Friday, March 5, 2010

"PRECIOUS" *IS* THE BLUES

This isn't a film blog, but last weekend I finally saw Precious, and I was pretty shaken by it. Incredible film.  The title character lives the blues, and what I did like about it was that there was a kind of redemption there.

The movie's theme song, "I Can See In Color," by Mary J. Blige, is, to me, a blues song. I said it on The Morning Jolt With Larry Flick on OutQ, but I think of Mary as a blues singer. A soul singer, and a R&B singer, but also a blues singer. I know she might not like that - these days, "blues" is taken to mean Eric Clapton. Music for older people. Predominately white people listen to it these days. But when Mary sings "I Can See In Color," it's blues just like they were sung by Muddy or Wolf or even Robert Johnson. I've posted it before, but here's Mary's performance of the song from the SIRIUS|XM studios. At the end, she really tears it up.

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