Blues Movies Two new documentaries shatter the harmful myth of the bluesman. by MARK JORDAN urt Gunn of the Delta Queens is working on a script, a mockumentary about a couple of white, college film students who set out to document the life of a hard-scrabble real-life bluesman -- the oppression, the poverty, the smoky juke joints, and the whoring. And they're not going to let the fact that their subject is really a sober, clean-living, middle-class, responsible husband with a good job, a nice home, and no taste for the blues get in their way. Over the course of making their film, the two students -- through happenstance and conniving -- manage to turn their pseudo bluesman into something more closely resembling their fantasy. He loses his job, his wife leaves him, he starts to drink heavily, and for the Delta coup de grace, he goes blind. By the end, as the filmmakers drive off with their movie in the can, he's a living caricature of a bluesman, broken down and busted on the side of the road with no one to listen and no where to go. It's satire, but it touches a raw nerve. The image of the hard-living bluesman has been used to sell records from the beginning. It's a myth not unlike that of the romantic poets -- the charismatic lyrist sucking the marrow from life. Unfortunately, in the case of the bluesmen, it is an image rife with the racial undertones of the drunken, lazy sharecropper. Today, that kind of bluesman scarcely exists, but like many harmful stereotypes, it stubbornly persists, perpetuatd by "fans" and chroniclers all too willing to believe the hype. Which makes it a joy to see two films that will be showing in Memphis this weekend that shatter the myths and present the blues in a more realistic light. Hellhounds on My Trail: The Afterlife of Robert Johnson is the latest film from Pennsylvania filmmaker Robert Mugge. It's receiving its local debut at this weekend's Bluestock convention as part of a film festival that also includes Mugge's acclaimed Deep Blues and The Gospel According to Al Green. Johnson is the archetype bluesman. The man who, legend has it, got his extraordinary guitar skills by bartering with the devil and who lost his life by being poisoned by the husband of a woman he was wooing. Though the film contains interviews with Johnson's stepson, bluesman Robert Jr. Lockwood, and a childhood friend, the film is reportedly less interested in examining the enigmatic man but instead his considerable legacy. Mugge took his cameras to Johnson's recent Rock & Roll Hall of Fame induction ceremony where an all-star lineup of artists, half of them white, feted the man who obviously has had a tremendous impact on them. More modest in scope and scale is the Will Roy Sanders: The Last Living Bluesman, a new documentary from Sherman Wilmott and Shangri-La Projects, which will debut Friday at the Hi-Tone Cafe. The film follows on the heels of a book by the same name (essentially a complete transcript of Wilmott's interviews presented partially in the film) and is accompanied by the release of an excellent soundtrack CD featuring old and new recordings from Sanders. Sanders is something of a local legend -- a founding member of the Bingamton Blues Boys and the legendary Fieldstones, he has been playing around Memphis juke joints and fish fries for decades and is the author of the well-regarded blues standard "Cross Cut Saw." Though in many ways Sanders does fit the old bluesman mold (his stories reveal that he does have a mighty thirst), Wilmott's method of just letting him talk simply and directly for the film's entire 45 minutes reveals much more than that -- a man who loves his family (unorthodox though it may be), music, and making people happy. But ultimately, The Last Living Bluesman may be more valuable for the little nuggets of hidden Memphis history it reveals -- the stories about $1-a-drink whiskey barrels, Collierville poos halls, and the jukes of Buster Road. And its secret history of one of Memphis' most beloved bands, the Fieldstones, who thankfully will reunite for the first time in years following Friday night's showing. n Music Notes Edited by MARK JORDAN Taking Stock of the Blues Don't worry. Despite the similarities in names, this weekend's Bluestock won't end the way this summer's Woodstock did. Now in its third year, Bluestock, dubbed a blues convention and festival, seems to get bigger and better. More importantly, it seems to bring the disparate blues community together and offers up Memphis as its capital, much as Nashville is to country music. As in past years, many of the coolest parts of Bluestock, which runs Friday and Saturday, are available only to those who pony up the conference registration fee. Registration on October 1st, the first day of the convention, which is based out of the downtown Radisson, is $195, but if you sign up before then it's only $150. For that price you get a seat at Friday's Vanguard Award luncheon honoring Hartley Peavey of Peavey Electronics; admission to the trade show and heritage exhibit hall; tickets to a film festival featuring the local debut of Robert Mugge's Hellhounds on My Trail among others (see music feature below); workshops and panels on topics such as "Making a Career in the Blues Business" and "Taking Blues to the Mainstream;" invitations to the Friday night "Blues Beer Bash" at Elvis Presley's Memphis and Saturday's industry reception at B.B. King's; and a wristband to get you into all the artists' showcases in the clubs on Beale. What it won't get you are tickets to Friday's Malaco showcase at the New Daisy featuring Bobby Rush, Barbara Carr, and Lynn White (tickets: $22.50) or Saturday's concert at the Mud Island Amphitheatre featuring the Blues Brothers Band, Marcia Ball, and Buddy Guy ($25 and $35). Both events are open to the public. Also open to the public are the acts that will play the Bluestock festival on Beale Friday and Saturday. Scheduled to play the clubs on Beale are Syl Johnson, Big Jack Johnson, Robert Jr. Lockwood, '60s blues rockers Canned Heat, Super Chikan, Otis Clay, and Willie Cobb with the Hi Rhythm Section. Wristbands for the Bluestock Festival are $15 a night or $25 for both nights. For a complete schedule of Bluestock performances on Beale Street see this week's After Dark. For more information on Bluestock, call 526-4280 or check out their Web site at www.bluestock.org. New Stuff in the Bins With only two songs, Two Great Hits, the new CD from Yvette Anderson and Debra Green, still manages to show tremendous potential and leaves the listener wanting more. Anderson and Green come to us courtesy the Reverend Al Green; Anderson has sung backup for the soul legend, and Green is his daughter. While neither of these ladies can boast the Reverend's remarkable pipes, theirs is not a talent that can only bloom in his shadow. Both these women are strong vocalists with excellent senses of melody and playful ways with phrasing. On this debut CD, which teams them with the all-female band Labor of Love, the vocalists also are helped by superior material, courtesy veteran songwriter Mary Unobsky. If a tad formulaic, Unobsky's two tunes here are catchy and solidly constructed. Her "Girl Like Me," the more Al Green-ish of the two tracks, has a soaring anthem quality in the chorus that the gospel-trained Anderson knows how to handle well. The other song, "Finally," is a standard modern R&B ballad, but Green's heartfelt delivery (and a better-than-average hook) manage to win you over despite your reservations about the genre. With rap and hip hop dominating the local urban music scene, some might have been tempted to call new Memphis soul D.O.A. But this all-female project proves such doubters dead wrong. Now if we can just coax a whole album out of them. Elsewhere, new national releases in stores this week include: Clint Black D'Electrified (RCA) Meredith Brooks Deconstruction (Capitol) Paula Cole Amen (Warner Bros.) Indigo Girls Come on Now Social (Epic) Odetta Blues Everywhere I Go (M.C.) Arturo Sandoval Americana (N-Coded Music) Sting Brand New Day (Interscope) Matthew Sweet In Reverse (Volcano) ZZ Top XXX (RCA)