From rock and roll to blues, jazz, and hip-hop, music is as much the African American way of life as the afro was Black people’s style in the 1970s. Finally honoring that history, the National Museum of African American Music (NMAAM) has opened in Nashville, Tenn.
CHICAGO (AP) — Legendary Chicago blues guitarist Otis Rush, whose passionate, jazz-tinged music influenced artists from Carlos Santana and Eric Clapton to the rock band Led Zeppelin, died Saturday at the age of 84, his longtime manager said. Rush succumbed to complications from a stroke he suffered in 2003, manager Rick Bates said. Born in Philadelphia, Mississippi, Rush settled in Chicago as an adult and began playing the local clubs, wearing a cowboy hat and sometimes strumming his guitar upside down for effect. He catapulted to international fame in 1956 with his first recording on Cobra Records of “I
Located in Leimert Park, the museum showcases inspired art and more dedicated to jazz and blues.
“I Am The Blues,” directed by Daniel Cross, now available on VOD July 12th takes the viewer into the deep, back-roads of the South visiting the authentic juke joints and listening to the stories of the people who play, live and know the real roots of the blues.
The blues is a musical style—absolutely—but it’s a life style above-and-beyond and many of those who were eyewitness to the height of the blues are now at an advanced age.
Here is what “I Am the Blues” filmmaker Daniel Cross had to say about where to find the blues and why the blues are still hard to define.
LA Sentinel (LAS): Where are the best “blues clubs” in L.A. and NYC?
Daniel Cross (DC): I don’t have a good answer for this – I wish that I did. I hope to find out.
LAS; People often say that it’s very hard to define the blues or rather we all have our own version of the blues. What’s your definition?
DC: Blues is music that reflects on a person’s life: the joy, the misery the camaraderie. It is meant to be shared and to another person so the story can be shared and evolved.
LAS: Will the blues and places like those featured in the film find a new life? If so, how and where? If not—why not?
DC: The places in the film were old juke joints and do not operate on a true economic model; they are more labors of love, places of history that are passed down, and the operators/managers do it out of a sense of community and for the music. Today, in my time spent there, I did not sense a consistent flow of young people who were showing true interest or doing the work to keep these places alive. Perhaps, if there is an economic model attached that makes keeping the juke joints more profitable, then there will be people more interested in keeping them open. The way it looks to me, the old juke joints will find it hard to get a new life.
However, there are still many blues bars that operate like clubs and do just fine.
Based in Leimert Park, the museum pays homage to local legends of jazz and blues
Musician Bobby Rush talks about his career and the impact the Blues genre had on American music.
Host: Brandon I. Brooks
“Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom” is currently captivating audiences at the Mark Taper Forum in downtown Los Angeles. Director Phylicia Rashad and her ensemble cast: Keith David, Glynn Turman, Damon Gupton, Jason Dirden and Lillias White speak exclusively to the L.A. Sentinel about the importance of continuing to produce August Wilson’s plays for the enlightenment of a younger generation.
-Bakewell Media-
Danny J. Bakewell, Sr. – Executive Producer
Brandon I. Brooks – Producer
Zon D’Amour – Correspondent/Videographer/Editor