The Blues: Warming by the Devil’s Fire

In 1956, a young boy is sent to Mississippi, to live with his blues-crazy uncle. Fiction, photos and filmed documents intertwine to create the portrait of a world peopled by a host of great musicians, where the memory of slavery lingers on and segregation is rife. We hear Lightnin’ Hopkins, Son House, Bessie Smith, Dinah Washington, Muddy Waters… among others. The “devil of the blues” disturbs the “heavens of the gospel”. “The sound of the blues was a part of my environment that I took for granted. However, as years passed, the blues slowly emerged as an essential source of imagery, humor, irony, and insight that allows one to reflect on the human condition.” (C. Burnett)