Filmed in the early 1980s, the nearly two-hour "Blues" episode of the America's Music Legacy series gathers more than a dozen major and minor names to play a song, or two or three. Hosted by actor Brock Peters, there are also frustratingly brief snippets of vintage film clips by Bessie Smith, Jimmy Rushing, Mamie Smith, Count Basie, and Big Joe Turner, as well as similarly brief interviews with a few of the artists. But the accent is on the performances, including a few giants (B.B. King, Buddy Guy, and Junior Wells playing together) and some solid blues, or at least blues-influenced, names (Esther Phillips, Pee Wee Crayton, Joe Williams, Eddie "Cleanhead" Vinson, and Brownie McGhee, the last misspelled as "Bobby McGee" on the cover). The intention might not have been to present a balanced cross-section of the blues in all its forms, but it does lean far too much toward jazz-blues, or even bluesy jazz with vaudevillian/theatrical overtones, to truly reflect the most significant aspects of America's blues legacy. That's even true of the Guy-Wells segment, at least until the instrumental break, where Guy and Wells whip out the guitar and harmonica to push this as close as it gets to electric Chicago blues. It's also fair to say that the lesser-known performers, while competent, are not memorable or major contributors to either this DVD or the blues as a whole. Linda Hopkins in particular gets more play than is warranted, though Dorothy Donigan does play a mean piano in her bit.
