THE SOUL OF A MAN

“These songs meant the world to me. I felt that there was more truth in them than in anything else you could learn about America.” That was the starting point for Wim Wenders’ film about three more-or-less forgotten American blues singers: Skip James, J.B. Lenoir and Blind Willie Johnson. Unique archive material, fictional scenes and, above all, cover versions of their songs, performed by a variety of musicians including Lucinda Williams, Beck, Lou Reed, Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds, Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, Cassandra Wilson, Los Lobos and more, breathe new life into the recent past and the three musicians’ blues. Wim Wenders says: “I have tried to convey what moved me so strongly in these songs and these three unique blues voices in a story rather than in a documentary style.” Daniel Sponsel