Customer Reviews

Land Where the Blues Began [VHS]

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I have tremendous respect for this documentary for its astute and breathtaking approach to the traditional African roots of Delta blues. I recommend it to anyone interested in the politics of cultural genocide that southern blacks survived and transformed into a new medium of expression. This film is about the blues, but ironically the impression it leaves is not of destitution, but of triumph.

The work of Alan Lomax is well known among people who study and teach African American music and history, and this video is considered a classic, a treasure even. It documents old blues men who are long gone, a country preacher who "whoops" until a woman "gets happy" with the spirit, and the epic folk tradition of "toasting." These African American vernacular traditions are fading from the culture, but Lomax's documentary and detailed narration ensures they won't be forgotten. There is a book of the same name which documents his journeys to the South to record this material.