Synopsis Of The Film 'The Land Where The Blues Began'

Video Review #5

The title of this video is “The Land Where the Blues Began” and it is a documentary that was produced by The Mississippi Authority for Educational Television & Alan Lomax. The sometimes visible narrator is none other than Alan Lomax, a renowned ethnomusicologist and collector, as well as the son of John Lomax. The overarching theme in this documentary centers on exploring the roots of the blues. In the introduction of the documentary Alan Lomax talks about how blues belongs to everyone presently and has even created more recent genres such as jazz and rock n’ roll. In saying this Alan Lomax fears that the origin of blues has been forgotten. Throughout the video we are introduced to blues musicians who were whiteness the phenomena

that was and is the blues and it became a part of their everyday lives. Similar to what we have seen and discussed in every chapter thus far this semester, again we seen music being incorporated into everyday work with the field workers slamming their hoes rhythmically along with the song that they were singing.
The first musician that we are introduced to is Lonnie Pitchford, a one-stringed guitar player from Mississippi.

It is well known that many influential blues musicians and songs originate from the Mississippi Delta. The guitar that he plays strongly resembles the one string instrument from Africa. Lonnie also has a very interesting way of recreating the diddley bow on the wooden post of his home by nailing two ends of a wire very tightly. What I found most interesting about this crafting process is the means by which it was tuned which involved moving a small metal cylinder up and down the post in order to get the pitch that you want. I’d also like to note that the music specifically blues, was an essential if not the most essential thing in their lives. If turning part of your home into an instrument doesn’t convince people that it is you passion, then nothing will. The best thing about Pitchford is that he is making music because he loves it and can express himself. His motivations are based on filling up stadiums or selling

records.
Another interesting musician that we were introduced to was Napoleon Strickland. Strickland also plays the guitar and the fife. He actually shows us how he makes his fife which I think was important to include in this film because it shows that you don’t need money to make music. I pretty sure the only things he use to make the fife were bamboo/a stick, and a long thin piece of heated metal. Neither of which should be hard to come across. Later in the video we see Strickland playing along with drummers. In the clip that we see they seem to just be playing for fun or practice because there is no crowd or audience present to experience the performance. Despite the fact that there is no audience at this specific performance, Lomax explains that is was common for Strickland along with other musicians to play at summer picnics.
I am pretty familiar with blues because I studied it last semester in African American music, but this film was helpful because I heard and saw some musicians that I had not seen or heard before.

Because of that it was useful in expanding my knowledge of not only blues, but of music in general. I understand that all music originated from earlier forms that were considered primitive, but I didn’t expect early blues to be as primitive as what we saw in the documentary. That being said, the simplicity didn’t take away from the quality of the music in my opinion, because I enjoyed every song and tune that I heard. I would have liked for this video to address why white musicians weren’t more involved in the blues. I think it would have also been useful if this video would’ve gone more in depth with the different styles of blues. Lastly I think this video could’ve been improved if it would’ve shown how blues has directly influenced popular genres we listen to today. I know this video is a few years old which is why it fails to address some of the questions, but overall it was a very informative video and I would recommend it to not only anyone doing research, but also to those who simply want to learn about the

blues.