Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchild, and others, with a bonus of a few African-Americans from the North Carolina Piedmont.
A short film about Pete Seeger and the birth of banjo music throughout the Southern United States.
Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.
The surprising story of Sexy Sadie, a successful English-language Spanish pop-rock band formed in Mallorca in 1992 and disbanded in 2006.
Wirklich alles?!
This television special is a first for the reclusive singer with the BBC documentary gaining new interviews with Young, nine months apart in New York and California. The documentary also looks back over the singer's archives, with some never-seen-before material.
Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.
During a decade rife with paranoia, in the middle of the McCarthy era, Music Inn was a bold experiment. Halfway between the Second World War and The Civil Rights Movement, Phil and Stephanie Barber created an oasis in the Berkshire Hills in Western Massachusetts where aspiring musicians came to learn from the very best. Students and faculty, young and old, rich and poor, white, black, and brown convened together and learned from each other. Defying the surrounding environment, Music Inn harbored a racial and cultural harmony where music was all that mattered.
Every American who has listened to the radio knows Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land." The music of the folk singer/songwriter has been recorded by everyone from the Mormon Tabernacle Choir to U2. Originally blowing out of the Dust Bowl in Depression-era America, he blended vernacular, rural music and populism to give voice to millions of downtrodden citizens. Guthrie's music was politically leftist, uniquely patriotic and always inspirational.
This special celebrates the harmonious pop-rock group, blending full-performance clips, rare home movies and exclusive interviews with the members.
Documentary following English folk-rock pioneers Fairport Convention as they celebrate their 45th anniversary in 2012. Fairport's iconic 1969 album Liege and Lief featured some of folk music's biggest names - including singer Sandy Denny, guitarist Richard Thompson and fiddler Dave Swarbrick - and was voted by Radio 2 listeners as the most influential folk album of all time.
Latcho Drom is a vista of the music, culture, and journey of the Romani people—from their homeland of India, to Europe and Southwest Asia.
Stompin' Tom performs live at the Horseshoe Tavern on Queen St. in Toronto.
Joni Mitchell has been called the queen of folk music and one of the biggest pop stars of the 60s and 70s. Even today, her lyrics and unique guitar style continue to inspire new generations of singers and songwriters.
In March 2005, Neil Young was diagnosed with a brain aneurysm. Four days before he was scheduled for a lifesaving operation, he headed to Nashville, where he wrote and recorded the country folk album Prairie Wind with old friends and family members. After the successful operation and recovery period, he returned to Nashville that August to play at the famed Ryman Auditorium, once again gathering together friends and family for this special performance.
Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.
A documentary on the surviving syncretic pagan midwinter customs of the British Isles, focusing on nine ritual celebrations ranging from the Moray Firth in the north, the Somerset Levels in the south, Humberside in the east, and County Kerry in the west. Featuring music by the Albion Band and narration by John Tams.
The final episode in our Mini-Docs series comes from musician and writer Jake Anderson, who explores the niche music genres which find an increasing audience in the North East. On a mission to discover outside-the-mainstream sounds and the driving forces behind their creation, Jake chats with musicians Me Lost Me, SQUARMS and Mariam Rezaei, along with some of the major players keeping these sonically-engaging sound makers doing what they’re doing, including Simeon Soden from Kaneda Records and Lee Etherington of TUSK. This mini-documentary features reflections on some of the most unique acts in the North East, what genre boundaries actually mean and artists’ hopes for the future of the North East’s alternative scene. This is an Art Mouse film for NARC. TV, written and directed by Jake Anderson.
A journey through Italy across a century of popular religious devotion. Ancient and more recent saints, white and black Madonnas, devotional processions... are the expression of a need for the sacred that seems very distant from our way of being, but perhaps is not that distant at all. Today, especially in the South, but with some “isolated” locations in the North, popular faith is still a very real thing, which finds its finest expression in song and in music.
She appeared when Spain was waking up from a long post-war period and crying with melodramas starring children, a child prodigy unlike any other; a girl who, in time, would become a symbol of freedom and a total artist. Actress, singer, friend, lover. This is the story of Ana Belén.