Tag: Documentary

Saturday Matinee – The Big Wait, Jesse Dayton, and The Hoax

A couple readies a remote Australian town for visitors who might never arrive. The pair are the sole occupants of Forrest, a former railway town that’s home to an emergency airport, which serves as an essential stop for planes needing to fill up mid-journey. More about them here.

The song featured in the short documentary is Heaven and Paradise by Don Julian and The Meadowlarks (1955).

Jesse Dayton has been around for a while, playing a mixture of Texas blues, outlaw country, and punk, while collaborating with the likes of Johnny Cash, Waylon Jennings, Willie Nelson, Rob Zombie, John Doe, and more recently, Samantha Fish.

From Devizes, Wiltshire, England, The Hoax is/was a blues band who got a lot of attention in the 1990s. Their debut album Sound Like This was named Best British Blues Album of the Year at the British Blues Connection Awards in 1994 and they’ve recorded several more since. [Their website appears to be defunct, but they have a FB page.]

What a week. First that, then the other thing, and now we have to deal with this. We definitely need some serious porch time tomorrow, and I’ll be there when you are.

Saturday Matinee – Nick Offerman, John Edmark & Phi, HST & Roy Buchanan

I’ve never seen a single episode of “Parks & Recreation,” but this advert featuring actor  Nick Offerman is mildly amusing [via]. It doesn’t go far enough IMO. Someone tell Nick that I’d be happy to outline a horror story based upon actual events.

John Edmark creates some amazing stuff using the irrational number Phi, laser cutters and strobes [via].

https://youtu.be/VlAZV_EsSSE

“Buy The Ticket, Take The Ride” is a 2006 documentary about rogue reporter Hunter S. Thompson, narrated by Nick Nolte. Thompson was an amusing unhinged journalist who set the standard for inserting himself into every story he ever covered.

Gotta have at least one music vid, and we haven’t posted any Roy Buchanan in a while, so there you go.

Have a great Memorial Day Weekend, folks, and please take the time to remember what it’s all about.

Saturday Matinee – Dinosaurs, Ted Hawkins, Playing For Change, Steve Ray Vaughan & Johnny Copeland

https://youtu.be/MI8f6ttiGFo?t=1s

Dinosaurs are always fun, and this video has a great cast of relative unknowns. It’s over an hour long, but that’s just a day in dinotime.

Ted Hawkins (1936-1995) had more success in the UK than the US, although he had a local fan base in Venice Beach CA where he was a popular busker. Check out his background at the link.

[h/t Charlie L.]

This version of Stevie Wonder’s “Higher Ground” is fascinating, as it appears that all the players recorded remotely. Playing For Change is not a band, it’s an organization based in Venice California that records musicians from around the world, and is dedicated to creating and supporting music schools particularly in developing countries.

Haven’t heard any Stevie Ray Vaughan in a while, so here he is with fellow Texan Johnny Copeland, live At Montreux 1985.

Have a great weekend, folks. Stay cool.

Saturday Matinee – Goats, Martha’s Birthday Party, ICR Documentary, Doc Watson & Friends

Goats. [via]

Martha’s Birthday Party. This is by the same guy behind The Perry Bible Fellowship.

Fascinating short documentary from the Institute of Centrifugal Reasearch [via].

“Bury Me Beneath the Willow” performed live at MerleFest 2002 by Doc Watson, Sara Watkins, Chris Thile, Sean Watkins & Byron House. The song is an old traditional that likely originated in the 1800s. From The Mudcat Cafe, commenter “Stewie” posted this:

Meade’s earliest printed citation for this is Sandburg’s ‘American Songbag’ (1927), the same year as the Carter Family’s recording and 4 years after the first recording by Henry Whitter in 1923. Other recordings earlier than the Carters were: Ernest Thompson (1924), George Reneau (1925), Kelly Harrell (1926), Ernest Stoneman (1926), Burnett & Rutherford (1926) and Holland Puckett (1927). [Info from Meade et alia ‘Country Music Sources’ p 197.]

Very cool. You can hear the Carter Family’s version here.

That’s a wrap for this Saturday Matinee, and have a great weekend.

Saturday Matinee – Country Blues Edition, With Furry Lewis, Belton Sutherland, and Taj Mahal Hosts A Documentary

“If you want to go to heaven when you D.I.E.,
Put on your collar and a T.I.E.
If you wanna scare a rabbit out an L.O.G.,
Just make a little sound like a D.O.G.”

That’s Furry Lewis playing slide on “Kassie Jones,” a song he recorded in 1927. The video is from 1968. A few years later Joni Mitchell met with him and recorded “Furry Sings The Blues” in tribute.

Lewis despised Mitchell’s song and demanded she pay him royalties. “She shouldn’t have used my name in no way, shape, form or faction without consultin’ me ’bout it first. The woman came over here and I treated her right, just like I does everybody that comes over. She wanted to hear ’bout the old days, said it was for her own personal self, and I told it to her like it was, gave her straight oil from the can.”

Belton Sutherland was a Mississipi Delta bluesman. There is no Wiki article for him and little other information about him on the internest. There’s no entry for him in Lawrence Cohn’s “Nothing But The Blues” either. Sutherland was filmed in 1978 by Alan Lomax at Maxwell’s Farm, near Canton Mississippi.

A story about Lomax’ film “American Patchwork” includes one mention:

“…Lomax rounded up folks even he hadn’t heard of, like Mississippi bluesman Belton Sutherland–a master musician who appeared during Lomax’s session with another singer and asked to ‘try’ the guitar.”

That’s a great documentary about Country Blues, hosted by the great Henry Saint Clair Fredericks.

For those of you who find the rough roots of The Blues too tough to listen to, here’s a a WTF moment for a cat instead.

Have a great weekend folks, and we’ll be back tomorrow with more odd funnies.