Sur la route du Blues, avec Ladell McLin (On the Road to the Blues, with Ladell McLin), premiered on French television on January 9th, 2010. Additional parts of the film will premier over the coming weeks.

 

Episode 1

To take the "blues road" is mainly going back in times of the afro-american community.

Through this style of music, descendants of african slaves described their every day lives while staying strongly attached to their identity. After massive emmigration to the North in the first half of 20th century, to escape from racial segregation and find work, mainly in large industrialised areas of the lakes region, they brought their music with them.
The "blues primitif" then became urban blues, electric, although its soul remains unchanged.
When I took up this musical trip I decided to take this route backwards and get back to the origins of the blues: from big cities in the north to Louisiana, through Mississipi, Missouri and Tenessee. An itinerary of 1500 miles from lake Michigan to Chicago which ends on the coast of New Orleans, facing Africa...
I also wanted to share this trip with an afro-american artist. Guitarist, singer, composer Ladell McLin is a young musician living in New York but originally from the south side of Chicago. Ladell knows well that making this film we are going together to meet his deepest roots.
Chicago is inevitabely the first step of our trek. Discovering clubs, first, who became world famous. Luckyly in B.L.U.E.S club, on Halstred Street, plays Toronzo Cannon, an artist with whom Ladell shared a stage a few years back and now became one of greatest in Chicago blues. The occasion for a fantastic meet, that allows us to talk about the reality of contempory bluesmen as well as the memory of the greatest masters now gone, from Muddy to Albert King.
I quiclky realise how important Muddy Waters is in the hearts of black americans. This blues genius, as named by the Rolling Stones and Eric Clapton, is here, a spiritual father, a symbol of talent and authenticity; a source of pride.
Here, we say Muddy, simply ...
With Ladell, I go on 43rd Street, where Muddy lived for many years. His house is gone, and there is no "plaque" in his memory. Although everyone knows it all happened here. Here we will find Yachtman, a friend of Ladell who knows lives in Minnesota. A few years ago, both were "companions de galere", in the streets of Chicago. They chose to talk about the blues differently, the way today's youths talk.
On the sidewalk of 43rd Street, Yachtman improvises some rap, along with Ladell playing the electric guitar: a fusion of genres that reminds us the major influence blues will have to other styles of music.
Yes man, it all started with blues ...

Episode 2

American record companies quickly understood the possibilities offered by black customers. Based in Chicago, Memphis or New York, they developed a specific catalgue for this new market, recording first afro-american singers accompanied by jazz orchestras then bluesmen from the countryside of the South.

In Chicago, we decided to go to Michigan Avenue, to visit the mythic Chess Studio. It's where the historical recordings of great bluesmen (and woman) happened from the 50's and 60s, such as Etta James, Muddy Waters or Chuck Berry. From this trek, we have met Jacqueline Dixon, widiw of famous "contrebassiste" et composer Wille Dixon. She will agree to bring us memories from the place and talks about her husband for a long time. Above all, they "revisit" 2 of the most famous titles from her grand dad: Wang Dang Doodle and Hoochie Coochie Man. Those 2 songs remind us a basic quality from high standards of golden age in Blues: lyrics take us into the day to day lives of black americans in those times, and also contains a strong erotic dimension, by the permanent use of double meaning...
For many blacks who attempted the adventure, the biggest cities of the northern states have rarely delivered the big boom that was hoped for. They met with extreme living conditions, in slums where poverty often meant violence. Thus Chicago developed a south side area with an almost exclusively black population.

We decided to go there to meet Lamont Braswell and Andre Cottonfater and son of Ladell respectively.
Both were professional drummers: Lamont, rather Jazz, played with Limmy Reed, Johnny Taylor and even Muddy Waters; Andre was a respected drummer, playing with Wille Dixon, Buddy Guy or Junior Wells. Now living in New York, Ladell hasn't seen them in years. This visit to the South Side made us realise the difficult ecomic and social worries that a large majority of the black community in Chicago live with. It also makes us share, intimately what links the generations here: the love for black music and its big names history will remember.
After having inprovided an instrumental, the father and his 2 sons remember with emotion, Sam Cooke or James Brown, before revealing the secret of "blues rythm"...

 

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