Search - Desperate Man Blues: Discovering the Roots of American Music on DVD

Impressive and amazing

Matthew G. Sherwin | last seen screaming at Amazon customer service | 02/26/2010

(5 out of 5 stars)

"Joe Bussard has accomplished what I can only dream of doing: assembling a record collection of hard to find yet quality music; and in tremendous proportions at that! With roughly 25,000 78rpm records of early jazz, blues and country in his collection, Joe truly deserves his place as a curator of very good music that has sadly been neglected and cast aside. Indeed, we wouldn't have much of this type of music at all had it not been for Joe whose passion for music led him on countless road trips, going from house to house, sometimes with a friend, and simply asking "Do you have any records?"

The documentary on Joe goes along in a smooth way, allowing Joe plenty of camera time to tell his own story which he does quite well. We hear from a friend or two and his daughter, but the spotlight remains on Joe as it should. Joe's face absolutely lights up like a little boy's when he listens to his records; and he starts to move along with the music as he hears it, too. Now that's a man with sensitivity and passion!

In addition, we also learn about Joe's own record label and his brief stint as a radio station operator and DJ even though he didn't exactly have his paperwork in order!

The stories about how he collected records so inexpensively in the 1950s and 1960s are fascinating; and moreover we get home made footage of what the neighborhoods and rural areas looked like as Joe drove his car into towns, cities and very countrified areas. Joe was truly in the right place at the right time; nobody anticipated that this type of music would be valuable someday; perhaps not even Joe himself! When you look at the size of his collection in his basement, you instantly realize that this is on a museum-size scale and Joe deserves recognition for saving this music so that younger artists today can hear it and learn about the development of music especially in the African-American communities of the South back in the day.

The DVD comes with another documentary that covers very similar ground but it does flesh out our understanding of Joe and that's grand. There are other extras, too.

Desperate Man Blues is a must-have for any true music fan out there. I marveled at Joe's collection and his hard work tracking down all these records is remarkable, to say the least. He saved this music from the flames and the garbage disposal; and that's most beneficial for music aficionados."