Genghis Blues (Part 5)

I do not own the copyright to this documentary film. This video is for historical and educational purposes!

Genghis Blues (1999) is a documentary film directed by Roko Belic. It centers on the journey of blind American singer Paul Pena to the isolated Asian nation of Tuva due to his interest in Tuvan throat singing.

It won the 1999 Sundance Film Festival Audience Award for a Documentary. It was also nominated for an Academy Award in 2000 in the Best Documentary Feature category.

The documentary captures the story of blind blues musician Paul Pena. After a brush with fame and success in the 1970s, Pena's fortunes faded as he dealt with career and health problems.

While listening to shortwave radio, Pena heard a broadcast of throatsinging, the Tuvan art of manipulating overtones while singing to make higher frequencies more distinguishable, essentially making it possible to sing two notes at once. Pena, over the course of several years, taught himself to throatsing to a very impressive degree. He eventually attended a concert of throatsinging and after the concert impressed one of the throatsingers, Kongar-ool Ondar, who invited him to visit Tuva, a province of Russia, a formerly independent country and the home of throatsinging to sing in the triennial throatsinging festival held there.

The entire journey is captured in the documentary, as well as the extraordinary mix of cultures and music.

The Belic brothers shot the film with two Hi8 camcorders and edited it themselves. They were allowed to edit the film during nighttime at the professional editing facility. It took them three and a half years to finish the film after they shot it. All this time they lived for $500 a month in an apartment above an auto repair shop.

LINKS FOR MORE INFORMATION:
http://www.genghisblues.com/
http://www.nytimes.com/1999/07/04/movies/film-how-a-creole-singer-wowed-them-...

Category:

Music

Tags:

• Genghis
• Blues
• paul
• pena
• documentary
• acoustic
• resonator
• guitar
• music
• tuva
• throat
• singing

[sambobla]

@nickpick55 Thank you, Nick! 

[nickpick55]

Thanks very much for uploading this, I really enjoyed it and all of it has gone to my favourites!! Nick.

[sambobla]

@MrBuckwilliam that part almost made me cry when he said that.. poor guy, he did not want to leave Tuva where people were so nice to him. yeah, very artistic and talented man... just the fact that he learned to talk Tuvan languige wich even many of the Tuvan people have forgotten, it's amazing. he must have been extremely gifted.. Also how he was interested about shamanishm was very exciting.

[MrBuckwilliam]

what a talented man... sometimes i wake up and wish i didn't have to wake up :)