Master Tapes: a review of ReMastered
Michael & Jeff Zimbalist producers, various directors for each episode.
Netflix has come out with an amazing documentary series about the lives and deaths of six great musicians of the twentieth century. Each episode is multiplex, deeply layered, a searching examination of the music the men made, the social impact of that music, and the politics and sometimes violence that ensued.
“Devil At the Crossroads” (Directed by: Brian Oakes ) is about the first member of the “27 Club” (famous musicians who died at the age of 27), Robert Johnson, considered the creator and master of modern guitar blues. Johnson at the age of 23 was a nobody, a wannabe guitar play who was, at best, mediocre, and often just awful. He vanished for a year, and came back, a master of the guitar and playing stuff that nobody had ever heard or believed a guitar could do. Even today, many famous guitarists struggle to recreate the sounds he produced so effortlessly. In an era where soul and jazz was considered by many to be “the devil’s music” a theory sprung up that Johnson had gone to the crossroads and sold his soul to the devil to become the world’s greatest guitar player. This notion was nurtured by Johnson himself. Because there are only two photographs of Johnson, 29 songs recorded, and no video of any kind, the episode relies heavily on gorgeous, Japanese-influenced animated art to tell its story.
While much of the series is exposition and interviews, the Zimbalists avoid such lame stunts as reenactments (some footage of a shootout at a turf war in Kingston was actually filmed live by the camera crew as real bullets flew around them) or repetition of key points in order to fill the hour.
“Who Shot the Sheriff?” (Directed by: Kief Davidson) is about Bob Marley, his rise to fame, the attempted assassination, his self-imposed exile to London, his incredible return to the troubled and torn Jamaica, and his eventual death.
“The Miami Showband Massacre” (Directed by: Stuart Sender) is the story of Ireland’s most influential rock/pop group during the Troubles—their equivalent of the Beatles. They were gunned down by a paramilitary group, leaving only one survivor.
“Tricky Dick and the Man in Black” (Directed by: Barbara Kopple and Sara Dosa) tells the convoluted and oddly sinister relationship between two opposites: Richard Nixon and Johnny Cash.
“The Two Killings of Sam Cooke” (Directed by: Kelly Duane de la Vega) deals with the murder (and possible assassination) of Sam Cooke, legendary blues singer and staunch opponent to segregation in the South.
This month, the series tracks down the anonymous author of a legendary song, “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” (Directed by: Sam Cullman) which has earned Disney and a dozen different musician tens of millions of dollars.
Two other episodes I’ve yet to see tell the tales of Victor Jara (Directed by: B.J. Perlmutt) and Jam Master Jay (Directed by: Brian Oakes), and promise to be as richly detailed and well told as the first five are.
This is a series for people who seriously love music and want to know the influence the music and its creators had on the culture and society they were in. Often the interactions were explosive, but left an enduring legacy of brilliance and caring. It for people who want more from a documentary than grainy stadium footage and improbable stories from groupees.
Now on Netflix.