we rented the video when I was in middle school, I was pretty blown away. although it didn’t kickstart a blues phase in me, it was a great movie with great playing. through my mom, I had already been schooled on the blues’ place in the structure of american music. I knew my mom had one of those Johnson reissues in her album collection, and in highschool, that LP made it into my crate (aside: weird to think my collection was once only one crate.)
when rewatching it maybe five years ago, I noticed in the credits that the old man’s guitar playing was done by Shuggie Otis. Otis started out as a blues man, then invented his own style, his only hit was the Brothers Johnson covering his tune “Strawberry Letter 23,” and was slept-on until David Byrne/Luka Bop records reissued him in the late 90s, which was how I discovered him. His blues material wasn’t part of the reissue, but as you heard in the movie, it’s tough stuff. and I believe the evil white boy was Steve Vai? or someone like that.
anyway, that is so awesome that this movie sparked a blues scene where you live, and itself sounds like the plot of a movie (shades of Swing Kids, in a way.)