The British Broadcasting Company in 1979 presented a fascinating look at the origins and history blues, The Devil's Music. With a narration presented by Alexis Koerner, the program presented a number of filmed performances by then still living blues performers like Houstoin Stackhouse, Sonny Blake, Sam Chatmon, Fenton Robinson, Big Joe Williams, Henry Townsend and others. Giles Oakley wrote a book providing a history of the Blues under the title The Devil's Music. The soundtrack of recordings made for the series was originally available on vinyl on the Red Lightnin' label and later on a CD box on Indigo Records that I reviewed and 2004 and included on this blog in 2013, http://inabluemood.blogspot.com/2013/02/devils-music-soundtrack-to-bbc-tv.html. In my review of the soundtrack I concluded "This is a fascinating collection of
field recordings with some really exceptional performances interspersed
with other entertaining ones. Add
to this some live recordings of Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson
in Europe in 1963 and one had a rather attractive box set, which I
believe is bargain priced. Now if someone would only make the BBC-TV
series available on dvd." While not available on DVD, the series is on youtube which I have linked here. While my CD box set review suggested there were 5 episodes there were only 4.
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