Bard of the Village

Documentary about the blacklisted folk group The Weavers, and the events leading up to their triumphant return to Carnegie Hall.

Morocco is a land of ingratiating variety and intense contrast. Its people are as diverse as its topography. The cosmopolitan Atlantic coast fuses with the Berber heritage of the northern Rif and Atlas mountain ranges as the ancient Saharan trade routes wind their way from the south into the city of Marrakech, where all points collide, creating a vibrant mixture of the traditional, the exotic and the supernatural.

"Shot live for TV by the legendary German music show “Rockpalast” this DVD represents the earliest example of a complete Fahey concert performance. The multi-camera filming features detailed close-ups of Fahey’s playing style giving fans a rare insight into what Pete Townsend has called the William Burroughs of the guitar. Fahey’s 1978 visit to Europe saw him in fine wild form performing an 11 track set and as an incredibly rare bonus a short interview with the maverick iconoclast.

Appalachian Journey is one of five films made from footage that Alan Lomax shot between 1978 and 1985 for the PBS American Patchwork series (1991). It offers songs, dances, stories, and religious rituals of the Southern Appalachians. Preachers, singers, fiddlers, banjo pickers, moonshiners, cloggers, and square dancers recount the good times and the hard times of rural life there. Performers include Tommy Jarrell, Janette Carter, Ray and Stanley Hicks, Frank Proffitt Jr., Sheila Kay Adams, Nimrod Workman and Phyllis Boyens, Raymond Fairchild, and others, with a bonus of a few African-Americans from the North Carolina Piedmont.

A short film about Pete Seeger and the birth of banjo music throughout the Southern United States.

HAIYU interweaves Mariem Hassan’s music and her personal quest for her country’s independence with larger historical events dating back to the region’s Spanish colonisation, and subsequent occupation by Morocco.

Following folk musician Joan Baez on her extensive 2008-2009 tour, this film commemorates her career, which has spanned five decades. It includes concert and archival footage as well as interviews with such disparate colleagues, friends and admirers as Bob Dylan, Jesse Jackson and David Crosby. In addition to the music, it also touchs upon Baez's long history of global social activism.

Through concerts and interviews, folk-progressive group Harmonium takes Quebec culture to California. This documentary full of colour and sound, filmed in California in 1978, recounts the ups and downs of the journey of the Quebec musical group Harmonium, who came to feel the pulse of Americans and see if culture, their culture, can succeed in crossing borders.

This BBC Bristol documentary, Narrated by Bert Lloyd looks at the Gaelic music of the Outer Hebrides. It won the Silver Harp award. Directed by Barrie Gavin.

Set in the North Carolina Appalachians, Sprout Wings and Fly honors the fiddle playing of 82-year-old Tommy Jarrell of Toast, NC. Tommy was quirky, gregarious and generous, and this film shows him at his best, in fine fiddling form.

Documentary - Tracing his career up to the point of his 1966 motorcycle accident and subsequent disappearance from the spotlight, this unauthorized documentary uncovers a side of Bob Dylan never revealed before. Includes extensive interviews and rare footage. - Mickey Jones