Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		4.5
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		4.5

Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman November 20, 2021

Robert Mugge's music documentaries are almost always really interesting affairs, as evidenced by a number of films which have crossed my review queue over the years, including Gospel According to Al Green, Sun Ra: A Joyful Noise and Saxophone Colossus. As those three films' very titles may suggest, some of Mugge's work tends to focus on individuals, whereas Deep Blues has more of what I might call a Les Blank approach in that it presents a cornucopia of different artists who are all working in both specific genres and specific locations. As the back cover of this release details, Deep Blues was commissioned by Dave Stewart of Eurythmics fame, who had been inspired by a book called Deep Blues by musicologist Robert Palmer (not the singer). Palmer helped Mugge with this film version, traveling into various Mississippi locales to document a series of fascinating artists who may not be household names, but who maybe should be.

Robert Mugge contributes a really interesting commentary track to this disc which gives a lot of background information, including the kind of wonderful tidbit that it was albums of Mississippi Blues artists sent to Dave Stewart by his brother, who was living in Memphis, that got him interested in "paying it forward" by helping to get a documentary about the region and its music underway. Evidently producer Eileen Gregory was enlisted and she in turn reached out to Robert Palmer, who had recently returned to the area and was working as both a freelance journalist and musician, and it was Palmer who insisted that Mugge be involved if a film version of Palmer's book with the same title was to proceed.

While he was evidently initially loathe to trade his celebrity for the project, Stewart was ultimately enlisted to appear on screen, and in fact the film begins with a kind of charming tour through Beale Street in Memphis hosted by Palmer, but with Stewart an amiable guest. The two then set off on what amounts to a road trip where they discover a host of regional musicians. While the performances captured in the film are often riveting and visceral, it's highly recommended that fans also listen to the Mugge commentary, as he provides a ton of interesting and at times quite funny anecdotal information about the various participants. One performer who won't be "outed" here try to get $150 to reportedly buy a guitar, amp and keyboard ahead of a proposed shoot, with Mugge negotiating it down to $100, since he didn't need a keyboard, only to find out when they showed up that the guy had not purchased anything. Stewart had luckily brought some guitars and a small amp that ended up being used.

As Mugge also gets into in his commentary, some of the people featured in this piece were relatively unknown at the time of the original theatrical exhibition, but courtesy of both the documentary and a soundtrack album that was released, some of them went on to much greater renown. Among the many performers featured are Booker T. Laury, R.L. Burnside, Jessie Mae Hemphill, Junior Kimbrough, Roosevelt "Booba" Barnes and the Playboys, Big Jack Johnson, Jack Owens, Bud Spires and Lonnie Pitchford. The performances are typically laid back but still often very high energy (Mugge actually mentions in the commentary that he rejected one performance that was actually filmed because the energy level wasn't high enough).

Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Deep Blues is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Film Movement Classics, an imprint of Film Movement, with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.33:1. There's no technical data shared on the cover of this release, but this is a really nice looking transfer that I'm assuming was curated from either a primary element or a well curated secondary one. While there are occasional pretty dramatic spikes in grain from time to time (so much so that isolated moments can almost look more like 16mm than 35mm), there are no real resolution problems, and the entire presentation has a gritty but still organic appearance. The palette is very nicely suffused, especially in the abundant outdoor scenes, where bright blue skies are vibrant and detail levels are typically commendable. Fine detail on any number of elements ranging from some pretty natty clothing with intricate patterns to some outdoor things like puffs of cotton are all rendered with appealing precision. Probably due to some of the filming conditions, there are some passing variabilities in clarity and fine detail levels at times, some traceable to momentary imperfections in focus pulling. There's some minor age related wear and tear on display, and a bit of wobble on some of the interstitial titles.

Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Deep Blues features an LPCM 2.0 track that the back cover of this release describes as stereo, though the IMDb lists the film as having been released in mono. I'm frankly not hearing a ton of width in this track, but one way or the other, fidelity is fine and the music sounds crisp and clear, with no issues whatsoever. There are occasional amplitude variances which I suspect are at least partly due to the filming conditions. Dialogue is rendered cleanly and clearly throughout. Optional English subtitles are available.

Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary with Director Robert Mugge is an unusually informative and enjoyable affair, with a lot of interesting background data imparted.


• Deep Blues Behind the Scenes (HD; 22:46) features Loonie Pitchford, R.L. Burnside, Dave Stewart and Booker T. Laury.


• Deep Blues Trailer (HD; 3:03)


• I Am the Blues Trailer (HD; 1:40)


• White Riot Trailer (HD; 2:08)

Additionally, Film Movement includes a nicely appointed insert booklet. As with most Film Movement releases, the disc also offers an About Film Movement option on the Main Menu which leads to text about and a trailer for Film Movement. The booklet contains interesting essays by Vic Pratt and Roger Lewis.

Deep Blues Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

One of the things that Deep Blues makes abundantly clear is how vastly talented the supposedly less traveled parts of the United States are. Many of the performers featured in this documentary probably would have gone to their reward without much notice had it not been for this documentary, but almost all of them deliver really visceral and in some cases actually moving performances. Dave Stewart may have wanted to "pay it forward" and/or back with this documentary, and with a little help from his friends Robert Palmer and Robert Mugge, he certainly succeeded. Technical merits are solid, and the supplements (especially the commentary) are very enjoyable. Highly recommended.