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Charles Burnett explores his own past as a young boy who was shuttled back and forth between Los Angeles and Mississippi, torn between and uncle who loved the blues and a mother who believed the blues was the devil's music. Burnett's film boldly mixes fictional storytelling with documentary footage of a host of blues legends in a tale about a young boy's encounter with his family in Mississippi in 1955, dramatizing the tensions between the heavenly strains of gospel music and the devilish moans of the blues. Archival performances by Son House, Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Mississippi John Hurt, Victoria Spivey, Willie Dixon, Muddy Waters, Ida Fox, Mamie Smith, Light'n Hopkins, Reverend Gary Davis, Big Bill Broonzy, W.C.Handy, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Bessie Smith.