The classic 1972 bluegrass documentary, Bluegrass Country Soul, which captured the third year of the vaunted Camp Springs Bluegrass Festival in 1971, is finally available for streaming online.
The film, which was produced as a labor of love by Director Albert Ihde, never saw a wide theatrical release, yet it lives on in the memories of every bluegrass lover who has seen it, or watched clips from the movie online. Created on a shoestring budget with a small crew, Ihde shot in the Camp Springs Park just a few years after the new bluegrass festival phenomenon first took hold.
The very idea of a bunch of hillbilly music lovers cramming into a primitive campground to see their favorite performers on stage still seemed quaint and obscure, even though the news of the Woodstock rock music festival in New York, which may have been inspired by Camp Springs promoter Carlton Haney’s first bluegrass festivals in Virginia, had made the news a couple of years earlier.
Bluegrass Country Soul didn’t have the impact of the Woodstock movie in 1970, but among lovers and historians of bluegrass, it is an invaluable look at that time when festivals began to save our music from being swallowed up by pop and rock radio.
Along with footage and interview from the audience and the campground, we see live stage shows from Ralph Stanley & The Clinch Mountain Boys, J.D. Crowe & The Kentucky Mountain Boys, The Country Gentlemen, Jimmy Martin & The Sunny Mountain Boys, The Osborne Brothers, The Bluegrass 45, The Bluegrass Alliance, Del McCoury & The Dixie Pals, and many more. Earl SCruggs even appears for a marathon jam on Foggy Mountain Breakdown.
Many serious bluegrass followers have purchased Bluegrass Country Soul on DVD, either from the producers, or from Time Life Music. But a new generation, more accustomed to watching films online, may be unaware of the movie, or haven’t seen it since it was broadcast through the hotel at the World of Bluegrass in Louisville some years ago.
But now, the original film is finally available to stream online, not through the various subscription services, but through an agreement between the producers and Kinema, a platform designed for the distribution of independent films and television.
Bluegrass Country Soul can be rented for live streaming for $9.95 through Kinema. Unfortunately, there is no app for smart TVs, but it can be streamed from the Kinema web site, and then cast via bluetooth to most modern televisions for family viewing, or simply viewed on a laptop, or through a web browser app on your TV.
This film is required viewing for anyone interested in the history and development of bluegrass music. Fewer and fewer of us are still around who remember the ’70s and can tell the tale, but thanks to Albert Ihde, this slice of our past is preserved for posterity.
If you need a Friday night movie for this evening, why not Bluegrass Country Soul? You’ll be glad you did.
