"Actor: Lightnin Hopkins"

• Lightnin' Hopkins - Rare Performances 1960-1979 | DVD | (12/12/2012) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £24.99

  Lightning Hopkins - Rare Performances 1960 -1979

• Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues: A Musical Journey | DVD | (12/12/2008) from £19.99   |  Saving you £3.00 (15.01%)   |  RRP £22.99

  It may have been underrated when first broadcast, but executive producer Martin Scorsese's homage to the blues is a truly significant, if imperfect, achievement. "Musical journey" is an apt description, as Scorsese and the six other directors responsible for these seven approximately 90-minute films follow the blues--the foundation of jazz, soul, R&B, and rock & roll--from its African roots to its Mississippi Delta origins, up the river to Memphis and Chicago, then to New York, the United Kingdom, and beyond. Some of the films (like Wim Wenders's The Soul of a Man and Charles Burnett's Warming by the Devil's Fire) use extensive fictional film sequences, generally to good effect. There's also plenty of documentary footage, interviews, and contemporary studio performances recorded especially for these films. The last are among the best aspects of the DVDs, as the bonus material features the set's only complete tunes. Lou Reed's "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean" and the ElektriK Mud Kats' (with Chuck D. of Public Enemy) hip-hop-cum-traditional updating of Muddy Waters's "Mannish Boy" are among the best of them; on the other hand, a rendition of "Cry Me a River" by Lulu (?!) is a curious choice, even with Jeff Beck on hand. The absence of lengthier vintage clips, meanwhile, is the principal drawback. For that reason alone, Clint Eastwood's Piano Blues is the best of the lot; a musician himself, Eastwood simply lets the players play, which means we get extensive file footage of the likes of Art Tatum, Oscar Peterson, and Nat "King" Cole, as well as new performances by Ray Charles, Dr. John, and others. Overall, this is a set to savor, a worthwhile investment guaranteed to grow on you over the course of repeated viewings. --Sam Graham

• The American Folk Blues Festival Volume 2 - 1962-1966 | DVD | (27/10/2003) from £22.93   |  Saving you £-12.94 (-129.50%)   |  RRP £9.99

  The second volume in the series of rediscovered blues performances from 1962-1966. Between those years huge tours were undertaken by the likes of Howlin' Wolf Willie Dixon T-Bone Walker Lightnin' Hopkins and many others. A popular stop-gap on the tour was a small TV studio in Germany where the acts would record their songs for posterity. It is from these shows that the recordings contained within are from. An amazing document of a historic time rediscover these bluesmen in the f

• Texas Blues Guitar | DVD | (12/12/2012) from £16.37   |  Saving you £8.62 (34.50%)   |  RRP £24.99

  A compilation of Texas blues guitar including: 'Iceman' 'Lights Are On' 'Head Rag' 'Going Down' 'Bunion Stew' 'God Moves On The Water' and more.

• Legends Of Country Blues Guitar - Vol. 1 | DVD | (12/12/2012) from £19.65   |  Saving you £5.34 (27.18%)   |  RRP £24.99

• Mance Lipscomb & Lightnin' Hopkins -Masters of Country Blues | DVD | (03/07/2000) from £19.65   |  Saving you £-2.66 (-15.70%)   |  RRP £16.99

• Warming By The Devil's Fire | DVD | (27/02/2006) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £9.99

  Director Charles Burnett presents a tale about a young boy's encounter with his family in Mississippi in the 1950s and intergenerational tensions between the heavenly strains of gospel and the devillish moans of the blues.

• Lightnin' Hopkins & Roosevelt Sykes - Masters Of The Country Blues | DVD | (07/04/2003) from £N/A   |  Saving you £N/A (N/A%)   |  RRP £16.99

  Few Texas bluesmen have dominated their time and place as much as LIGHTNIN' HOPKINS. He was the leading performer of traditional Texas blues for over 35 years. In the first part of this DVD Lightnin' talks of his career as a bluesman and creator of songs as well as being presented in both informal and concert performances.Sam (Lightnin') Hopkins was born in Centerville Texas March 15th 1912. Inspired by his brother he took up guitar an early age and as a youth met the legendary Blind Lemon Jefferson. Later he worked the streets of Houston with his cousin the great blues singer Texas Alexander and gained a surpassing knowledge of traditional Texas blues. In 1946 he began his 35 year recording career resulting in hundreds of singles and dozens of albums. His sly and colloquial vocals his flair for creating humorous and serious blues and his distinctive guitar style made him an outstanding blues performer.Tracks include: Mr. Charlie Mojo Hand Short Haired Woman.The second part of this DVD presents an intimate portrait of ROOSEVELT SYKES one of the outstanding blues pianists of this century. As both performer and composer he was a great influence on later pianists such as Memphis Slim and Otis Spann. Sykes reminisces about his life as a blues performer while performing both on stage and at home.Roosevelt Sykes was born in Elmar Arkansas in 1906. As a teenager he ran off to play in the barrelhouses of Helena sharpening his talent under the tutelage of blues legends such as Red-Eye Jesse Bell and Lee Pork Chop Green. He enjoyed a successful recording career for over 50 years playing hard-edged blues jazz and rhythm 'n' blues with equal aplomb. Many of his songs have become blues standards recorded by Ray Charles Little Junior Parker and John Lee Hooker.Tracks include: I Ain't Mad With You Blue Moon My Driving Wheel.

• Tony Palmer - All You Need Is Love Vol.1 | DVD | (09/02/2009) from £8.59   |  Saving you £0.40 (4.66%)   |  RRP £8.99

  Over the past forty plus years British film director Tony Palmer has established himself as one of the countrys foremost directors of documentary and factual films. One of Tony Palmer's first successes was the film All My Loving which was released in 1968. Some seven years later Tony had the idea encouraged by John Lennon to document the history of popular music. The result was the groundbreaking and award winning series of films made for television under the title All You Need Is Love. Volume One entitled Gods Children The Beginnings is just that and sets out the story for the rest of the series by charting the origins of popular music and traces it back to the African continent by way of Europe and America.