''I Am the Blues'' is a 2015 Canadian

documentary film A documentary film or documentary is a non-fictional motion-picture intended to "document reality, primarily for the purposes of instruction, education or maintaining a historical record". Bill Nichols has characterized the documentary in te ...

directed by Daniel Cross. The film explores the culture of

blues music Blues is a music genre and musical form which originated in the Deep South of the United States around the 1860s. Blues incorporated spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts, chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads from the Afr ...

, beginning at the Blue Front Cafe in Bentonia,

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

and expanding outward to profile many of the oldest blues musicians who are still performing on the traditional African American Chitlin' Circuit. Musicians appearing in the film include

Bobby Rush Bobby Lee Rush (born November 23, 1946) is an American politician, activist and pastor who served as the U.S. representative for for three decades. A civil rights activist during the 1960s, Rush co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Pant ...

Barbara Lynn Barbara Lynn (born Barbara Lynn Ozen, later Barbara Lynn Cumby, January 16, 1942) is an American rhythm and blues and electric blues guitarist, singer and songwriter. She is best known for her R&B chart-topping hit, " You'll Lose a Good Thing" ( ...

Henry Gray Henry Gray (1827 – 13 June 1861) was a British anatomist and surgeon most notable for publishing the book ''Gray's Anatomy''. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) at the age of 25. Biography Gray was born in Belgrav ...

Carol Fran Carol Fran (born Carol Augustus Anthony; October 23, 1933 – September 1, 2021) was an American soul blues singer, pianist, and songwriter, best known for her string of single releases in the 1950s and 1960s, and her later musical association w ...

, Little Freddie King,

Lazy Lester Leslie Johnson (June 20, 1933 – August 22, 2018), better known as Lazy Lester, was an American blues musician who sang and played the harmonica and guitar. In a career spanning the 1950s to 2018, he pioneered swamp blues, and also played h ...

, Robert "Bilbo" Walker,

Jimmy "Duck" Holmes Jimmy "Duck" Holmes (born July 28, 1947) is an American blues musician and proprietor of the Blue Front Cafe on the Mississippi Blues Trail, the oldest surviving juke joint in Mississippi. Holmes is known as the last of the Bentonia bluesmen, ...

, R.L. Boyce, L. C. Ulmer and Paul "Lil' Buck" Sinegal. The film premiered at the

International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam The International Documentary Film Festival Amsterdam (IDFA) is the world's largest documentary film festival held annually since 1988 in Amsterdam. Over a period of twelve days, it has screened more than 300 films and sold more than 250,000 tic ...

in October 2015, and had its Canadian premiere at the Hot Docs Canadian International Documentary Festival in May 2016. The film won two

Canadian Screen Award The Canadian Screen Awards (french: link=no, Les prix Écrans canadiens) are awards given for artistic and technical merit in the film industry recognizing excellence in Canadian film, English-language television, and digital media ( web series ...

s at the

5th Canadian Screen Awards The 5th annual Canadian Screen Awards were held on March 12, 2017, to honour achievements in Canadian film, television, and digital media production in 2016. Nominations were announced on January 17, 2017. Awards in many of the technical catego ...

in 2017, for Best Feature Length Documentary and Best Cinematography in a Documentary."'Orphan Black' wins big at Canadian Screen Awards". ''

Hamilton Spectator ''The Hamilton Spectator'', founded in 1846, is a newspaper published weekdays and Saturdays in Hamilton, Ontario, Canada. One of the largest Canadian newspapers by circulation,''The Hamilton Spectator'' is owned by Torstar. History ''The Hami ...

'', March 13, 2017.

References

External links

* * 2015 films 2015 documentary films 2010s Canadian films 2010s English-language films Best Documentary Film Genie and Canadian Screen Award winners Canadian musical documentary films Documentary films about blues music and musicians English-language Canadian films English-language documentary films EyeSteelFilm films Films directed by Daniel Cross {{music-documentary-film-stub