Troubadour blues

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Movie
Original title Troubadour blues
Country of production USA , Canada
original language English
Publishing year 2011
length 91 minutes
Rod
Director Tom Weber
production Tom Weber
cut Tom Weber
occupation

Troubadour Blues is a documentary about the singer-songwriters of America. Filmmaker Tom Weber spent almost ten years researching and filming this documentary. He drove thousands of kilometers to experience the artists at live gigs , to conduct interviews with them and to meet them in informal situations.

Tom Weber, a Harvard graduate in 1972, came across the subject of singer-songwriter by chance. During his time in Cambridge , Massachusetts, he met them regularly in coffee shops and also in places that host singer-songwriters. The centerpiece of the film is the story of the folk singer Peter Case . Through the contact with Case, further contacts arose step by step - to Chris Smither , Dave Alvin , Mary Gauthier , Slaid Cleaves , Garrison Starr , Amy Speace , Ray Wylie Hubbard and a few others. The material documented in the film covers a period of around ten years. During this time Weber drove the musicians to venues, interviewed them and filmed individual performances. The music shown is presented in different ways. The majority of the concert recordings are single concerts in the folk- influenced singer-songwriter style. Some participants such as Dave Alvin and Amy Speace can also be seen with band accompaniment typical of rock music .

The constant changes from one location to the next are typical of the film. The film shows different locations scattered across the United States - such as Jorma Kaukonen's Fur Peace Ranch in southern Ohio , the recording studio of Plan 9 Record Store in Richmond , Virginia , McCabe's Guitar Shop in Santa Monica , California and places like Chapel Hill in North Carolina , Charlottesville in Virginia, or Fall River in Massachusetts. The overnight accommodations were also different. The film shows accommodation in guest rooms in private apartments as well as overnight stays in cheap motels . In the course of the film Weber draws parallels between the portrayed musicians and medieval minstrels who brought news from village to village, as well as the traveling blues and folk singers from the first half of the 20th century .

Weber financed the pre-financing of the film and the mastering of the filmed live recordings through a Kickstarter campaign. The film premiered on October 14, 2011 at the Buffalo International Film Festival . The distribution took place predominantly in-house.

Before making his documentary, Tom Weber had already published a book on a musical theme in 1998: Island Reggae, a title about Jamaican reggae culture.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Ballad of local singer-songwriters: 'Troubadour Blues' , James Sullivan, Boston Globe, January 1, 2012 (engl.)
  2. ↑ Film Review: Troubadour Blues Reaches Out To Touch Us All , Terry Roland, No Depression, November 17, 2011 (Eng.)
  3. ↑ a b Mt. Lebanon filmmaker Tom Weber gives us the 'Troubadour Blues' , Manny Theiner, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, October 20, 2011 (Eng.)
  4. ↑ a b Troubadour Blues / About the Film , Troubadour Blues homepage, accessed on November 1, 2017

Web links