excesses of a late Sixties rock
star - turned -recluse Roger Bannerman, a Daa man 'going far further
than you ever could imagine', a character not unlike Pink Floyd founder
Syd Barrett. Despite having effectively retired, Bannerman is being
stalked by an unhinged fan who's determined to 're-launch' Roger
no matter what it takes, no matter how many laws are broken... Laced
with black humor , drugs, psychedelic imagery, groupie sex and featuring
a stunning soundtrack - that includes works by the Pink Floyd, Captain
Beefheart and The Sex Pistols. Remember a Day is an early seventies
period piece shot by the people who's story it essentially is.
SPEND
IT ALL (
1971, colour) Director: Les Blank
with Skip Gerson
A perceptive, lusty and lyrical documentary of some true American originals,
the Cajuns of South-west Louisiana, who still retain the language, camaraderie
and old world spirit of their French-speaking Acadian ancestors. The film captures
the intense bravado and vitality of their lives
THE
SUN'S GONNA SHINE (
1969, colour)
A further tribute to Lightnin' Hopkins.
TONITE
LET'S ALL MAKE LOVE IN LONDON (1967, Colour)
Swinging London in all its lurid
glory - a rock concerto for film.
A
WELL SPENT LIFE (1970,
colour) Director: Les Blank
Les Bank Blank described the 75-year-old black philosopher-songster Mance Lipscomb,
as 'the closets thing to a Christ figure I have ever seen'. The film looks
into the thoughts and music of the man and also provides a revealing glimpse
of a black farming community.
OTHER
MATERIAL
Our music
collection covers many genres - jazz, Russian opera and ballet, rock
music, folk music, calypso and blues. In rock music we have material
on Jimi Hendrix, The Pink Floyd, The Incredible String Band, The
Clash, The Sex Pistols, Nico, Ravi Shankar...and more. We have jazz
footage from the first half of the 20th century, and more recent
jazz artists like: Muddy Waters, Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Dick Gregory,
J B Hutto, Johnnie Lewis, Garry David, Flo Kennedy, Frederick Douglass-Kirkpatrick
and Larry Johnson. There is footage too of classical music, and bits
and pieces of folk music, Pete Seeger among them.
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