JAMES STEWART DESCRIBED motion pictures as “pieces of time” captured, and it’s a rare day when Stewart, dead since 1997, isn’t very much alive on some screen as Mr. Smith fighting the good fight in Washington, Charles Lindbergh flying solo across the Atlantic, or the man who spies through a rear window his neighbor committing murder. The same can be said for audio recordings, but they’re like voices in the dark disembodied. Put another way, who wouldn’t want to see footage of mysterious Robert Johnson actually performing one of those famous 29 songs of his?

But nobody filmed Johnson; movie men didn’t go to juke joints in rural Mississippi in the ’30s, not even pioneering African-American director Oscar Michaeux. Not until the 1960s, with the rise of the folk festival, did cameramen get serious about documenting the giants of blues. The best collection ever of this material has arrived from San Diego company Reelin’ in the Years Productions, with support from Experience Hendrix and distribution through Universal’s Hip-O division. The two DVD volumes (plus a highlights CD) of The American Folk Blues Festival, 1962-1966 capture the genre’s greatest names in their prime, including Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, T-Bone Walker, John Lee Hooker, and Lightnin’ Hopkins, as well as such influential earlier figures as Lonnie Johnson, Big Joe Williams, Sonny Boy Williamson II, Sippie Wallace, and Roosevelt Sykes before age and ill health struck them down.

These performances were shot in a German television studio. The songs played are not those that have turned up on various audio releases, most recently available on the Evidence label in the U.S. These are fresh performances featuring unusual combinations: Unless you happened to be in the audience in 1965, it’s not likely you’ve seen Big Mama Thornton, Big Walter Horton, J.B. Lenoir, Doctor Ross, and John Lee Hooker trading harp solos on “Down Home Shakedown,” with Buddy Guy on guitar, Fred Below on drums, and the forgotten Lonesome Jimmy Lee on bass.

Other scenes: Consider how pleased Waters seems to be sharing a stage with one of his idols, Lonnie Johnson, on “Bye Bye Blues,” with Victoria Spivey joining on vocals, Williamson blowing harp, and Memphis Slim and Otis Spann trading off on one piano. Or Junior Wells working with Otis Rush rather than Buddy Guy. Or an urbane Memphis Slim chiding Willie Dixon for weighing “400 or 500 pounds,” a dig that Dixon, from the look on his face, doesn’t appreciate. Or a frail Williamson rubbing the back of a 20-something Hubert Sumlin’s neck and calling him “young Hubert” with what is surely great affection. These are magic moments.
Besides the emotional impact of this footage, the DVDs chart the history of blues as it was performed for white audiences in the 1960s. The earliest material uses stereotypic sets as backdrops. Walker, with Shakey Jake Harris on vocal, plays on a veranda while a woman knits. Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee perform in front of a white plantation house as extras – probably recruited from a nearby U.S. military base in Germany – dance in down-home costumes. But by 1964, when Howlin’ Wolf turns up for “Shake for Me,” “I’ll Be Back Someday,” and “Love Me Darlin’,” the film presentation has matured to where it is reminiscent of the expressionist masterpieces that pre-war German UFA studio turned out – large objects in the foreground, Wolf deep-focused in the frame or in extreme close-up.

One other sidelight: The performances from 1962 to 1966 are dignified, modulated, and proper – what one might expect from guests who had suffered great indignities in their own country and were now playing to cultured, respectful Europeans in jackets, ties, and even fur coats. But the bonus footage of Earl Hooker and Magic Sam, dating from 1969 and appended to each volume, is another matter. They’re playing for kids in jeans, and the amps are cranked to the max. Sam, in what may be the only film ever shot of him, fires off salvos of pure sonic assault while Hooker plays with his teeth, blitzes the audience with feedback, and upends his entire trickbag. It’s blues meets rock ’n’ roll, and it’s as exciting as anything Jimi Hendrix, Pete Townshend or anyone else from the late ’60s managed. Within a year, Sam and Earl would be gone, one from a heart attack at 32 and the other from TB at 41. But thanks to this remarkable footage, they’re as alive as they can be.