American Patchwork: Songs and Stories of America — Season 1, Episode 3: The Land Where the Blues Began
Documentary • 58 min • 1 season, 5 episodes
Episode synopsis
Alan Lomax, John Bishop, and Worth Long explore the enduring African-American performance traditions of the Mississippi Delta. Featuring bluesmen R.L. Burnside and Jack Owens; tall-tale tellers, fife and drum bands, and diddley-bow players; and former prisoners, railroad workers, and roustabouts singing field hollers, work chants, and levee camp songs. (re-edited version of a 1979 film)
About American Patchwork: Songs and Stories of America
From 1978 to 1985 Alan Lomax traveled the American South and Southwest with a television crew to document regional folklore with deep historical roots. From the resulting 400 hours of footage came the five-program series American Patchwork, which aired on PBS in 1991.