Music Films

People's Stuff is a document of six collectors of unusual objects. Creating an environment for storytelling, the subjects reveal inner dreams and motivations as they share both…

Alan Lomax's wonderful documentary about the bayous of Louisiana which have combined French, German, West Indian, native American and hillbilly ingredients into a unique cultural…

This musical portrait of immigrant clarinetist Pericles Halkias and the Epirot-Greek community explores the aspirations and ambivalences of Greek-Americans.

George "Kid Shiek" Colar and the Olympia Brass Band are featured in this rare film about New Orleans Jazz, directed by Frank DeCola and photographed by Tom Davenport.

A film portrait of the last Black medicine-show performer, Arthur "Peg Leg Sam" Jackson, with harmonica songs, tales of hoboing, buckdances, and a live medicine-show performance.

In 1979 Keir Cline shot footage at the Tenth Annual National Hollerin’ Contest in Spivey’s Corner, a small crossroads community in southeastern North Carolina. The festival had…

From Mambo to Hip-Hop dances through the history of a borough that nurtured two musical movements: the mambo that evolved into salsa, and the hip-hop that arose from the most…

Seated in a motel room on Broadway in Oakland, California where he was filmed while on tour with Brownie McGhee, Sonny, with one small harmonica in his hand, creates a complex and…

Shot in 1969, SHOUTIN' THE BLUES is a one shot, one story and one song short film of harmonica great, Sonny Terry. Seated in a motel room on Broadway in Oakland, California where…

Presents a nostalgic tribute to the American medicine shows of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Shows a re-creation of a typical medicine show by veteran performers,…

A portrait of six older Americans, each with their roots in a unique cultural heritage and each with a powerful perspective on the nature of aging.

Wall to wall blues from unheralded artists. The film gives a glimpse of what is being lost and Tim Duffy's heroic efforts to document the passing.

Eastern Kentucky's Morgan Sexton cut his first banjo out of the bottom of a lard bucket, and some seventy years later won the National Endowment for the Arts' National Heritage…

Alan Lomax travels through the Southern Appalachians investigating the songs, dances, and religious rituals of the descendents of the Scotch-Irish frontiers people who have made…

In the 1970s, the Highwoods Stringband’s unique blend of musical brilliance, exuberance, sparkling wit, and eclectic repertoire introduced tens of thousands of delighted listeners…