Memphis '69 : the 1969 Memphis country blues festival
(DVD)

Cover from container.

Director, Joe LaMattina ; producers, Bruce Watson & Lisa LaMattina ; executive producers, Matthew Johnson, Bruce Watson, & Gene Rosenthal.

Rufus Thomas & the Bar-Kays, Bukka White, Nathan Beauregard, Sleepy John Estes & Yank Rachel, Joann Kelly & "Backwards" Sam Firk, Son Thomas, Lum Guffin, Rev. Robert Wilkins & Family, John Fahey, Jefferson Street Jug Band, Insect Trust, John D. Loudermilk, Furry Lewis, Piano Red, Moloch, Johnny Winter, The Salem Harmonizers, Mississippi Fred McDowell

In June of 1969, the fourth Memphis Country Blues Festival took place at the city's famed Overton Park Band Shell. Fueled by the rediscovery of blues artists like Furry Lewis and Mississippi Fred McDowell, the fest had been launched in 1966 by a group of Bluff City blues fans and counterculturalists. The '69 edition -- which doubled as a celebration of Memphis' sesquicentennial -- promised the event's biggest and most ambitious lineup, one that included ancient blues masters like Sleepy John Estes and Nathan Beauregard, as well as Stax Records stalwarts the Bar-Kays and Rufus Thomas, and rockers like Johnny Winter and Moloch. Also on hand was a camera crew documenting the three days and two nights of this epochal concert event -- that luminous, previously unseen color footage is the foundation of a new film, Memphis '69.

DVD.