Roots, Reggae, Rebellion • 2016

59:28

Tina Weymouth of Talking Heads and Tom Tom Club celebrates the extraordinary contribution of bass to popular music, tracing its progress from street-corner doo-wop and the overlooked ‘guy at the back’ in rock ‘n’ roll, via Paul McCartney, the anonymous James Jamerson and Carol Kaye - whose genius bass lines underpinned The Beatles, Motown and LA sound respectively - British jazzer Herbie Flowers’s immortal line in Walk on the Wild Side, the emergence of 70s funky bass stars Bootsy Collins and Chic’s Bernard Edwards, the driving lead bass of postpunk maverick Peter Hook in both Joy Division and New Order, through to the growth of bass culture in reggae, whose sound systems sparked whole new genres in drum and bass, grime and beyond. With Bootsy Collins, Dizzee Rascal, Ray Parker Jr, Nile Rodgers, Peter Hook, Carol Kaye, Herbie Flowers, Valerie Simpson, The Marcels’ Fred Jonson, DJ Aphrodite and Gail Ann Dorsey.

S1E2 • Guitar, Drum and Bass • 2019 • Music

23:32

From the waltz to voguing, dance crazes have connected people throughout history. But when a dance catches on, who gets the credit - and compensation?

S3E11 • Explained • 2021 • Music

92:49

This documentary brings Hollywood's premier composers together to give viewers a privileged look inside the musical challenges and creative secrecy of the world's most widely known music genre: the film score.

2016 • Music

86:50

Ritchie Blackmore is beyond doubt one of the all-time great guitar players. The Ritchie Blackmore Story traces the long and winding road of the guitar legend — from his early days as a session player (with legendary producer Joe Meek) and his early '60s combo the Outlaws up through his years guiding one of hard rock's finest bands, Deep Purple, the formation of Rainbow and into his recent work with Blackmore's Night. Ritchie has proven to be a master of the guitar across a multitude of styles. The 'man in black' helped invent neo-classical heavy metal with his medieval-oriented guitar solos. He gave the world perhaps the most played guitar riff ever with the opening notes to "Smoke on the Water." For the first time his story is told in this extraordinary rockumentary. "The Ritchie Blackmore Story" tells the career through some of it's historical performance and extensive specially recorded new interviews with Ritchie himself and many of his colleagues and admirers including: Brian May, Glenn Hughes, Lars Ulrich, Steve Lukather, Joe Satriani, the late Jon Lord, David Coverdale, Gene Simmons, Joe Lynn Turner, Steve Vai, Graham Bonnet and Ian Anderson. This is the definitive story of a true guitar legend.

2015 • Music

145:11

Bob Marley's musical (and cultural) shadow is so large that the man clearly needed an authoritative documentary portrait--and Marley steps in with all the right stuff to fill the role. Working with official rights to the music and access to Marley's family and friends, Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (One Day in September) creates a thorough account that hits the major points, not stinting on some of the less admirable aspects of Marley's life (including his brood of children fathered with women other than his patient wife, Rita, whose presence indicates just how much she puts Marley's legacy above his personal infidelities). Especially interesting is the sketch of Bob Marley's youth, as a mixed-race--and thus socially ostracized--kid from the village of Nine Mile who began to put together a reggae sound with a group of like-minded musicians in Jamaica in the late '50s and early '60s. That period comes to life, and the account of Marley's ascent, while familiar from such sagas, has its share of offbeat incidents. His death, at age 36 in 1981, does not dominate the movie, but Macdonald does a good job of getting that story laid out. In the meantime, the music and the concert footage are more than enough to justify the movie's existence, and Macdonald makes time to include thoughts about politics, ganja smoking, and Rastafarianism, too. If it's not the final word on Marley, it's an excellent start.

2012 • Music

58:52

DJ and broadcaster Rita Ray travels to South Africa, home to distinctive vocal harmonies that have travelled all over the world. Visiting Johannesburg, Durban and Cape Town, she discovers the extraordinary songs and harmonies that have given this country a voice abroad. They have often carried messages about inequality and injustice at home, resulting in beautiful music with a real sense of purpose. South Africa is a diverse nation, and each tribal group has its own musical traditions.

2 • Africa: A Journey into Music • 2018 • Music