Bessie - a peek into her life from HBO

[Roaring20s]

I watched this last night and liked it.
http://bessiethemovie.com/
http://www.npr.org/2015/05/16/406453568 ... -the-blues

James

[alang]

James, you beat me to it. I also watched the movie last night and enjoyed it. For my taste it could have focused more on her music vs. her struggles in life, but it was well made I think.

Andreas

[Roaring20s]

It left me wanting more, but I'm happy for what it told me about her (blues).

James

[WDC]

It was really fantastic, although now always fully authentic, yet still very entertaining. The actors were outstanding, especially Queen Latifah, who really must have listened to Bessie Smith a lot before. And there were actually also two cylinder phonographs in sight, one Dictaphone and later an Edison Standard or Fireside with closed lid.

One of my favorite scenes was while they were shooting at Smith's train while it was passing by, then a pan shot of a sign saying "Mississippi Welcomes You". Only the end was somewhat unsatisfactory to me as her 1937 accident and death soon afterwards were completely missing.

Btw. there is a soundtrack album to be released very soon, proving exactly what I had suspected: The new jazz band recordings are done by Vince Giordano's Nighthawks. I really wished they would do a complete blues album together with Latifah, she is capable of traditional blues singing like no one else of our time I have heard so far.

Really have to dig out my copy of Down Hearted Blues...