Bonnie
Blue
James Cotton’s Life in the Blues
*** Coming Soon***
2024 National Release This summer 2024
Distributed by Free Style Digital Media
Available for Rent and to Buy on Amazon, Apple.TV
and All other platforms
James Henry Cotton known as “Cotton” to his friends was born in 1935 in Tunica, Mississippi. He became an American blues harmonica player, singer, songwriter and bandleader whose musical life evolved from southern Delta Blues, to Chicago harmonica blues and to the arena rock and roll and electric harmonica venues. In this emotionally evocative feature documentary film an intimate portrait reveals the untold story of a legend whose influence endures. Cotton’s life tracks a swath of America’s history -- from the post-depression cotton fields of the Mississippi Delta to tough Chicagoland’s era of brilliant artistic reinvention to today’s live music scene in Austin, Texas. This musical journey unfolds in a joyful, thumping original film through an exploration of harp-based blues music and stories shared by some of the nation’s most respected musicians.
COVER PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER DURST
Watch the Trailer
“He’s one of the best, man. You know, you don’t find them like that no more. They come along once in a lifetime.”
From Left: James Montgomery, Tom Hambridge and Buddy Guy. Photo by Bestor Cram
“Whenever we toured together then we’d go carousing together. And so we were able to hang together and I’m sure for him it was much more difficult than it was for me in a white world where you have all this white privilege and you don’t even think about it.”
Steve Miller and James Cotton, 1972
“Blues music was really a music of empowerment. Cotton is one of the first guys to say, ‘I’m not going to play just 12 bar blues anymore. I’m going to play soul music. He is one of the pioneers he —masters Sonny Boy, he masters Little Walter, he plays with Muddy. I mean the best credentials in the world, you can’t get better blues cred than that.”
Photo by Kristin Hughes
“When you hear the blues, you’re going to end up feeling really joyful. I like to say it’s like gospel music for people who like to drink.”
PHOTO COURTESY OF ANNIE RAINES