Houston-based Fast Cut Films, in association with Sunset Productions, is working on a documentary feature film, "Where Lightnin' Strikes," about the life and times of Houston blues legend Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins (1912-1982). His music inspired generations around the world from the Texas Gulf Coast, Mississippi delta to the British invasion. The enduring musical journey of Sam Lightnin' Hopkins began on a cotton farm in Centerville,Texas in 1912. He was drawn to the music he heard played by an older brother. After meeting up with Dallas bluesman Blind Lemon Jefferson, Sam left the hardscrabble life of the Texas cotton fields, determined to play his way to better circumstances. Possessing a sharp wit and a unique ability for endless improvisation, Lightnin became a master storyteller. He was able to convey profound truths about the human condition via poetic imagery. The "Po' Lightnin" that inhabited his tales of struggle and misery became the "Everyman" that black audiences identified with and white audiences flocked to performances to experience.Whether playing on a street corner on Dowling Street or at Carnegie Hall his style defined Texas blues. He sounded like no one else yet influenced every one. His unique musical style influenced generations of blues, rock, country and soul musicians as well as filmmakers, writers and painters. Over the course of his 60-year career, Lightnin' Hopkins recorded more music than any other blues artist. His discography includes more than ...
democracynow.org - In a Black History Month special, Democracy Now! airs an extended interview with the legendary pianist and composer Randy Weston. For the past six decades, Weston has been a pioneering jazz musician incorporating the vast rhythmic heritage of Africa. His most famous compositions include, "Little Niles," "Blue Moses," and "Hi-Fly," and his 1960 album, "Uhuru Afrika," was a landmark recording that celebrated the independence movements in Africa and the influence of traditional African music on jazz. The record, which began with a freedom poem written by Langston Hughes, would later be banned by the South African apartheid regime, along with albums by Max Roach and Lena Horne. In 1961, Randy Weston visited Africa for the first time as part of a delegation that also featured Nina Simone. The trip would transform Weston's life and lead him to eventually moving to Africa in 1967. In 2001, he was named a Jazz Master by the National Endowment for the Arts — it is considered to be the nation's highest honor in jazz. Weston talks about his collaboration with Langston Hughes, how Marcus Garvey and Paul Robeson influenced his life, his friendship with the Nigerian afrobeat star Fela Kuti, and his success with "having people understand the impact of African rhythms in world music, whether it's Brazil or Cuba or Mississippi or Brooklyn. If you don't have that African pulse, nothing is happening," Weston said. Now 85 years old, Weston continues to tour the world, and ...
