0:00:04 > 0:00:07It's the sound of the 20th century.
0:00:07 > 0:00:11A music created by the poorest people in the richest nation on earth.
0:00:12 > 0:00:14The blues.
0:00:14 > 0:00:17We now hear it as the root note of rock and roll.
0:00:19 > 0:00:21But it first appeared in the early 1900s.
0:00:21 > 0:00:27A black pop format performed by modern men and women using the latest media.
0:00:28 > 0:00:31Later generations heard the blues as authentic folk music
0:00:31 > 0:00:34expressing the pain of an oppressed people.
0:00:35 > 0:00:40Over the last 100 years it has crossed borders from south to north.
0:00:40 > 0:00:42From black to white.
0:00:42 > 0:00:44From weak to powerful.
0:00:44 > 0:00:47You can have the blues anywhere, any time.
0:00:47 > 0:00:53This is the story of how the blues rose up to define a nation and soundtrack a century.
0:00:53 > 0:00:57And how, for generations of its performers, curators and audiences
0:00:57 > 0:01:00the meaning of the blues kept on changing.
0:01:15 > 0:01:161940s America.
0:01:16 > 0:01:18A nation is booming.
0:01:20 > 0:01:22But for black southerners life is the same as ever.
0:01:23 > 0:01:28I wonder will I ever get back home...
0:01:28 > 0:01:32A country remains racially and economically divided.
0:01:33 > 0:01:36A long time ago. Been a long time.
0:01:38 > 0:01:41Most of the time in the southern state where you went to get food.
0:01:42 > 0:01:48You had to go round to the one that said Coloured Only or Black Only.
0:01:49 > 0:01:51My family didn't have nothing, I didn't have nothing.
0:01:51 > 0:01:55Just picked cotton all day and you eat to live and live to eat.
0:01:55 > 0:01:59I don't know how they raised us like that but that's what it was all about.
0:01:59 > 0:02:01I thought that was a way of life.
0:02:02 > 0:02:05One room for these people and no room for the other people.
0:02:05 > 0:02:09One door for these people, no door. Totally segregated.
0:02:11 > 0:02:14"Mechanical cotton pickers at work in the Mississippi fields.
0:02:14 > 0:02:19This is the first commercial acreage of cotton produced entirely by machinery."
0:02:19 > 0:02:21The mechanisation of the cotton farming industry
0:02:21 > 0:02:25meant that vast numbers of cotton pickers began to search for new work.
0:02:27 > 0:02:30So the African American south began to look north.
0:02:30 > 0:02:33Chicago.
0:02:33 > 0:02:35In the morning, eight o'clock. Chicago.
0:02:37 > 0:02:39732 miles from here.
0:02:42 > 0:02:46Don't you want to go...
0:02:51 > 0:02:53It was sort of like the promised land.
0:02:53 > 0:02:58Down south on the direct siege, you know what I mean?
0:02:58 > 0:03:02And if you were picking cotton for 50 cent a day you come to Chicago,
0:03:02 > 0:03:04they was paying 50 cent an hour.
0:03:05 > 0:03:09The trains all led that way and that's where the money was.
0:03:09 > 0:03:13That's why they went there. Nothing simpler than that. Economics.
0:03:17 > 0:03:22Chicago was the place. There was a stock yard, steel mills, domestic work.
0:03:22 > 0:03:24IT was a panacea for a black person.
0:03:27 > 0:03:31Masses of migrants from the sparsely populated rural south
0:03:31 > 0:03:35were now living freer lives in Chicago's west and south sides.
0:03:36 > 0:03:38A black southern fiesta was brewing
0:03:38 > 0:03:42and the soundtrack would be every black southerner's favourite party music, the blues.
0:03:58 > 0:04:00Here I am driving around and I see signs.
0:04:00 > 0:04:03Elmore James. Tuesday night.
0:04:03 > 0:04:05Or Muddy Waters this weekend.
0:04:05 > 0:04:09Howling Wolf. I couldn't believe it.
0:04:09 > 0:04:12I couldn't visualise that many musician.
0:04:12 > 0:04:15That many entertainers.
0:04:15 > 0:04:17That many juke joints.
0:04:18 > 0:04:22That many ladies in the whole bit was in Chicago in one block.
0:04:23 > 0:04:25God, I thought I was in heaven, man!
0:04:27 > 0:04:29This scene wasn't about the good old days.
0:04:30 > 0:04:33Modern black audiences required a modern black music
0:04:33 > 0:04:36and a generation of forward-thinking blues artists were emerging,
0:04:36 > 0:04:39eager to leave the past behind.
0:04:39 > 0:04:41At the vanguard of this scene,
0:04:41 > 0:04:45one record label in particular was blazing a blues trail.
0:04:45 > 0:04:49Every good record that Mick and I heard was coming out of Chicago.
0:04:49 > 0:04:52And it was basically coming out of Chess.
0:04:53 > 0:04:56Chess honed us in on Chicago blues.
0:04:56 > 0:04:59And we found in there such a wealth of material.
0:04:59 > 0:05:02You didn't really need to look much further.
0:05:03 > 0:05:08Art was never in the picture for the artist or my family.
0:05:08 > 0:05:11It was about making hits which made money.
0:05:12 > 0:05:14The Chess family came from Poland.
0:05:14 > 0:05:19My father didn't like working for people so started with a liquor store in the black neighbourhood.
0:05:19 > 0:05:22He then opened a corner tavern with a jukebox.
0:05:22 > 0:05:26Not only did he see them buying alcohol, he saw them putting nickels in the jukebox.
0:05:26 > 0:05:31Three years later started Chess Records with my uncle. 1950.
0:05:31 > 0:05:33Muddy Waters was their first real star.
0:05:42 > 0:05:44I think I'm responsible for Chicago blues.
0:05:44 > 0:05:48I think I'm the man who set Chicago up for the real blues.
0:05:48 > 0:05:53Muddy had that voice and that very sparse way of playing things.
0:05:55 > 0:05:59The perfectly framed voice. Even talking about it I still get the chills up the back.
0:06:00 > 0:06:02Well, I'm gonna wake up
0:06:03 > 0:06:05Won't be back no more
0:06:22 > 0:06:26In 1948, Muddy Waters released I Can't Be Satisfied.
0:06:26 > 0:06:31This electrified take on the down home blues sold out overnight.
0:06:32 > 0:06:33Can't Be Satisfied.
0:06:33 > 0:06:37This is the country coming into the city.
0:06:37 > 0:06:41And the city sort of melding in to the country.
0:06:41 > 0:06:46And I think at the same time Muddy didn't know what he was up to there.
0:06:46 > 0:06:49Suddenly a sound can be born in the studio.
0:06:49 > 0:06:55Muddy had been playing an acoustic guitar in Mississippi
0:06:55 > 0:07:00now he's in Chicago where things are faster, more modern.
0:07:00 > 0:07:03There's electricity! It's a whole different world.
0:07:03 > 0:07:07So it's just a natural progression, to get an amplifier and plug in.
0:07:07 > 0:07:09Electric guitar.
0:07:12 > 0:07:15Muddy put a band together to convey this new electric sound.
0:07:15 > 0:07:18Blues was entering a new era.
0:07:18 > 0:07:22When blues musicians first began playing electric guitars or amplified instruments,
0:07:22 > 0:07:24it was just basically louder.
0:07:25 > 0:07:28Over a relatively short period of time they discovered electrification
0:07:28 > 0:07:33could create its own sounds and tones that it could have more attack.
0:07:33 > 0:07:37That could have more sustain, have intentional distortion.
0:07:37 > 0:07:41And all of these things became part of the language of blues recording.
0:07:49 > 0:07:52Those hot steamy clubs were the first amplified loud music.
0:07:52 > 0:07:56Guys that got their first pay cheque on Friday, women in red silk dresses.
0:07:56 > 0:08:01Grinding and bumping. This was an amazing time for black culture in Chicago.
0:08:05 > 0:08:08This harder slicker urban blues was perfectly distilled
0:08:08 > 0:08:10in the revolutionary amplified harmonica sounds
0:08:10 > 0:08:13of a former Muddy Waters band member Little Walter.
0:08:15 > 0:08:17Walter was a little wild.
0:08:17 > 0:08:22You had to be careful. He always wants fights about something like that.
0:08:23 > 0:08:25He was a tough guy.
0:08:25 > 0:08:28He was a little guy, they didn't call him Little Walter for nothing,
0:08:28 > 0:08:31but pound for pound he was one tough little dude.
0:08:31 > 0:08:33You wouldn't want to mess with him.
0:08:33 > 0:08:35Boom boom out go the lights
0:08:35 > 0:08:38With his club hit Boom Boom Out Go The Lights,
0:08:38 > 0:08:42Little Walter would usher the blues into some psychologically unsettling territory.
0:08:44 > 0:08:47It's about this lady that he was in love with.
0:08:47 > 0:08:50And she had left him for some other man,
0:08:50 > 0:08:52but he said if you ever get her in your sight,
0:08:52 > 0:08:55boom boom, he going to shoot her, that's what he talking about.
0:08:56 > 0:08:58Boom boom out go the lights
0:08:58 > 0:09:01The woman might be all you had.
0:09:01 > 0:09:03And if somebody's hitting on her,
0:09:03 > 0:09:05he ain't gonna stand for it.
0:09:06 > 0:09:08There'll be some cutting and shooting going on.
0:09:11 > 0:09:15These bluesmen's new sound was as tough as the city that spawned it.
0:09:15 > 0:09:17Despite being a mecca for African Americans,
0:09:17 > 0:09:21life in Chicago could be as brutal as the south they had left behind.
0:09:22 > 0:09:24You had bad luck
0:09:25 > 0:09:27A long long way from home
0:09:31 > 0:09:33You had bad luck
0:09:35 > 0:09:37Honey long long way from home
0:09:40 > 0:09:43Well now since I know you love me
0:09:44 > 0:09:46Honey love will keep you going
0:09:47 > 0:09:51There was all kinds of problems with drinking, with early drug use, cocaine and things.
0:09:51 > 0:09:53And there was a lot of physical abuse.
0:09:53 > 0:09:56These were people trying to survive in a white culture
0:09:56 > 0:09:59that was not that accepting to black people.
0:10:00 > 0:10:05This guy walked in the bar early in the morning with a shopping bag.
0:10:05 > 0:10:08And the guy ordered two bottles of beer.
0:10:09 > 0:10:11And the guy set them up and went back to work
0:10:11 > 0:10:15and all of a sudden he raised his head from filling a box out.
0:10:15 > 0:10:19The guy took the woman's head out and set it beside the other beer.
0:10:19 > 0:10:23He had a drink. Just a woman's head. He had cut her head off at that club.
0:10:38 > 0:10:41But it wasn't just Chicago that was modernising the blues.
0:10:41 > 0:10:47280 miles east of the city a dirty new groove was brewing in Detroit.
0:10:53 > 0:10:56John Lee made no compromises.
0:10:56 > 0:10:58John Lee was John Lee.
0:11:00 > 0:11:05Here come John Lee Hooker with Boogie Chillen'. I'm like saying what is this?
0:11:05 > 0:11:07Just that rhythm.
0:11:07 > 0:11:08HE HUMS
0:11:10 > 0:11:12I'm like, Oh my God.
0:11:13 > 0:11:16With Boogie Chillen', Mississippi migrant John Lee Hooker
0:11:16 > 0:11:22took his primitive modern sound to the top of the black R&B charts in 1949.
0:11:22 > 0:11:25The way he's kind of talking it too,
0:11:25 > 0:11:26it's like this conversation.
0:11:27 > 0:11:29I was walking down Hastings Street
0:11:31 > 0:11:33Everybody was talking about
0:11:36 > 0:11:38Henry's swing club
0:11:39 > 0:11:42In Boogie Chillem' he's talking about Detroit.
0:11:42 > 0:11:45Everybody's having a ball, drinking beer and wine.
0:11:45 > 0:11:49I got there, I said, yes, people.
0:11:49 > 0:11:54It just goes on and on. It's like a narrative of him in Detroit.
0:11:56 > 0:11:58If you're playing with John Lee,
0:11:58 > 0:12:00it was, OK, what key are we in, John?
0:12:01 > 0:12:04And he'd hit the bottom string on his guitar.
0:12:05 > 0:12:07That one.
0:12:09 > 0:12:12It could be F sharp, it could be E flat.
0:12:16 > 0:12:18That was it, whatever his guitar was tuned to, that was it.
0:12:18 > 0:12:20Boom boom boom boom
0:12:21 > 0:12:23Gonna shoot you right down
0:12:24 > 0:12:26Right off your feet
0:12:28 > 0:12:30Take you home with me
0:12:31 > 0:12:32Put you in my house
0:12:34 > 0:12:36Boom boom boom boom
0:12:38 > 0:12:43There is nothing more erotic than John Hooker and a guitar when he's playing in that groove.
0:12:44 > 0:12:45When you talking to me
0:12:48 > 0:12:51It's treacherous how deep that kind of groove goes.
0:12:51 > 0:12:53There's nobody that can cut as deep.
0:12:53 > 0:13:00And he's somebody who didn't lose any of the feel of the really low down Mississippi Delta
0:13:00 > 0:13:01when he moved to Detroit.
0:13:01 > 0:13:03He electrified it.
0:13:12 > 0:13:15Brilliant, wonderful way to express blues.
0:13:15 > 0:13:17He's unlike anybody else.
0:13:18 > 0:13:20Nobody sounds like John Lee Hooker.
0:13:28 > 0:13:31For black audiences, the industrial northern cities
0:13:31 > 0:13:34were now producing some of the most exciting new music in the country.
0:13:35 > 0:13:38But back down south on the banks of the Mississippi,
0:13:38 > 0:13:40life continued at a different pace.
0:13:41 > 0:13:45Lay me down padded on your floor
0:13:46 > 0:13:49Lay me down
0:13:50 > 0:13:55Lay me padded down soft and low
0:13:55 > 0:13:59Lay me padded on your floor
0:14:01 > 0:14:03Memphis was a dirt roads crossroads.
0:14:03 > 0:14:06Everything was smaller, everything was quieter.
0:14:06 > 0:14:10In the north they make cars, here the big factories make tyres.
0:14:12 > 0:14:15In Memphis Tennessee a pioneering southern record producer
0:14:15 > 0:14:19by the name of Sam Phillips had grand musical designs of his own.
0:14:21 > 0:14:23We're here in Sun recording studio.
0:14:23 > 0:14:28The amazing thing about Sun is how small it is.
0:14:28 > 0:14:31This little shoe box, you can't believe the sounds that came out of here.
0:14:31 > 0:14:36And in large part that's because of the way Sam designed the room
0:14:36 > 0:14:40with a ceiling that is made to still the sound.
0:14:40 > 0:14:42So it's not flying all about the room.
0:14:44 > 0:14:47I think the records are testament to his success.
0:14:47 > 0:14:49A lot of people holler about I don't like no blue
0:14:49 > 0:14:51but when you ain't got no money
0:14:51 > 0:14:54and can't pay your house rent and can't buy you no food,
0:14:54 > 0:14:57you damn sure got the blues.
0:14:58 > 0:15:01In 1951 Sam Phillips cut a record
0:15:01 > 0:15:06by Mississippi native Chester Arthur Burnett aka Howling Wolf.
0:15:06 > 0:15:08His debut, How Many More Years,
0:15:08 > 0:15:12was instantly noticed by Leonard Chess, who signed him up immediately.
0:15:14 > 0:15:17Howling Wolf began with the great record producer, Sam Phillips.
0:15:17 > 0:15:20He called my father and said, "I've got a great artist here."
0:15:20 > 0:15:23My father heard it right away.
0:15:23 > 0:15:27It was the kind of artist my father would jump at. Original, different.
0:15:27 > 0:15:29Wrote his own material.
0:15:32 > 0:15:34You can't belive what I say
0:15:42 > 0:15:43And you better believe what I say
0:15:47 > 0:15:50You wanna set up crazy
0:15:51 > 0:15:53That you just wanna have your way
0:15:54 > 0:15:56And you can't do that with me
0:15:57 > 0:16:01His voice it was, wow.
0:16:01 > 0:16:05It was so, I still feel it, from the first time I saw him.
0:16:05 > 0:16:09Oh, stop your train darling
0:16:13 > 0:16:16I'll cope all right
0:16:17 > 0:16:20Don't you hear me crying
0:16:21 > 0:16:23Oooh
0:16:25 > 0:16:26Oooh
0:16:28 > 0:16:31I don't think there's a person that can listen to Howling Wolf's music
0:16:31 > 0:16:34and not be absolutely awestruck.
0:16:34 > 0:16:38The enormity of the power of his singing style
0:16:38 > 0:16:40and his raw and his ferocity.
0:16:40 > 0:16:43Oh moving in
0:16:46 > 0:16:51Wolf was probably the most intimidating and in a great way overwhelming
0:16:51 > 0:16:53for a young woman or for any age.
0:16:53 > 0:16:58He stands as the most powerful of all the blues singers, I think.
0:17:00 > 0:17:03I think Sam Phillips had a commercial sensibility.
0:17:03 > 0:17:07And I'm sure it must have dawned on him that if a white person were singing this music
0:17:07 > 0:17:10he would get an audience for it.
0:17:10 > 0:17:13Sam Phillips kept up a steady stream of blues releases
0:17:13 > 0:17:17with the likes of BB King, Bobby Blue Bland and Junior Parker
0:17:17 > 0:17:21until 1954 when he struck gold with a white boy
0:17:21 > 0:17:23singing an Arthur Crudup blues track.
0:17:25 > 0:17:28Well, that's all right, Mama
0:17:28 > 0:17:30That's all right with you
0:17:30 > 0:17:32That's all right, Mama
0:17:32 > 0:17:34Just any way you do
0:17:35 > 0:17:39Things changed when Elvis Presley walked in that door.
0:17:40 > 0:17:44To me Elvis hits eternity with the first record That's All Right Mama.
0:17:44 > 0:17:48Elvis took that black art and embraced it and sang it to a white audience.
0:17:48 > 0:17:53And became a portal through which white people could experience black culture.
0:17:56 > 0:18:00He snuck across an invisible racial barrier.
0:18:00 > 0:18:05All these rhythms got smuggled in this very attractive young man
0:18:05 > 0:18:08and once he unleashed that
0:18:08 > 0:18:10there was no putting that back in the box
0:18:10 > 0:18:13and putting the lid on it and locking it back up.
0:18:14 > 0:18:17A tectonic shift was stirring in American pop culture.
0:18:17 > 0:18:20Musical and racial categories were becoming redundant.
0:18:20 > 0:18:25Blues and country, black and white were all morphing into a brand new sound.
0:18:25 > 0:18:26Rock and roll.
0:18:27 > 0:18:31So when an aspiring blues performer Chuck Berry walked into Chess Records
0:18:31 > 0:18:35with a cover of a country song, Leonard Chess's eyes lit up.
0:18:35 > 0:18:36Ida Red, Ida Red
0:18:36 > 0:18:39I'm a plumb fool about Ida Red
0:18:39 > 0:18:42My father and my uncle had that ear for something different.
0:18:42 > 0:18:45And as soon as they heard that Ida Red song,
0:18:45 > 0:18:48they told him change the lyric, come back.
0:18:48 > 0:18:50Maybelline, why can't you be true
0:18:50 > 0:18:52Oh Maybelline
0:18:53 > 0:18:55Why can't you be true
0:18:57 > 0:18:59I remember hearing Maybelline when it came out on the radio.
0:18:59 > 0:19:02It struck me as like that's a hillbilly song.
0:19:02 > 0:19:05Chuck Berry's a black guy doing a hillbilly song.
0:19:05 > 0:19:06This is cool!
0:19:08 > 0:19:10When I first heard Chuck Berry I thought he was a white person.
0:19:10 > 0:19:13All my friends thought he was white.
0:19:13 > 0:19:15And all the girls thought he was white too.
0:19:17 > 0:19:19It changed everything with Chuck. We never had a record like that.
0:19:19 > 0:19:22We never sold records to white people before.
0:19:22 > 0:19:24This was a big change.
0:19:24 > 0:19:29People were hearing Chuck Berry records and thought they were hearing a white person.
0:19:29 > 0:19:33People were hearing Elvis Presley records and thought they were hearing a black person.
0:19:33 > 0:19:36Oh Maybelline, why can't you be true
0:19:37 > 0:19:40Oh Maybelline, why can't you be true
0:19:41 > 0:19:44You started back doing the things you used to do
0:19:49 > 0:19:52Rock and roll was musical desegregation.
0:19:52 > 0:19:56And this new mood began to echo the racial politics of the time.
0:19:56 > 0:19:59In 1954, the US Supreme Court
0:19:59 > 0:20:02ruled that segregation in schools was unconstitutional.
0:20:02 > 0:20:06The early rumblings of the civil rights movement were beginning to stir
0:20:06 > 0:20:10and for African Americans this was a time to look toward the future.
0:20:10 > 0:20:13This new movement would call for a new soundtrack.
0:20:29 > 0:20:34Blues ended for young black people. They began to buy soul music.
0:20:35 > 0:20:37And then Motown hit really strong.
0:20:37 > 0:20:42It was just a cultural change, a new sound for a new generation.
0:20:43 > 0:20:45They equate blues with slavery.
0:20:45 > 0:20:48They wanted to try to upgrade themselves.
0:20:48 > 0:20:51Back in the 60s when I talked to black people,
0:20:51 > 0:20:54especially like when I was in jail, about the blues,
0:20:54 > 0:20:57they said don't talk that slave shit to me.
0:20:57 > 0:20:58They was uninterested.
0:20:58 > 0:21:02They didn't listen to what they called plantation music, stuff like that.
0:21:05 > 0:21:09By the end of the 50s the hits had dried up for even the most famous blues artists.
0:21:10 > 0:21:13I leave you honey
0:21:13 > 0:21:16My time has just run out
0:21:16 > 0:21:19Young black Americans had left the blues for dead.
0:21:20 > 0:21:22I leave you running
0:21:24 > 0:21:26My time has just run out
0:21:30 > 0:21:32You never wanted me baby
0:21:33 > 0:21:36I've come to find out
0:21:36 > 0:21:39I worked with black guys in the factory
0:21:39 > 0:21:41and we'd sit there on the break
0:21:41 > 0:21:45and I'd say something like, "I went to hear Muddy Waters."
0:21:45 > 0:21:50"Muddy Waters? What's wrong with you? That's old folks' music."
0:21:57 > 0:22:00The blues had been largely abandoned by its own audience.
0:22:00 > 0:22:04So when Muddy Waters turned up at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960
0:22:04 > 0:22:06he was yesterday's news.
0:22:06 > 0:22:10But against all odds, in front of a largely white audience
0:22:10 > 0:22:12his set went down a storm.
0:22:13 > 0:22:15Got my mojo working
0:22:15 > 0:22:18But it just don't work on you
0:22:20 > 0:22:22Got my mojo working
0:22:22 > 0:22:25But it just don't work on you
0:22:59 > 0:23:03He plays his electric blues in front of a fully white audience.
0:23:03 > 0:23:07He does this great performance of I Got My Mojo.
0:23:07 > 0:23:09Got my mojo working
0:23:10 > 0:23:12Got my mojo working
0:23:14 > 0:23:16Got my mojo working
0:23:17 > 0:23:19Got my mojo working
0:23:21 > 0:23:26Got my mojo working but it just don't work on you
0:23:29 > 0:23:33All of a sudden we're getting tons of album orders from Boston.
0:23:33 > 0:23:35And that was the big turning point.
0:23:35 > 0:23:41That's when we noticed white people admiring the blues in album form.
0:23:42 > 0:23:47Suddenly the blues looked like it might have a future after all and its future looked white.
0:24:02 > 0:24:04At the dawn of the 60s
0:24:04 > 0:24:06a group of white educated blues enthusiasts
0:24:06 > 0:24:09were beginning to look back past rock and roll
0:24:09 > 0:24:10and the electric blues that had spawned it.
0:24:11 > 0:24:16They heard something deeper in the blues and began a quest to unearth the real thing.
0:24:26 > 0:24:28In the footsteps of pioneering musicologist Alan Lomax,
0:24:28 > 0:24:33and at the forefront of this new generation of blues hunters, was Sam Charters.
0:24:34 > 0:24:36It was an incredible adventure.
0:24:36 > 0:24:39This was one of the most exciting periods of my life.
0:24:41 > 0:24:45I set out 1959 with my wife in the car.
0:24:45 > 0:24:47And I just set off and went to Memphis.
0:24:47 > 0:24:51And from that moment on one singer led me to another.
0:24:52 > 0:24:54Sam Charters set about documenting his mission
0:24:54 > 0:24:58to track down these obscure, long-forgotten bluesmen
0:24:58 > 0:25:00with a book, The Country Blues,
0:25:00 > 0:25:03as well as filming and recording his discoveries.
0:25:04 > 0:25:07What I wanted to get was the sense of wonder I had
0:25:07 > 0:25:08that I could knock on a door
0:25:08 > 0:25:11and the door could open and there would be a man.
0:25:11 > 0:25:14Wrinkled but still active and everything.
0:25:14 > 0:25:17He'd say, "Come on in, I'll play it for you."
0:25:19 > 0:25:25My feeling was get every voice I can, get every verse I can.
0:25:25 > 0:25:26Get every word I can.
0:25:34 > 0:25:39But this wasn't just a romantic musical quest, it was a political one too.
0:25:39 > 0:25:43We were on the other side of a barrier.
0:25:43 > 0:25:46The racial divide was so total.
0:25:46 > 0:25:52That we had no conception of what society was on the other side.
0:25:52 > 0:25:56And to discover the fear, the level of danger.
0:25:56 > 0:26:01I started to go by train from New York down to Memphis.
0:26:01 > 0:26:04The train got south of Washington
0:26:04 > 0:26:07and it stopped in the middle of a field.
0:26:07 > 0:26:12And every black person got up and walked to a car at the back.
0:26:14 > 0:26:161960!
0:26:16 > 0:26:18What on earth was going on?
0:26:18 > 0:26:22What I was attempting to do was to say, "Listen! Listen.
0:26:22 > 0:26:25Here's something beautiful."
0:26:26 > 0:26:31And if you listen to that you'll understand the human being who is singing it.
0:26:44 > 0:26:49Sam Charters' book, The Country Blues, and also the LP he produced to go with it,
0:26:49 > 0:26:52really kind of changed the world in terms of blues.
0:26:52 > 0:26:58Suddenly a generation was inspired to go out and find people like Mississippi John Hurts,
0:26:58 > 0:27:00Skip James, Sun House, Booker White.
0:27:02 > 0:27:05Really Sam Charters started all of that.
0:27:05 > 0:27:06What we now call the blues revival.
0:27:10 > 0:27:12Charters was not alone in his mission.
0:27:12 > 0:27:14Other white blues enthusiasts like Dick Waterman
0:27:14 > 0:27:18were also searching for these forgotten old southern blues musicians.
0:27:20 > 0:27:25This is a clarion call for racial equality in the United Sates.
0:27:25 > 0:27:30Especially among the young left Liberals.
0:27:30 > 0:27:36This opened the door for racial equality on a musical level.
0:27:37 > 0:27:42And nothing fits that better than an old black man.
0:27:43 > 0:27:49People were finding all these old artists that we assumed were only these mythical characters.
0:27:49 > 0:27:52Coming out of an old scratchy recording.
0:27:52 > 0:27:58And they were going to the rural south and finding they were perfectly alive and well
0:27:58 > 0:28:00and still performing in their communities.
0:28:01 > 0:28:07Before you knew it, Sun House was back, Skip James was back.
0:28:07 > 0:28:11All of these people long thought to be dead
0:28:11 > 0:28:15were now suddenly back and performing.
0:28:18 > 0:28:21These elderly, often penniless bluesmen
0:28:21 > 0:28:23who hadn't made a living out of music for nearly three decades
0:28:23 > 0:28:28were brought north and improbably given a new lease of life.
0:28:37 > 0:28:39And to their new white audiences
0:28:39 > 0:28:44this was the unmediated sound of the blues as a pure American folk art.
0:28:45 > 0:28:50In 1964 everybody was gathered for the Newport Folk Festival.
0:28:50 > 0:28:53They just brought Skip James from the hospital.
0:28:54 > 0:28:56And nobody knew if he could sing.
0:28:56 > 0:29:02I had to simply introduce Skip James as this great singer,
0:29:02 > 0:29:05and turn the microphone over to him.
0:29:06 > 0:29:10This man sits down and fingers the guitar
0:29:10 > 0:29:15and he hits the first step, he brings his head up,
0:29:15 > 0:29:23and he sings, "I'd rather be the devil than to be that woman's man."
0:29:23 > 0:29:27And there was a gasp. Wow!
0:29:28 > 0:29:31I'd rather be the devil
0:29:35 > 0:29:38I'd rather be the devil
0:29:39 > 0:29:41Than be that woman's man
0:29:44 > 0:29:49I thought I was gonna faint right there on the spot.
0:29:49 > 0:29:52You lay down all your love
0:29:52 > 0:29:55You know this day that I sing
0:29:58 > 0:30:01And boy he was back!
0:30:01 > 0:30:04Just an explosion! Who is this guy?
0:30:05 > 0:30:08The woman that I love
0:30:11 > 0:30:16It was just amazing to be a young white college age kid
0:30:16 > 0:30:19getting to interact and learn so much
0:30:19 > 0:30:23from these what really I would consider old masters.
0:30:26 > 0:30:28You know he got lucky
0:30:30 > 0:30:32He'll get her back again
0:30:32 > 0:30:38These were people who had learned their music and created their music by living it.
0:30:38 > 0:30:42It was first person music. People singing about their own lives.
0:30:42 > 0:30:45It was people who lived very hard lives.
0:30:45 > 0:30:46I was a comfortable middle-class kid.
0:30:49 > 0:30:52When I come to her again
0:30:54 > 0:30:57Backstage at the blues festivals that I got to hang out at,
0:30:57 > 0:30:59rightfully so it was a big party,
0:30:59 > 0:31:05and Dick would tell me don't let so-and-so have too much.
0:31:05 > 0:31:08Sun House in particular was very famous.
0:31:08 > 0:31:12If he didn't have his airplane bottle of vodka
0:31:12 > 0:31:14sometimes he couldn't remember his lyrics.
0:31:14 > 0:31:16You know I'm so sorry today, girl
0:31:18 > 0:31:21Than I ever know, girl
0:31:23 > 0:31:25He had to have some to jog his memory
0:31:25 > 0:31:28but if he had one too many then he wouldn't remember them.
0:31:30 > 0:31:33But when you give love
0:31:34 > 0:31:38They never had any idea what was happening.
0:31:38 > 0:31:42There was a strange audience of people they hadn't been allowed to look in their eyes.
0:31:42 > 0:31:44And suddenly here was this audience.
0:31:44 > 0:31:49And they had no idea what they were hearing, they just knew that the audience seemed to like it.
0:31:49 > 0:31:51So they did it.
0:31:53 > 0:31:55Can you imagine the culture shock?
0:31:55 > 0:31:59You had to take your hat off, step out into the street,
0:31:59 > 0:32:01be careful of your speech.
0:32:01 > 0:32:04And the script flips over.
0:32:04 > 0:32:08You're 67 years old, here are these white kids.
0:32:08 > 0:32:12"Oh my God, you're so-and-so! I know all the lyrics!"
0:32:12 > 0:32:15And then it's like...
0:32:17 > 0:32:19They didn't know what it was.
0:32:23 > 0:32:25The meaning of the blues had changed.
0:32:25 > 0:32:28What had been a black pop phenomenon till the 60s
0:32:28 > 0:32:33had now been reframed as a music of pain and alienation from the old Delta.
0:32:36 > 0:32:40And these old musicians, practically unknown when first recorded,
0:32:40 > 0:32:44were now performing songs that spoke to this new white vision.
0:32:45 > 0:32:52There is a yearning on the part of wealthier, whiter middle-class audience
0:32:52 > 0:32:54for something that is primal.
0:32:54 > 0:32:58To do with the rhythms of life as it used to be known.
0:32:58 > 0:33:01That we lost in the industrial revolution.
0:33:03 > 0:33:06The Delta was a vibrant place.
0:33:06 > 0:33:09Muddy Waters left for Chicago on the train.
0:33:09 > 0:33:14By the time the blues hunters turned up in the early 60s,
0:33:14 > 0:33:18those trains had stopped running a long time ago and the tracks were grown over with grass.
0:33:18 > 0:33:22This was a world that seemed like a modernity had never come near it.
0:33:22 > 0:33:25Understandably it was hard for anyone who went there
0:33:25 > 0:33:28to imagine that it had ever been any other way.
0:33:46 > 0:33:49But for this new generation of fans, one enigmatic country blues artist in particular,
0:33:49 > 0:33:55would come to embody all of the darkness and gothic mystery of the Mississippi Delta.
0:33:57 > 0:34:00There were a number of black people. especially ministers, who were very religious.
0:34:00 > 0:34:07They thought if you could go to a crossroad where two dirt roads intersect, at midnight...
0:34:07 > 0:34:10They'd sit there with two roads going on each side of you
0:34:10 > 0:34:14and the one behind you at midnight.
0:34:14 > 0:34:15And you play the best you can.
0:34:15 > 0:34:19And you hear somebody coming up behind you playing guitar.
0:34:19 > 0:34:22Don't look around, Satan will walk up behind you.
0:34:22 > 0:34:26Tap you on the shoulder, you hand him over the guitar,
0:34:26 > 0:34:30and once he plays that guitar you have made a deal with the devil,
0:34:30 > 0:34:33you have sold your soul to the devil.
0:34:33 > 0:34:37When you get up the next day, you can play anything you want on guitar.
0:34:37 > 0:34:39That's the story I heard when I was a kid.
0:34:41 > 0:34:44Early morning
0:34:44 > 0:34:46You knocked up on my door
0:34:46 > 0:34:51You stand at a crossroads in the Mississippi Delta, at night.
0:34:52 > 0:34:54And tell me you're not scared.
0:34:57 > 0:34:59You stand in the dark, it's an isolated place.
0:34:59 > 0:35:03There's panthers still in the Mississippi Delta.
0:35:03 > 0:35:05And I said hello
0:35:07 > 0:35:10I believe it's time to go
0:35:10 > 0:35:15Robert Johnson. The bluesman who sold his soul to the devil at the crossroads.
0:35:16 > 0:35:18This myth grew to fill a void of historical fact.
0:35:19 > 0:35:20He was the ultimate blues mystery
0:35:20 > 0:35:24and became the most seductive blues rediscovery of the 60s.
0:35:26 > 0:35:30Robert Johnson had always been kind of just this mystery.
0:35:30 > 0:35:32We knew nothing about him.
0:35:32 > 0:35:34Except we had heard he was dead.
0:35:37 > 0:35:40But one blues hunter would make a breakthrough.
0:35:45 > 0:35:48People love myths or they love stories.
0:35:48 > 0:35:51Johnson's the perfect man. Nothing was known about him.
0:35:58 > 0:36:02I first started asking about Robert Johnson around 1964.
0:36:02 > 0:36:04But there was very little information on Johnson.
0:36:04 > 0:36:10And in 1965 I went to the Department of Vital Statistics in Mississippi.
0:36:11 > 0:36:13To search for a death certificate on Robert Johnson.
0:36:13 > 0:36:18And this is the death certificate I received on the 11th day of January 1968.
0:36:18 > 0:36:23The man is dead in August 1938. At age 27.
0:36:23 > 0:36:30But the death certificate caused a lot of controversy because no one knew where he died.
0:36:32 > 0:36:34Some say he died in a bar room brawl,
0:36:34 > 0:36:36others that he was the victim of syphilis
0:36:36 > 0:36:40or maybe he was poisoned and died howling like a dog.
0:36:41 > 0:36:44Even until recently the whereabouts of his grave was much disputed.
0:36:47 > 0:36:50Here we are at the grave site
0:36:50 > 0:36:54of the legendary Robert Johnson in Greenwood, Mississippi.
0:36:54 > 0:36:58This is the place where he took sick and died in 1938.
0:36:58 > 0:37:01For a long time people weren't even sure where he was buried.
0:37:01 > 0:37:03Up until just a few years ago
0:37:03 > 0:37:07there were three different places that would tell you they had the remains of Robert Johnson.
0:37:07 > 0:37:10But now this has become the official location
0:37:10 > 0:37:12of the body of Robert Johnson.
0:37:13 > 0:37:17I think the reason why Johnson has become so interesting and so famous to us
0:37:17 > 0:37:19is because we don't know a lot about him.
0:37:19 > 0:37:21He's really kind of a phantom.
0:37:23 > 0:37:29All this began in 1961 when Robert Johnson, King Of The Delta Blues Singers, was released.
0:37:30 > 0:37:32While the search for forgotten bluesmen continued,
0:37:32 > 0:37:35a dead artist virtually unknown in his own lifetime
0:37:35 > 0:37:39was suddenly being hailed as the greatest blues artist ever.
0:37:40 > 0:37:44The record cover, the picture, was the black poet.
0:37:44 > 0:37:50The idea of this lone figure in his own world.
0:37:50 > 0:37:53He's hunched over his guitar, he isn't looking out at the audience.
0:37:53 > 0:37:54He's looking into his own soul.
0:37:55 > 0:37:58Robert has become that portal figure
0:37:58 > 0:38:01for a whole white world to enter into the black experience.
0:38:08 > 0:38:13If you were someone like the Rolling Stones and you had already heard Muddy Waters,
0:38:13 > 0:38:16this just sounded like where all of that came from.
0:38:16 > 0:38:20But with a complexity in the guitar work that you'd never heard.
0:38:20 > 0:38:22It felt like the roots of everything.
0:38:22 > 0:38:25You better come home
0:38:27 > 0:38:30The structure of the songs are so unique.
0:38:30 > 0:38:36Come Out In My Kitchen. These are not the everyday blues.
0:38:38 > 0:38:40He raised the bar.
0:39:01 > 0:39:03There's visuals in that music.
0:39:03 > 0:39:07Can't you hear that wind howl?
0:39:07 > 0:39:08HE HUMS
0:39:08 > 0:39:12You can feel it and you can see it.
0:39:12 > 0:39:15It's so beautiful.
0:39:23 > 0:39:28Johnson somehow crystallised the whole point of it.
0:39:28 > 0:39:32What could be done. Everybody still reaching for that bar.
0:39:32 > 0:39:35He was the perfect artist.
0:39:35 > 0:39:39When rock came along and you wanted to understand where it came from.
0:39:40 > 0:39:43The rediscovery of Delta blues artists like Robert Johnson
0:39:43 > 0:39:47may have been making waves among the folk festival and coffee house crowds.
0:39:48 > 0:39:51But the sound of young black America was now Motown
0:39:51 > 0:39:55and for mainstream audiences, the blues remained a dead music.
0:40:01 > 0:40:07So when a group of scruffy London blues fanatics arrived in the land of their idols in 1964,
0:40:07 > 0:40:09they were confused by what they found.
0:40:10 > 0:40:11I'm the little red rooster
0:40:12 > 0:40:18By the time we got to America we were well aware that these guys were not in the mainstream.
0:40:20 > 0:40:22We couldn't understand why
0:40:22 > 0:40:25especially when we got into an American cars,
0:40:25 > 0:40:28and they got 15 channels, and there's always a blues channel,
0:40:28 > 0:40:30a black channel playing this stuff.
0:40:30 > 0:40:34You know, "Why do you want to listen to this?"
0:40:34 > 0:40:40You know, they just didn't go down that end of the dial.
0:40:41 > 0:40:45Mick and I and the boys would walk in in '64 to juke joints in Mississippi.
0:40:45 > 0:40:49And be considered a novelty of course!
0:40:51 > 0:40:53But at the same time a pleasant novelty.
0:40:53 > 0:40:56And plied with drinks and other stuff.
0:40:56 > 0:41:00If we went into a white club we'd be treated like that because of the hair.
0:41:01 > 0:41:07I remember driving Brian Jones back to their hotel and people screaming "Homo! Homo!"
0:41:07 > 0:41:09cos he had shoulder-length hair!
0:41:09 > 0:41:11Are you guys wearing wigs?
0:41:20 > 0:41:22As part of their blues pilgrimage
0:41:22 > 0:41:24the Rolling Stones recorded at Chess,
0:41:24 > 0:41:27where they came face to face with their idols.
0:41:27 > 0:41:30I just wanna make love to you
0:41:30 > 0:41:32I'm only 21. I'd died and gone to heaven.
0:41:34 > 0:41:36Everybody was very supportive
0:41:36 > 0:41:40cos you feel you're walking into the lion's den at that age.
0:41:41 > 0:41:46And to come out with everybody's goodwill is yeah, OK.
0:41:46 > 0:41:49Now we can talk!
0:41:49 > 0:41:53They were drinking hard liquor out of the bottle. Jack Daniels out of the bottle, you know.
0:41:54 > 0:42:00And the black artists would pour it in a water glass and sip it, it was a different style.
0:42:00 > 0:42:04I know a lot more about the blues by meeting the people
0:42:04 > 0:42:05than you would by listening.
0:42:06 > 0:42:08I slept at Muddy's house.
0:42:08 > 0:42:12I woke up at Howling Wolf's but that's another story!
0:42:16 > 0:42:20When the Stones broke big a year later, America was suddenly all ears.
0:42:22 > 0:42:24We just thought more people should hear the blues.
0:42:25 > 0:42:30And then as we got popular we found we were more in a position to do that.
0:42:30 > 0:42:33We were missionaries in a way!
0:42:35 > 0:42:38An invitation to perform on a top teenage TV show called Shindig
0:42:38 > 0:42:41presented them with an irresistible opportunity.
0:42:42 > 0:42:47I was at the 1965 Shindig taping.
0:42:47 > 0:42:54Where the Rolling Stones would not be on Shindig unless Howling Wolf could be on.
0:42:54 > 0:42:57ABC thought it was an animal act!
0:42:58 > 0:43:01A howling wolf? Sure! Whatever you like.
0:43:01 > 0:43:03Bring a howling wolf.
0:43:03 > 0:43:05They had no idea who Howling Wolf was.
0:43:05 > 0:43:07And probably wished they didn't.
0:43:07 > 0:43:12These are tight white cats from LA and it's the early 60s.
0:43:12 > 0:43:15It's about time you shut up and we had Howling Wolf on stage.
0:43:16 > 0:43:19How many more years
0:43:20 > 0:43:23Since I have let you go feel right
0:43:26 > 0:43:29How many more years
0:43:31 > 0:43:34The audience loved Howling Wolf.
0:43:34 > 0:43:37And they were like, he overwhelmed them.
0:43:40 > 0:43:46The Stones had managed to smuggle a 54-year-old, six foot three inch, 21 stone
0:43:46 > 0:43:50forgotten Mississippi bluesman onto primetime television.
0:43:50 > 0:43:55Mainstream America sat up and watched the Wolf smash through a racial barrier.
0:43:56 > 0:44:01From that a lot of guys who felt that their music was being drifted off
0:44:01 > 0:44:04because of Motown and R&B
0:44:05 > 0:44:07found a whole new audience.
0:44:11 > 0:44:17They went and told the world who these great people was.
0:44:17 > 0:44:21And then that's why white America was saying let me go see.
0:44:23 > 0:44:27The Rolling Stones were the first pop stars to insist they were playing the blues.
0:44:28 > 0:44:30With them a new wave of American white kids
0:44:30 > 0:44:33picked up electric guitars and started playing blues licks.
0:44:34 > 0:44:39I didn't know any white people who listened to blues music before the English bands come over.
0:44:39 > 0:44:42All of a sudden everybody's name was a blues band.
0:44:42 > 0:44:44All of a sudden it was like Santander Blues Band.
0:44:44 > 0:44:48Or Steve Miller Blues Band.
0:44:50 > 0:44:53But for those who still saw blues as an acoustic folk art
0:44:53 > 0:44:55these electric blues bands were imposters.
0:44:57 > 0:44:59So when pioneering musicologist Alan Lomax
0:44:59 > 0:45:02introduced the Paul Butterfield Blues Band at Newport in 1965
0:45:02 > 0:45:06these two opposing visions of the blues would collide.
0:45:07 > 0:45:09I think amongst the white folk fans
0:45:09 > 0:45:12there was the feeling that if you didn't have an acoustic guitar,
0:45:12 > 0:45:14if you had an electric guitar,
0:45:14 > 0:45:15you weren't the real thing.
0:45:16 > 0:45:19In 1965 we went to Newport.
0:45:19 > 0:45:21It was the Paul Butterfield Blues Band.
0:45:21 > 0:45:26Alan Lomax, who was the curator of the workshop,
0:45:26 > 0:45:30just took great offence at the fact that these guys were plugged in and playing loud.
0:45:30 > 0:45:34He didn't like the idea of this group at all.
0:45:34 > 0:45:35They were electric.
0:45:35 > 0:45:42Lomax said you've heard the real thing, you've heard blues musicians from the south play this music.
0:45:43 > 0:45:46Now we're gonna hear some kids from Chicago
0:45:48 > 0:45:51with the help of all these amplifiers up here
0:45:52 > 0:45:53try and play the blues.
0:46:10 > 0:46:14They just tore it up. They were bad to the bone.
0:46:22 > 0:46:24And there was me standing on the sidelines
0:46:24 > 0:46:28just almost jumping out of my skin with my friends
0:46:28 > 0:46:32because we were so knocked out by the sound they were putting out.
0:46:45 > 0:46:48Albert Grossman, who was managing the Paul Butterfield Band,
0:46:48 > 0:46:51said, "That was a real chicken shit introduction."
0:46:51 > 0:46:53And the next thing they're throwing punches.
0:46:53 > 0:46:58We looked over and these two big old guys are engaged in fisticuffs!
0:46:58 > 0:47:02And rolling around in the dirt there on the side of the stage.
0:47:03 > 0:47:07That was an interesting indication of how the old guard
0:47:07 > 0:47:14decided they were going to be the people who defined what the blues were.
0:47:22 > 0:47:27The blues represented a certain kind of idealised Americana.
0:47:27 > 0:47:32It represented a kind of communitarian vision.
0:47:34 > 0:47:38Putting electric guitar on it was like sticking a dollar sign in front of it.
0:47:39 > 0:47:45He was upset because these people with their decades and centuries honed style of making music
0:47:45 > 0:47:49and singing were just kind of being swept aside.
0:47:56 > 0:47:59What fascinated Alan was where the music came from.
0:47:59 > 0:48:03I don't like the word pure but I like the word basic.
0:48:03 > 0:48:07That they were finding all the original forms of the blues.
0:48:07 > 0:48:10But then I'm not sure he liked what happened to it.
0:48:10 > 0:48:14Because it did partly become commercialised.
0:48:17 > 0:48:20You can understand, he's from his era.
0:48:20 > 0:48:23He's been honking around these penitentiaries
0:48:23 > 0:48:25looking for the original thing.
0:48:27 > 0:48:28Looking for fool's gold.
0:48:33 > 0:48:35Preserving this vision of an authentic acoustic blues
0:48:35 > 0:48:38was rapidly becoming an irrelevance.
0:48:39 > 0:48:41A new generation of white American blues rock fans
0:48:41 > 0:48:43were rediscovering the electric blues greats.
0:48:47 > 0:48:49One bluesman who had no nostalgia for acoustic guitars
0:48:49 > 0:48:53and depression-era Mississippi was BB King.
0:48:55 > 0:48:59His urbane uptown blues sound instantly struck a chord with this new breed of fan.
0:49:10 > 0:49:16In my opinion BB King is the greatest blues singer, guitar player, that ever recorded.
0:49:16 > 0:49:18And his longevity speaks for that.
0:49:18 > 0:49:22He had class and dignity and that's what white people wanted to see.
0:49:23 > 0:49:26You never said, BB King, see a funky show.
0:49:26 > 0:49:28You'll see something outrageous.
0:49:28 > 0:49:33You went to hear very finely honed, beautifully played music.
0:49:42 > 0:49:48He just exudes this quality of, like, royalty.
0:49:49 > 0:49:54I think he's raised blues to be something that's full of pride.
0:50:11 > 0:50:15While BB King's refined brand of blues was filling up auditoriums across the States,
0:50:15 > 0:50:19the influence of the blues was beginning to underpin new musical directions.
0:50:22 > 0:50:29As the 60s became the 70s, its licks, attitude and mythology
0:50:30 > 0:50:33evolved into the foundations of rock culture.
0:50:39 > 0:50:42Songs well over three decades old,
0:50:42 > 0:50:44by the likes of Robert Johnson and Skip James,
0:50:44 > 0:50:47were being reimagined as a brand new sound.
0:50:47 > 0:50:50Blues rock became hard rock.
0:50:52 > 0:50:54Hard rock became heavy metal.
0:50:54 > 0:50:58What was left of the blues seemed lost in cliche and excess.
0:51:01 > 0:51:05But by the dawn of the 80s a new wave of musicians and audiences
0:51:05 > 0:51:08began to cast their eyes back past the bloated beast of rock,
0:51:08 > 0:51:12and in doing so kick started another blues revival.
0:51:14 > 0:51:17The success of new artists like Stevie Ray Vaughan and Robert Cray
0:51:17 > 0:51:22proved beyond question that the blues was a music with vast commercial potential.
0:51:22 > 0:51:25Now even yuppies liked the blues.
0:51:32 > 0:51:35There was a burst of interest in blues in the 80s.
0:51:35 > 0:51:38Especially led by Stevie Ray Vaughan.
0:51:38 > 0:51:43Stevie was at the forefront of the 80s and early 90s blues revival.
0:51:43 > 0:51:46There was a resurgence of the blues
0:51:46 > 0:51:50and in R&B the music was a little more simple, more accessible.
0:51:50 > 0:51:54I think that the public heard it as something new.
0:51:57 > 0:52:00From out of the shadows and into this bright new musical landscape
0:52:00 > 0:52:04emerged a familiar figure with an unfamiliar sound.
0:52:10 > 0:52:14It turned a lot of people on to blues who ordinarily would never have listened to blues.
0:52:14 > 0:52:16Or know anything about it.
0:52:16 > 0:52:19Santander wanted to cut John Lee Hooker with The Healer.
0:52:19 > 0:52:22And that was a big thing. I was so proud of him.
0:52:22 > 0:52:28Because you couldn't forget him from Boogie Chillem' but he was kind of being forgotten.
0:52:31 > 0:52:37The Healer made 72-year-old John Lee Hooker into a global megastar.
0:52:37 > 0:52:39It was great for John.
0:52:40 > 0:52:41It was great for blues.
0:52:42 > 0:52:47Blues a healer all over the world
0:52:50 > 0:52:51Blues a healer
0:52:54 > 0:52:55He appreciated the success.
0:52:55 > 0:52:58He dressed nice, people knew him.
0:53:00 > 0:53:05As a man coming from Mississippi and moving up and being successful,
0:53:05 > 0:53:07I think that was it.
0:53:07 > 0:53:09That was as good as it gets.
0:53:13 > 0:53:17When I saw who was going to collaborate on that record I couldn't wait to be part of it.
0:53:18 > 0:53:22And luckily I'm In The Mood hadn't been chosen and that was my favourite song.
0:53:24 > 0:53:25I'm in the mood
0:53:28 > 0:53:29Oh
0:53:29 > 0:53:32He and I start going together without any rehearsal.
0:53:32 > 0:53:36It was a moment that will remain a highlight for me.
0:53:37 > 0:53:39Now now no now now
0:53:43 > 0:53:44I try but you love nobody
0:53:45 > 0:53:48- I hear you call - Nobody nobody
0:53:50 > 0:53:51It felt exactly like it sounds.
0:53:52 > 0:53:54And it just went on and on and the end of it
0:53:54 > 0:53:58I literally asked for a towel, that's how deep it was.
0:54:00 > 0:54:03I wanna thank you, baby.
0:54:07 > 0:54:09The revival of John Lee Hooker in the early 90s
0:54:09 > 0:54:12pointed to a wider trend in American culture.
0:54:12 > 0:54:16The blues was now firmly embedded at the heart of the great American narrative,
0:54:16 > 0:54:19and big brands were quick to take note.
0:54:19 > 0:54:25I think advertisers use the blues because it speaks to rough authenticity.
0:54:25 > 0:54:27To being genuine.
0:54:27 > 0:54:29To being unvarnished.
0:54:30 > 0:54:33These are jeans worn by working people who are out there in the real world,
0:54:33 > 0:54:36Not slick. It's anti-slick music.
0:54:42 > 0:54:45There was a big campaign going on at that time.
0:54:45 > 0:54:46It was hip to be blue!
0:54:50 > 0:54:54Blues was now being used to sell everything from jeans to beer.
0:54:55 > 0:54:58Now of course blues is being used in Viagara commercials.
0:54:58 > 0:55:01Why would you let something like erectile dysfunction get in your way?
0:55:02 > 0:55:05Isn't it time you talked to your doctor about Viagara?
0:55:05 > 0:55:07I'm very scared this is the new blues demographic!
0:55:07 > 0:55:11But if I eventually need an ED mediation,
0:55:11 > 0:55:14I'm using the one that uses the blues in commercials!
0:55:14 > 0:55:17Seek immediate medical help for an erection lasting more than four hours.
0:55:22 > 0:55:27In 2012, President Obama hosted an evening of blues at the White House.
0:55:27 > 0:55:33After 100 years, a music created by a generation of Americans who had nothing
0:55:33 > 0:55:37was being used as the ultimate emblem of the American dream.
0:55:37 > 0:55:42It's a once in a lifetime and I still pinch myself now.
0:55:42 > 0:55:44And say is that really you?
0:55:45 > 0:55:48That's a long way from picking cotton on a farm!
0:55:48 > 0:55:50Picking the guitar at the White House.
0:55:52 > 0:55:58Then he come up and made a speech after we finished playing.
0:55:58 > 0:56:04I said, "Mr President, I understand you can sing Sweet Home Chicago."
0:56:04 > 0:56:07Come on, Mr President, sing it!
0:56:07 > 0:56:12Come home, baby don't you wanna go
0:56:12 > 0:56:19Sweet Home Chicago, Robert Johnson's 1936 anthem of black migration from the despair of the south,
0:56:19 > 0:56:21being sung by the most powerful man in the world.
0:56:21 > 0:56:26The blues narrative has seemingly reached its symbolic peak.
0:56:26 > 0:56:27Sweet home Chicago
0:56:29 > 0:56:35I was overjoyed. I cried after we finished the show.
0:56:35 > 0:56:38Because that's a dream come true.
0:56:38 > 0:56:40I never thought something like that would happen
0:56:40 > 0:56:43to a blues guy to be up in the White House
0:56:43 > 0:56:45playing for the president of the United States.
0:57:06 > 0:57:07Over the last 100 years,
0:57:07 > 0:57:12the blues has transcended racial, musical and national boundaries.
0:57:12 > 0:57:18Its icons, songs and stories now form part of the DNA of a nation.
0:57:22 > 0:57:24And for what remains the poorest region in the country,
0:57:24 > 0:57:29the blues is beginning to provide a much-needed economic boost.
0:57:29 > 0:57:33People of the 30s, 40, 50s, 60s in the south
0:57:33 > 0:57:37would be amazed that a large part of the tourism economy here in Mississippi
0:57:37 > 0:57:40is about blues history.
0:57:40 > 0:57:46To see modern day south embracing black culture, I think that's a remarkable change.
0:57:48 > 0:57:52Whatever you're listening to now, there's not one thing you're listening to
0:57:52 > 0:57:55that isn't in some way influenced by the blues.
0:57:55 > 0:58:03That's I think why they're talking about it is that it's very simple in concept
0:58:03 > 0:58:05but to deliver it is another thing.
0:58:07 > 0:58:11All over the world wherever I travel, there's people playing blues.
0:58:11 > 0:58:16Even if they don't understand the words their heart knows that feeling.
0:58:16 > 0:58:18And they want more, they gotta have more.
0:58:18 > 0:58:20That's the beauty of the blues.
0:58:20 > 0:58:23You can't deny it, it ain't going away.
0:58:25 > 0:58:27Subtitles by Red Bee Media