by Whitney Youngs
Jazz trumpeter Wynton Marsalis once said the blues, “[…] is the basis of most American music in the 20th century. It’s a 12-bar form that’s played by jazz, bluegrass and country musicians. It has a rhythmic vocabulary that’s been used by rock ‘n’ roll. It’s related to spirituals, and even the American fiddle tradition.”
Blues music may recede into obscurity and surge in popularity with each passing generation, but its influence over most forms of American music — including hip hop and electronica — is undying, no matter how original today’s music may sound.
Chicago blues is credited with heavily influencing rock ‘n’ roll due in part to the music of two Mississippi bluesmen: Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf. Virtually all blues music enthusiasts know their music, but less know about the players in their bands. Such is the life of a sideman.
A new documentary, slated to premiere at the South Bay Film & Music Festival this Friday, June 3, chronicles the lives of three blues sidemen, all of whom grew up in the rural South and eventually migrated to the Midwest, where Waters and Wolf had become the darlings of the Chicago-based Chess Records.
Written, produced and directed by Scott Rosenbaum, the film, “Sidemen: Long Road to Glory,” tightens its focus on pianist Pinetop Perkins, drummer Willie “Big Eyes” Smith and guitarist Hubert Sumlin.
“It’s much more than a film about music and the blues,” says Rosenbaum “It’s a story of passion and perseverance in the face of unyielding adversity. Something I believe most people can relate to in their lives.”
In 2008, the three sidemen acted in cameo roles in Rosenbaum’s film, “The Perfect Age of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” and during breaks in production, Rosenbaum, enamored of their stories about touring, Waters, Wolf, and even Robert Johnson, decided he would follow the men over the next three years, recording accounts about their enduring careers as blues musicians and their influence on others, as documented in interviews with Bonnie Raitt, Johnny Winter, Derek Trucks and members of The Doors, The Allman Brothers and Aerosmith, among others.
“Like so many, I discovered the blues through rock ‘n’ roll,” says Rosenbaum, “As someone who loves album liner notes, I always revered these Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf musicians. After having the opportunity to meet and work with them, I wanted to document who they were and what they meant to all the rock music I grew up with.”
Perkins, born in 1913 in Mississippi, joined in Waters’ band in 1969; Smith, born in 1936 in Arkansas, played—off and on—in Waters’ band from the early 1960s into 1980; and Sumlin, born in 1931 in Mississippi and raised in Arkansas, joined Wolf’s band in 1955 and remained a sideman until Wolf’s death in 1976.
Like millions of African Americans born in the Deep South wishing to escape racial violence, hoping for economic opportunity and upward social mobility, these bluesmen, including Waters and Wolf, were part of The Great Migration and the Second Great Migration, a mass exodus from the rural South to the American Northeast, Midwest and West between 1910 and 1970.
“Sidemen, Long Road to Glory” underscores the resilience of the blues with myriad stories, such as how the Rolling Stones and Jimi Hendrix covered Wolf’s “Little Red Rooster” and Killing Floor,” respectively, and introduced the genre to a generation of Baby Boomer Americans who’d become obsessed with rock ‘n’ roll.
All three sidemen died within eight months of each other in 2011 — Pinetop at 97, Sumlin at 80 and Smith at 75 — and they played up until their last days, a testament to their longevity in the world of music as authentic bluesmen.
“Scott has created an outstanding piece of work bringing awareness and education of three of the most important figures in music,” says Breck Philip, who grew up in Hermosa (as part of the last Pier Ave. Jr. High class, in fact — now the building where the film is showing) and is associated with the Pinetop Perkins Foundation. “I’ve been playing the blues for a very long time. All the people in this film, both young and old, are extremely important to me.”
As part of South Bay Film & Music Festival “Sidemen: Long Road to Glory” shows at 7:15 p.m., Friday, June 3, at the Hermosa Community Center, 710 Pier Avenue, Hermosa Beach. For more information visit, www.hermosacinema.com/south-bay-film–music-fest.html.
