In 1941, folklorist Alan Lomax traveled from the Library of Congress to the Mississippi Delta to record an oral history of the blues. Equipped with 500 pounds of audio equipment powered by his car battery, he ventured across nameless roads to discover the most beautiful and harrowing songs ever known.
For over 40 years, Boston's self-proclaimed #1 celebrity paparazzi and autograph hound Jerome Pearlswig has been capturing some of the world's most beloved stars, in hopes of achieving fame of his own.
In 1993, Chicago bluesman and Howlin' Wolf protégé James "Tail Dragger" Jones murdered fellow musician "Boston Blackie" during an on-stage performance. Twenty years later, James engraved his confession onto a spinning acetate record.
At the end of her life, Ruth Ruckert requested her ashes be spread near her childhood home in Maple, Iowa. When the photos documenting the ceremony were developed, an apparition appeared.
Isolated, desperate, and haunted by his coal-stained birthright, Clarence Lockwood continues his daily descent into the accursed Maple mine—even after it has crippled his father and blinded his youngest son. Set in 1907 and based on director Jesse Kreitzer’s own coalmining ancestry, Black Canaries is a powerful meditation on patrimony, loyalty, and love.