{"id":164345,"date":"2020-09-21T07:05:07","date_gmt":"2020-09-21T11:05:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu?p=164345&preview=true&preview_id=164345"},"modified":"2020-09-17T16:40:28","modified_gmt":"2020-09-17T20:40:28","slug":"documentary-tracks-charters-searching-secret-heroes-blues-music","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/2020\/09\/documentary-tracks-charters-searching-secret-heroes-blues-music\/","title":{"rendered":"Documentary Tracks Charters ‘Searching for Secret Heroes’ of Blues Music"},"content":{"rendered":"

Three years after publishing his pioneering 1959 book \u201cThe Country Blues,\u201d the music historian and record producer Samuel Charters felt he still had more to say about blues music and the people who created it. Traveling throughout the southern United States throughout the 1950s searching for blues musicians, his book told the stories of Blind Lemon Jefferson, Furry Lewis, Gus Cannon, Pink Anderson, Sleepy John Estes, and many other bluesmen.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut there was no film,\u201d Charters says in \u201cSearching for Secret Heroes,\u201d a new documentary that traces how he and his wife Ann, professor emerita of American Literature at UConn, decided to return to Tennessee and South Carolina with a single wind-up camera to make a film considered the first exclusively about the blues. The Charterses discussed the making of \u201cThe Blues\u201d with Gary Atkinson of Document Records before Sam\u2019s death in 2015 of a type of bone marrow cancer at age 85.<\/p>\n

The Samuel and Ann Charters Archives of Blues and Vernacular African-American Musical Culture is part of the Archives and Special Collections at the UConn Library. Samuel Charters is a foundational scholar of the blues, whose writings, field research, and recordings helped to launch the revival of blues and folk music in the 1960s and 70s. He also wrote about jazz and produced recordings by Buddy Guy, Country Joe and the Fish, and Bill Haley and the Comets. Ann Charters is a specialist in Beat writers and an accomplished photographer who photographed the musicians for albums produced by her husband. The Charters Archives holds thousands of hours of recorded music on both analog and digital platforms spanning the entire 20th century and the early 21st century, including 25,000 recordings donated by Document Records.<\/p>\n

\u201cSearching for Secret Heroes\u201d was produced by Document Records, the American roots music label based in the United Kingdom and owned by Atkinson, who became a fan of the blues as a teenager after listening to recordings made by Sam Charters on the Folkways label. The film includes a restored version of \u201cThe Blues,\u201d which was made in 1962 while Charters was recording in the rural homes of veteran blues musicians including Estes, Lewis, Anderson, Baby Tate, and J.D. Short. \u201cThe Blues\u201d was not widely seen after its completion.<\/p>\n

\"Samuel
Samuel Charters recording Sleepy John Estes in 1962. PHOTO BY ANN CHARTERS (Department of Archives & Special Collections\/UConn Library)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cSearching for Secret Heroes\u201d weaves the narrative of the Charters describing their experiences making \u201cThe Blues\u201d with compelling scenes from the 25-minute film, which is included at the end of the narrative. The documentary includes performances by the musicians and images of the extreme poverty \u2013 ramshackle homes and life without electricity or running water — and the racism endured by them \u2013 signs on businesses and hospitals indicating \u201cWhite Only\u201d entrances — which had driven Sam Charters to showcase their music.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat no blues singer ever was permitted to say was that the racial oppression was destroying their lives,\u201d Charters tells Atkinson in the film. \u201cSo in the sequence of Baby Tate where he’s sitting talking to us, I wanted to you to know what was in his mind; that is why that sequence is followed by those signs of the white discrimination — white only, black only — even in hospital walls. They were everywhere in this apartheid state in the South of the United States.\u201d<\/p>\n

The story of making \u201cSearching for Secret Heroes,\u201d restoring \u201cThe Blues\u201d and the collaboration between the Charters and Atkinson, his wife Gillian and son George, began with a chance meeting between the two men at the rural southwest Scotland warehouse of Document Records in 2012.<\/p>\n

After acquiring Document Records in 2000, Atkinson exchanged correspondence with Charters about obtaining his original Folkways recordings for the label but did not complete their discussions as they each pursued other projects. The Atkinsons reside primarily in England and have a home in Scotland not far from the warehouse. They decided to head north for a week in 2012. Coincidentally, Charters was in his ancestral homeland with his son, also Sam, and daughter-in-law, Heidi, after locating a long-sought first edition copy of a 1794 book by his family namesake at a bookstore that happened to be around the corner from the Document warehouse.<\/p>\n

While Sam and his son were at the bookstore, Heidi walked around the area and met Gillian, who happened to be standing outside the Document building. As they were talking, the Charters men came by and as the discussion continued, Gillian discovered her new acquaintance was the author of the 1963 volume \u201cThe Poetry of the Blues,\u201d one of the first books she bought as a teenager. She quickly ushered the Charters family into the building to meet Gary.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf Gillian hadn’t gone out that moment, Sam Charters would have been walking around Document Records and not knowing it and I would have been inside the office, not knowing that Sam Charters was walking around outside,\u201d Atkinson says. \u201cWe just kind of laughed and smiled and were in disbelief for several minutes before I said, would you like to go for lunch?\u201d<\/p>\n

Over lunch, Atkinson recalled that he had a copy the 1967 recording \u201cThe Blues,\u201d produced by Charters and described as the soundtrack of a film. He asked Charters what happened to the film.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe said they only printed around about four or five copies, what they could afford as a young couple back in 1962,\u201d Atkinson says. \u201cI think that one university actually showed it at a music festival or something, but after that it never came to the surface again. Sam said he had lost his copy of the film for a long time.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, Charters indicated he had recently found his copy of the film but it had deteriorated and had only a red color. Atkinson said his son, George, was a filmmaker and might be able to restore the film after converting it to a digital format. Charters returned to the U.K. the following year with Ann and a digital copy of \u201cThe Blues,\u201d which the younger Atkinson was able to restore to its original form. Atkinson thought he should record an interview with Sam and Ann about the making of the film and possibly write an article about the making of the film. \u201cBut Sam was such a dream to interview and the filming went well. I dared myself to think that we could possibly turn this into a documentary,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

In the film, the Charterses describe the challenges they faced as first-time filmmakers with no technical experience and little financing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFilms are generally made with more than one camera. If you were using only one camera when you’re photographing music, when you change where you’re photographing it from the camera will be shut off,\u201d Sam says. \u201cI had this windup camera, we had my tape recorder. We were going to have to work with the fact that there was going to stops and starts when I moved the camera. I crawled on my knees to another shot. I accepted those problems and those limitations.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ann adds, \u201cI had taken lots of still photographs for his album covers. I was absolutely raring to go to be part of his crew. In fact, I was the crew. I held the microphone attached to the Ampex recorder and held it out of the line of sight of his movie camera. When he was finished filming and recording I would put down the microphone that I had held out to the artists and I would pick up my camera and begin taking stills. I just functioned on the dual level all the time. Of course I was happy to be part of it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sam ultimately did the editing at a film studio in New York City operated by a friend who allowed him to work at night when no one else had reserved the equipment, while Ann was teaching in New Hampshire. When he was done editing \u201cThe Blues,\u201d Sam asked Ann to travel to New York to watch it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe sat together at this really strange little sort of theater, where Sam had the editing, or some processing of that film,\u201d Ann says. \u201cSpontaneously we held hands across the aisle that separated our two seats in this pathetic little theater. We were so excited and it was so much better than we thought we could ever do. Sam had the great idea of showing it to our friends. So the next day he rented a 16 millimeter projector.\u201d<\/p>\n

They scheduled showings at the apartments of friends around New York City, booking specific times to arrive and show the film, as late as 2 a.m., until having to return the projector.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re more than satisfied that [the film] existed, that the statement had been made — good, bad, or indifferent,\u201d Sam says. \u201cOthers would do it better. I was sure this was only going to be one of many films. I had no idea that this would be the only one.\u201d<\/p>\n

The title of the documentary, \u201cSearching for Secret Heroes,\u201d comes from an anecdote related by Ann, author of the first authoritative biography of Jack Kerouac, who she first met in San Francisco at the second public reading of Allen Ginsberg\u2019s landmark poem, \u201cHowl.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cAllen Ginsberg once looked at me and said, I know the work you and Sam are doing; you’re looking for America’s secret heroes and that was Kerouac and himself,\u201d she says in the film. \u201cAnd definitely the people like John Estes and Furry Lewis.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new documentary focuses on a legendary early 1960s film made by Sam Charters and UConn professor emerita Ann Charters about American blues musicians. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":164421,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_crdt_document":"","wds_primary_category":0,"wds_primary_series":0,"wds_primary_attribution":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1711,2226,2225],"tags":[],"magazine-issues":[],"coauthors":[1918],"class_list":["post-164345","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts-culture","category-clas","category-uconn-storrs"],"pp_statuses_selecting_workflow":false,"pp_workflow_action":"current","pp_status_selection":"publish","acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-29 05:33:50","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164345","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=164345"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164345\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":164422,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/posts\/164345\/revisions\/164422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media\/164421"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=164345"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=164345"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=164345"},{"taxonomy":"magazine-issue","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/magazine-issues?post=164345"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/today.uconn.edu\/wp-rest\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=164345"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}