Monochrome: Black, White and Blue

MONOCHROME: Black, White and Blue What you didn't know about the blues... What you didn't know about Slavery and the Civil Rights movement.... What you didn't know about black culture in America ... all rolled into 3 nights of captivating Television This 3 part series re-sets trends of thinking about blues music and its roots. There have been and will continue to be documentation on 'Blues Music'. However, what Director Jon Brewer (BB King: The Life of Riley, Nat King Cole: Afraid of the Dark), discovered in his extended encounters in America's Deep South is that there was no music called 'blues' when the original creators stepped into a new feel of musical expressionism... there was simply pain and oppression and plenty of it, and the music was the salve that, if only momentarily, set them free. Starting in the early 1800's Louisiana - slave trading and transportation of slaves from Haiti and Africa, bring with them a drum beat musical style and a destiny towards which together with the influences present from Spain and France later co-mingled with voodoo, gospel, slavery and civil war all became major factors in the bubbling cauldron of musical expressionism emerging at the time in New Orleans. This series lovingly defragments the history of not only blues music but the plight of the people in America's South; it tells the story of the places that brought blues to life through powerful interviews*, live musical references and sweeping landscapes. At the same time, largely unknown facts are presented to the audience that separate this series from just another take on blues music. (Ex. Did you know that blacks also had black slaves?) -Artists such as Dr. John, Aaron Neville, Buddy Guy, Alan Toussaint, Eric Clapton, Bill Wyman, Jake Bugg, B.B. King and many others, as well as historical experts who have given their lives to the subject... Throughout, references to the Mississippi Blues Trail markers are made, and these are positioned all over the South telling about the Bluesmen and Women and how the places where they lived and times in which they existed - and continue to exist- influenced their lives and therefore their music. These sites vary from city streets to cotton fields, train depots, cemeteries, and clubs to churches. The Gateway to the Blues Mississippi Blues Trail starting point Slavery, the abolition of slavery, and the Civil Rights Movement feature heavily in parts of this series, as they were pivotal moment