For Reggae click here.

The usual legal disclaimers apply. All material is © Adelphi Records, Inc., and unauthorized use is prohibited by law. If you are interested in licensing portions of the film collection for educational or entertainment purposes, please contact Adelphi Records directly. Information is supplied on our contact page.

Note that the videos are in an older RealAudio format, the player can be downloaded and installed here:
Real Player
or download the modern and free VLC Player:
VLC Player

Adelphi Records was founded by a group of young people who were passionate about the blues, especially Pre-War Delta or Country Blues, which they knew from old 78 rpm recordings. During the summer of 1969, they assembled the best portable film and audio equipment then available and set out on several blues pilgrimages.

The results of those journeys form a remarkable history of this most American of musical genres, as they combine live performances with interviews, personal interaction among the artists and footage of the landscape of the blues--places like Maxwell Street, Beale Street, the Mississippi River and the Delta.

See a selection of location still pictures taken on that trip

The first trip was in June of that year to Memphis, where the entire Memphis Country Blues Festival was filmed with five 16 mm color cameras and recorded in stereo. In August, they embarked with two cameras for a more extended trip, beginning in Chicago and traveling through St. Louis, Memphis and the Delta to capture performances by virtually every known player of country blues. This mission was facilitated by Big Joe Williams who served as tour guide and talent scout.

The audio recordings from those mobile sessions form the basis of the critically acclaimed Blues Vault Series, but the bulk of the film has remained in storage because of the high cost of transferring it to video.
On these pages, we offer snippets from this priceless collection for the enjoyment of music fans around the world. Someday soon, perhaps, we'll find a way to make the entire contents of the film vault available and, in so doing, to fulfill the original mission of those dedicated young people in 1969: to preserve a vanishing heritage for future generations.

On location at the Thunderbird Motel

 Johnny Shines, Honeyboy Edwards, Big Walter Horton
 Little Brother Montgomery with Jeanne Carroll
Big Mama Thornton
Johnny Young
 Blues Great Honored at Grant Park Festival Downbeat clip
 St. Louis, September 1969

 Henry Brown with Henry Townsend

George & Ethel McCoy, with George's wife on washboard.

Beale Street, 1969 More photos

 Dewey Corley, Willie Morris, Mose Vinson
Rev. Robert Wilkins
Sleepy John Estes, Yank Rachell, Jim Dickinson
Richard "Hacksaw" Harney
   Mrs. Van Hunt with Mose Vinson
  Bukka White 

HomeRockBluesJazzReggaeWorldFolkNew ReleasesEmail Adelphi Records Store