BIG CITY BLUES December 2006 Issue A Look at Wim Wenders: The Soul of a Man An Interview by Johnny Ace Wim Wenders’ film on the late Blind Willie Johnson, Skip James and J. B. Lenoire for Martin Scorcesi’s special on PBS, “The Blues,” gave me mixed emotions. But after borrowing the video from a friend and watching it again, I understood and respected Wenders’ idea and vision on his film better. My main problem was that many of the contemporary artists were very hard for me to listen to and watch. But with the aid of my remote control, I could mute out the sounds I couldn’t groove with. I wish that Wenders could have picked some needy blues artists who could have used the work and recognition—or known artists—as many other players come to mind that could have nailed it instead of some of his choices. Hey, but it’s Wenders’ movie and he wanted to see how these contemporary artists would interpret the three stars of the movie’s tunes. And he was very pleased (I interviewed him)—so what can I say as the old ‘60s saying goes, “You make your own movie!” Ha ha! I will say Alvin Youngblood Hart did an excellent solo acoustic performance of Skip James’ 1931 “Illinois Blues.” And Shameka Copland was amazing on J. B. Lenoire’s very deep “God’s Word.” Shameka’s guitar player, Arthur Nelson, former guitarist of Cyndi Lauper’s Blue Angel backed her very well. Bonnie Rait did a fine job on J.B.’s “Round and Round.” But her interpretation of Skip James’ almost untouchable “The Devil’s Got My Woman” fell short emotionally for me. Vocalist Cassandru Wilson did a good job on J. B. Lenoire’s 1965 version of “Slow Down.” And she did a very heart felt rendition of another really tough song to approach, J. B.’s “Vietnam Blues.” And that was about it for me on the live performances. It would have been fun to hear Hip Hop artist Puff Daddy doing J.B. Lenoire’s “Don’t Touch My Head.” I think the movie really got into the soul of these three blues greats and the title was perfect. I also enjoyed his vision of telling the story through Blind Willie Johnson in outer space and of putting his 1927 78 recording of “Dark Was the Night’ in the space ship Voyager and sailing above the solar system, hoping aliens would some way find it and play it and have a huge alien blues party. Actor, Hip Hop blues artist, Chris Thomas King, who also appeared as legendary Mississippi blues artist Tommy Johnson in the movie “Brother Where Art Thou” played the part of Blind Willie Johnson. Wenders wanted to make these scenes look like old silent movies. He used an old 1920’s hand held, cranked 16 mm camera. For me this didn’t work that great, but a lot of people I spoke with loved the look and thought that King really was Blind Willie Johnson. Wenders used the same hand cranked camera to tell Skip James’ story. The actor (I forgot his name) did a fine job, but again, not really killing me. What really won me over was Wenders’ use of rare film footage of scenes from down south in 1920’s prohibition and a really great interview with photographer and agent Dick Waterman, who managed Skip James in 1966 and really helped Skip James’ career take off after being like a ghost for 30 years. This plus rare footage of Skip James performing in 1965 and singing “Worry Blues” was really amazing—haunting—plus more rare footage of Skip James in a blues competition with Bucca White and a very drunk Son House at Newport in 1966. Wenders won my heart over on the J. B. Lenoire segment which had no reenactment and real long performance clips shot by 2 eccentric art students and blues lovers who knew J. B. Lenoire and hung out with him in the ‘60’s, the Seburges: Ronndo, from Sweden and Steve, an American. The Seburges went to Chicago to film two shorts of J. B. They never could sell them in Europe or anywhere. Thanks to this film, they are now being shown in part. And they are really great! The Seburges who are still married after all these years really understood that J. B. was a gifted poet. They understood how special, deep and way, way ahead of his time he was. Again, director Wenders’ more amazing rare footage of J. B. performing live in leopard skin tails and purple suits really put J.B.‘s story together. The footage of the 1950’s and ‘60’s Civil Rights Movement, Freedom Riders, Ku Klux Klan and Vietnam clips montaged together with clips of the late Dr. Martin Luther King’s historical “Free at Last” speech in Washington D.C. brought tears of pain, horror and joy to my eyes. This is where I feel Wenders really shined as a film maker and really showed “The Heart and Soul of the Man” to be more than just a film on the blues, but a look back on America’s past and how America treated its artists.