USA, 2004
Director: Antoine Fuqua
Score: ****

Antoine Fuqua’s (THE REPLACEMENT KILLERS, TRAINING DAY and the recent TEARS OF THE SUN) concert documentary is a record of one evening at the Radio City Music Hall in 2003 when a host of artists of several generations band together to pay tribute to the blues. So what are the blues? How did it originate? What powers the blues? Director Fuqua combines archival footage, backstage going-ons, interviews and performance rehearsals to shed light on the mystery of the blues.

The sheer energy of the performers rubs off on the viewer. When this happens – which, fortunately is quite often – the film soars. The best scene has Ruth Brown, Macy Gray and Clarence Brown doing their thing together on stage. Other highlights include Macy Gray crooning HOUND DOG and watching the originators of blues perform alongside the young ones.  The featured performer list is impressive and includes Honeyboy Edwards, Keb’ Mo’, Natalie Cole, the Neville Brothers, Buddy Guy and Mavis Staples among others. (Bill Cosby has a guest appearance.)

Fuqua tastefully blends in racial and poverty issues – the problems of times past that inspired the blues. His interviews and banter with the older folk like B.B. King (with his guitar named Lucille) and Ruth Brown are the most enlightening. We learn of the past in the bayous, where hand-made guitars were created out of water fluid cans. We learn of the great artists, many of which have gone through hard times, drugs, poverty, and health problems like strokes and heart attacks. Yet they survive to tell their story. Nothing could have prevented the birth of the era. Through old film footage, signs like ‘colored entrance’ can be seen painted on the wall of concert venues. Blues were really dedicated to men only, Ruth Brown says to the camera at one point – but you women also listen up!

LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE ends appropriately with a high octane performance by eighty year-old B.B. King. The viewer will beyond doubt walk away rich on the blues experience – no doubt the coolest experience ever. The title – LIGHTNING IN A BOTTLE - derives from this one time electrifying concert experience that might probably never happen again.

Review by Gilbert Seah.