Bluesland: A Portrait in American Music (1993)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Main Menu Audio Trailer-Umbrella Propaganda (4 other blues DVD titles)
Rating
Year Of Production	1993
Running Time	81:56 (Case: 85)
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	Ken Mandel
Studio Distributor	Madman Entertainment	Starring	Keith David Albert Murray Robert Palmer
Case	Amaray-Transparent-Secure Clip
RPI	$24.95	Music	Various

    The blues is a musical style that sprang out of nowhere from within the poor and isolated Mississippi Delta region in the early 20th century - the unusual singing style of a select few downtrodden and downcast negro cotton-growers - that then went on to grow beyond all expectation to the point that it now defines just about every style of popular music developed since, throughout the world right through to this day. The story of how the blues rose to prominence in America, and subsequently around the world, is a fascinating one and one that is well-told in this documentary.

    The documentary is hosted by Keith David, with invaluable input from blues specialists/historians Albert Murray and Robert Palmer (but no, not the Robert Palmer you are thinking of!). The documentary starts out with a great little explanation of exactly what the blues is all about. As Albert Murray explains, the purpose of the blues, as originally sung by the oppressed negro cotton-growers of the 1910s and 20s, is a music about confronting the hard times in life. It is a life-affirming music, a ritual purification, designed to chase away the hard times and swing in the good times - even if only temporarily. It is a music based on improvisation. The fact that this music style wasn't European  made the context of these songs quite unique - it was a music uniquely intense about one's personal feelings - the essence of which turned out to be universal.

    Of several blues documentaries I have seen over the years, I found this to be one of the better ones in explaining in simple terms exactly how the various different styles of blues developed over the years and why - something many other blues documentaries fail to adequately explain. This documentary clearly puts into context the various different blues styles, from the original Delta Blues music of the Mississippi, to the performance/club blues style, to the more uptown/sophisticated form of Kansas City Blues, then to the electric and diverse Chicago Blues style, to the group-based Texas Blues style, through to the influence on the dawning Rock and Roll music of the 1950s, and finally through to the more modern blues style of the 1960s, drawing on all the previous influences.

    The documentary features cuts from the following blues artists:

• Son House (raw blues beginnings),
• Big Bill Broonzy,
• Leadbelly,
• Charlie Patton (the first officially recognised Delta Bluesman),
• Blind Lemon Jefferson (the first famous recording bluesman of the 1920s),
• Bessie Smith (development to performance/club blues),
• Ma Rainey (the mother of performance blues),
• Tommy Johnson,
• Lonnie Johnston (the first truly versatile bluesman, playing across different styles, with a career spanning the 20s to the 60s),
• Louis Armstrong (the first great figure in terms of blues impact - a sophisticated musician playing a completely different style of music, but highly influenced by the blues),
• Jimmy Rushing (Kansas City Blues style),
• Charlie Parker,
• Brownie McGhee and Sonny Terry (with their own raw and unique sounding two-man blues style)
• Sonny Boy Williamson (the first radio blues star, as blues spreads and becomes more widely heard and appreciated),
• Muddy Waters (the developer of the Chicago Blues style, and a bluesman to have unprecedented influence on future generations of Rock musicians),
• Elmore James,
• T-Bone Walker (Texas Blues, an expanded blues sound that required a group of musicians - the beginning of the modern electric group, including bass player and drummer. T-Bone was also the first to use the amplified electric guitar as an extension of the blues, in a style that was highly influential on future generations of bluesmen such as B.B. King),
• Howlin' Wolf (who developed real blues attitude and took the 1950s songwriting style much further than anyone before),
• B.B. King (the daddy of a modern up-tempo blues sound and R&B style),
• Elvis Presley (the influence of blues roots on the newly emerging Rock and Roll music style of the 1950s is undeniable), and
• John Lee Hooker (along with Muddy Waters, one of the more famous proponents of the modern 1960s blues style, bringing it all together).

    Other artists are also featured in the documentary in interviews or in passing.

    My only one complaint with this otherwise fine documentary is that it completely glosses over the impact of one of the most famous blues influences of all, that of Robert Johnson. Robert Johnson is of course considered by many to be the real father of the blues, and was one of the most famous bluesman to record in the 1930s. Robert Johnson drew on the early delta blues styles of the likes of Son House, Willie Brown and Charlie Patton, but developed it into his own style, going into the recording studio in 1936/37 to record a collection of completely original blues classics - unmistakably his own - that would go on to stand the test of time and be revered and covered by all manner of modern music legends some 40+ years later, from Eric Clapton to Led Zeppelin. Robert Johnson's legacy of now well-known songs includes the likes of Cross Road Blues, Rambling On My Mind, Travelling Riverside Blues and Malted Milk. It is very strange indeed then that this man, of all the bluesman of the last century, should be glossed over and not explored in much more detail in this otherwise comprehensive documentary.

Video

    The feature is presented in its original aspect ratio of 1.29:1 (that is, a 1.33 image slightly cropped on all sides), full frame.

    The documentary of necessity draws heavily on archival footage of varying degrees of quality and clearly of much lesser quality for the older material dating back to the 1920s. Still, the quality of this footage is of course completely excusable, as it is necessary to put the material being discussed into proper context, and it is all fascinating material to see. Other latter-period archival material from the 1950s and 60s is also of varying quality at the source, but also quite excusable and fascinating. The archival footage is supplemented by the newly recorded documentary, presented by Keith David and featuring interview snippets with Albert Murray and Robert Palmer. This documentary was shot in 1993, evidently on analogue video. The level of sharpness and resolution on display here is highly reflective of that medium. In particular, some interview footage with Robert Palmer standing in front of a bookcase is notably poorer in quality than the rest, with very blurry outlines and obvious colour bleed. Still, this aside, the rest of the newly recoded material is all of acceptable quality for the purpose at hand.

    Colour (for the new documentary footage - noting most of the archival material is in black and white) is satisfactory, but again limited by the analogue video source. Blacks are sometimes murky and suffer from low level noise, whilst primary colours are for the most part satisfactory but without being perfectly saturated. Neither are skin tones perfectly accurate, being sometimes too red or too brown, but are generally watchable. The degree of contrast available in the presented black and white archival footage is variable with the age and quality of the source material.

    I did not specifically note any MPEG artefacts (as distinct from obvious source artefacts). Film-to-video artefacts include aliasing on the fine lines of some of the older footage, breaking out on such things as the edges of buildings and guitars, drawing attention to themselves in some shots involving camera pans, but otherwise was quite well controlled. There is also some telecine wobble in some of the archival footage of the 1950s and 60s. Film artefacts are numerous, consisting of flecks, scratches and marks, and more highly prominent in the oldest archival material, as expected. Source artefacts in the newly recorded material include colour bleed.

    There is no subtitle stream available and the disc is single layered.

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The only audio track on offer is an English "Dolby Digital 5.1 mix" (at 448 Kb/s).

    Dialogue quality is fine, perhaps a little bright/harsh in parts, but otherwise fine. I had no major dramas with audio sync.

    The music is of course the music of the various blues artists, some recordings dating back to the 1920s when they were originally recorded on wax. Needless to say, these recordings are in mono and the quality of them is quite often poor, with substantial audio hiss an unavoidable feature. Whilst dynamic range and quality is often lacking, this is no fault of the DVD audio transfer, which reproduces the music satisfactorily for the documentary.

    Apart from the unavoidable clicks, pops and dropouts within the source music (quite expected and for which we won't mark down too much given the age and rarity of this material), there are unfortunately also some issues with the newly recorded interview material too, being some very annoying bumps and wind sounds against the microphones heard during some interview segments.

    There is next to no surround presence in this soundtrack. Umbrella proudly states on the back cover of the DVD that the audio has been "specially remastered for Dolby Digital 5.1", but if it has been then all I could hear the rear speakers doing for 99% of the time was reproducing some redirected audio hiss! You would not call this a real 5.1 mix - and neither would you expect it of a 1993 made-for-TV documentary feature. Always be wary of supposed "5.1 mixes" for this sort of source material.

    The subwoofer doesn't get a great amount to do, but it does chime in a bit more towards the end of the documentary, helping fill out the bass for some of the Chicago/Texas/electric blues songs.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

     This title is available in Region 1 in identical format. Opt for Region 4 for PAL transfer and price.

    Video and audio quality are both limited by the source material - both the archival footage and the newly shot material - but is acceptable for the purpose at hand.

    Apart from some other blues music DVD trailers, there are no extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall