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Roots-music documentarian Robert Mugge (Deep Blues, The Gospel According to Al Green) has gotten heat from blues diehards, who take issue with this film’s title and complain about its focus on R&B-influenced soul blues. But the name of the movie is intended as cautionary, not literal. In this exploration of the current state of Mississippi’s juke joint culture, Mugge aims to show us that the original hardscrabble clubs in which the blues were minted are a dying breed, crushed by generational change, economic difficulties, urban renewal, and the soul- and culture-sucking casinos along the Big Muddy that have drawn so many African-Americans away from traditional places of entertainment. As for the music, when most African-Americans in the Deep South talk about blues, they mean the R&B-inspired contemporary sound minted by Jackson’s Malaco Records and its heroes (Z.Z. Hill, Denise LaSalle, Bobby Rush) — not the rough-hewn recordings of Howlin’ Wolf or the Fat Possum label. So this film does its job, with plenty of warmth and intimacy. Part of the reason is that its primary location, the Subway club in Jackson, is a colorful archetype — somewhat run-down, and populated by characters on and off the stage. It’s also threatened by all of the above and in fact has closed since Last of the Mississippi Jukes was made. Although on-screen testimonials from Morgan Freeman (who has moved back home to Mississippi), Dick Waterman, and other blues experts outline the threat to the music, it’s the players who prove its vitality. Alvin Youngblood Hart, Chris Thomas King, Bobby Rush, Partice Moncell, Eddie Cotton, Vashti Jackson, and King Edward along with a host of other famed and obscure blues performers deliver their best for Mugge’s cameras, and that makes his movie an indelible experience. (86 minutes)
BY TED DROZDOWSKI
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