And This Is Free: The Life and Times of Chicago's Legendary Maxwell St.

And This Is Free: Life & Time O

Overview

For nearly a century, sociologists termed Chicago's famed Maxwell Street "The Ellis Island of the Midwest," given its heterogeneous blend of races, religions, and social types running the gamut from businessmen to hustlers. The locale, of course, is perhaps best known for its rollicking blues and stirring gospel music. The 1964 documentary And This is Free travels to the Maxwell Street of the early '60s for a direct cinema plunge into the fray of on-street activity, with a particularly strong emphasis on the musical element.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/10/2008
UPC:	0016351680198
Original Release:	2008
Source:	Shanachie
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[B&W]
Sound:	[Dolby Digital Stereo]
Language:	English
Time:	0:51:-00
Sales rank:	38,511

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Arvella Gray	Primary Artist
Robert Nighthawk	Primary Artist
Mississippi Sarah & Daddy Stovepipe	Primary Artist
Little Walter	Primary Artist
Johnny Williams	Primary Artist
John Henry Barbee	Primary Artist
J.B. Hutto	Primary Artist
Jimmy Rogers	Primary Artist
Snooky Pryor	Primary Artist
Muddy Waters	Primary Artist
The Boll Weevil	Primary Artist
Blind Percy & His Blind Band	Primary Artist
Blind Percy	Primary Artist
Baby Face Leroy Trio	Primary Artist
Papa Charlie Jackson	Primary Artist
Big John Wrencher	Primary Artist
J.B. Hutto & the Hawks	Primary Artist
Floyd Jones	Primary Artist
John Lee Granderson	Primary Artist
Johnny Young	Primary Artist
Daddy Stovepipe	Primary Artist

Technical Credits

Sherwin Dunner	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Richard Nevins	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Richard Nevins	Executive Producer,Project Producer,Remastering
Mike Shea	Cover Photo
Jack Davis	Photography
Clarence Hines	Photography
D. Thomas Moon	Liner Notes
George Paulus	Photography,Liner Notes
Paul Frank	Composer
Sherwin Dunner	Executive Producer,Project Producer

Editorial Reviews

A remarkable documentary that preserves a time and place now gone, And This Is Free captures the sights and sounds of an urban environment that helped lend Chicago much of its legendary character. Director Mike Shea spent 16 weekends combing the Maxwell Street shopping district, where disparate ethnic groups came together to form a homogenous neighborhood market. Released in 1964, the beautifully photographed and imaginatively edited film retrieves an era before standardization of urban commerce -- read: shopping centers and malls -- became the norm. Rows upon rows of street vendors selling every imaginable product stood cheek-by-jowl with street musicians singing the blues, religious groups preaching and vocalizing, and hucksters trying to get over on the crowd, all bordered by legitimate shops, department stores, and restaurants. African Americans, Jews, Puerto Ricans, Gypsies, slumming suburbanites, college kids soaking up atmosphere, and down-at-the-heels families all mingle in harmony, the lure of the bargain and cheap entertainment drawing them together. Shea’s narrator-free direction makes use of artful montages of interlocking images and sounds that emphasizes the area’s melting-pot unity. The 50-minute And This Is Free, is joined by two short documentaries: one on the Jewish legacy of Maxwell Street, the other, a portrait of the area making use of valuable found footage. Additional treats arrive by way of a music CD stocked with atypical Chicago blues performances, and a 36-page booklet that brings the neighborhood to life through photos and firsthand accounts of its vivid history.