Electrified- The Story of the Maxwell Street Urban Blues will be launched at a party at Harry O’s in  Park City on Friday January 25th. In addition to the screening of the film, there will be a live performance by acclaimed blues guitarist Kenny Wayne Shepherd and blues legend Hubert Sumlin. Actor Chevy Chase will be master of ceremonies. Fender has also donated a limited edition “Electrified” guitar that film executive producer Les Walgreen will present  to online auction house Charity Buzz for an auction  to benefit The Center for Environmental Education Online.

Electrified tells the definitive history of the Chicago blues. Written, directed and produced by Phil Ranstrom and narrated by actor Joe Mantegna, the film chronicles how the urban neighborhood of Maxwell Street created a unique environment of commerce and cooperation that led first to the hard-driving sound of the urban blues, and ultimately to rock and roll. Interviews with many of the legendary bluesmen who “studied at Chicago’s Maxwell Street school of music,” including Buddy Guy, Junior Wells, Charlie Musselwhite, Jimmie Lee Robinson and the “father of rock and roll” Bo Diddley, complement the film’s historical narrative and create an exceptional history of this important era in American music.

A companion film, Cheat You Fair: The Story of Maxwell Street, documents the last days of the historic Maxwell Street market. It premiered to critical acclaim at the Chicago International Documentary Film Festival in April 2007, and is scheduled to be shown at the Amnesty International venue at Sundance January 18-20 and the Gene Siskel Film Center in Chicago on February 2.

Both Electrified and Cheat You Fair were written, directed and produced by longtime Chicago resident  and Emmy nominated producer Phil Ranstrom who began the projects in 1994 shortly before the Maxwell Street market was demolished.

We’ve put some short clips from both films up on YouTube. They are all great, but here are my two favorites:

"We come up the hard way…" Uncle Johnny Williams on how the blues were born

Eddie "Jewtown" Burkes performing "Step It Up And Go"

Tags: blues, urban blues, Chicago blues, Maxwell Street, Sundance, documentary, Phil Ranstrom, Les Walgreen