Page 26 - Akae Beka

Blues Movies Reel

AwAy the Blues

Willie "Po Monkey" Seaberry looks across the cotton field beside Po Monkey's
Lounge during We Juke Up in Here! filming. Photo by Lou Bopp

By Roger Stolle At the risk of building up Mugge’s ego too much, Deep
Even before the big blues of the Covid-19 quarantine of Blues is, to me, still essential viewing for anyone contemplating
2020, the Blues Festival Guide thought a feature on blues films a blues journey to Mississippi. Junior Kimbrough, R.L. Burnside,
might be of interest to y’all. Now that the pandemic has hit, all Jessie Mae Hemphill, Big Jack Johnson, Lonnie Pitchford, Booba
the more reason to check out these films to ease your stay-at-home Barnes, Jack Owens and others totally deliver. There are definite
quirks to the film (e.g. the delightfully hippie narration of music
blues. In this age of YouTube, Netflix, Amazon, etc., it’s easier critic Robert Palmer and the eternally awkward appearance of
than ever to access titles via streaming or physical product. rocker Dave Stewart), but they make the whole experience all the
In my past 18 years in Clarksdale, MS, I’ve had the pleasure
(and at times, adventure) of co-producing four blues film projects, more memorable.
A couple years after I met Mugge, he offered me a production
as well as 10 editions of our nonprofit Clarksdale Film & Music assistant (a.k.a. “go-fer”) position for a new Mississippi blues
Festival (which is chock-full of blues docs and live music). Plus, film he was making, but I was a “Mad Man” in corporate
I’ve become friends with many amazing filmmakers, mostly from America at the time and
across the counter at my Cat Head blues store. couldn’t do it. Ultimately,
What follows is a brief journey through some of my the film was called Last of
favorite blues-related films (mostly documentaries), including the Mississippi Jukes, and
at least one that helped alter my path in life and a few that while not as essential in my
created memories forever in my heart. book as Deep Blues, it is
Deep Blues Rocks My World definitely still recommended.
One Friday evening in 1991, I was living in Dayton, OH, It was reissued a couple
and looking through the local newspaper’s entertainment listings years back with both the
DVD and CD soundtrack
for the weekend… no Google back then y'all. At the Little Art packed inside, so look for
Theater in nearby Yellow Springs, a film called Deep Blues was that version. Deep Blues is
screening the next day… I was there. About five years later, I currently “out of print,” but
started seeing many of the film’s musicians perform at festivals well worth scouring the web.
and juke joints in Mississippi. And I met the director, Bob Mugge.

24 Blues Festival Guide 2020