"A voice like no other."
Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and more. His undeniable talent earned platinum records and accolades, but he struggled to break out beyond the R&B charts. Intensely driven, he overcame personal and professional challenges to secure his place amongst the greatest vocalists in history.
Luther Vandross
Self (archive footage)
Mariah Carey
Self
Jamie Foxx
Self
Dionne Warwick
Self
Valerie Simpson
Self
David Bowie
Self (archive footage)
Johnny Carson
Self (archive footage)
Luther Vandross started his career supporting David Bowie, Roberta Flack, Bette Midler, and more. His undeniable talent earned platinum records and accolades, but he struggled to break out beyond the R&B charts. Intensely driven, he overcame personal and professional challenges to secure his place amongst the greatest vocalists in history.
Using a wide array of archive and some fairly honest and potent interviews, this documentary presents us with a short biopic of rather an enigmatic gent. Initially, his dulcet tones earned him a decent enough living doing lucrative commercials and providing backing vocals until a session with David Bowie started his career on a largely unhindered upwards trajectory. His associations with Aretha Franklin, Bette Midler and Roberta Flack, his total - almost perfectionist - commitment to his art and his cheeky sense of humour all contributed further to a success that transcended not just US racial boundaries, but also physical international ones too. I wasn't really that aware of his music, but watching this does effectively illustrate just how many songs he was behind - writing and/or performing, that are more familiar than I'd expected. This also wasn't a messy man. He wasn't in and out of the papers with stories of his life, his lifestyle, his drinking or drug taking - he actually comes across as a remarkably stable man in many ways, even if his solution to problems he faced was to reach for the fried chicken bucket or the ice cream spoon. Happily, we don't really focus too much on the personal life. Perhaps because his own comments of "mind your own **** business" are echoed by the film's contributors who knew him and who chose not to add fuel to any fires burning about his sexuality. It's a celebration of his music that broadens awareness for folk like me who didn't realise the scope of his skills, and it is a fitting and spangly tribute for those who did.
Martin Scorsese's documentary intertwines footage from The Band's incredible farewell tour with probing backstage interviews and featured performances by Eric Clapton, Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, Van Morrison, and other rock legends.
Featuring never before seen footage uncovered from the archives and interviews with Paul McCartney, Tommy Lee and others, God Bless Ozzy Osbourne is the first documentary to take viewers inside the complex mind of rock's great icon.
Forty years after the release of Michael Jackson’s ‘Thriller,’ the best-selling album of all-time, director Nelson George takes fans back in time to the making of a pop masterpiece, featuring never-before-seen footage and candid interviews.
Backup singers live in a world that lies just beyond the spotlight. Their voices bring harmony to the biggest bands in popular music, but we've had no idea who these singers are or what lives they lead, until now.
Pull back the curtain on the remarkable history of six decades of James Bond music, from Sean Connery’s Dr No through to Daniel Craig’s final outing in No Time to Die.
This 2005 documentary film chronicles the life of Daniel Johnston, a manic-depressive genius singer/songwriter/artist, from childhood up to the present, with an emphasis on his mental illness and how it manifested itself in demonic self-obsession.
In a warehouse in the heart of Los Angeles, a dwindling handful of devoted craftspeople maintain more than 80,000 student musical instruments, the largest remaining workshop in America of its kind. Meet four unforgettable characters whose broken-and-repaired lives have been dedicated to bringing so much more than music to the schoolchildren of this city.
Supersonic charts the meteoric rise of Oasis from the council estates of Manchester to some of the biggest concerts of all time in just three short years. This palpable, raw and moving film shines a light on one of the most genre and generation-defining British bands that has ever existed and features candid new interviews with Noel and Liam Gallagher, their mother, and members of the band and road crew.
Ginger Baker is known for playing in Cream and Blind Faith, but the world's greatest drummer didn’t hit his stride until 1972, when he arrived in Nigeria and discovered Fela Kuti's Afrobeat. After leaving Nigeria, Ginger returned to his pattern of drug-induced self-destruction, and countless groundbreaking musical works, eventually settling in South Africa, where the 73-year-old lives with his young bride and 39 polo ponies. This documentary includes interviews with Eric Clapton, Steve Winwood, Carlos Santana and more. Beware of Mr. Baker! With every smash of the drum is a man smashing his way through life.
Through concert performances and interviews, this film offers us a comprehensive look at the British pioneer rock group, The Who. It captures their zany craziness and outrageous antics from the initial formation of the group in 1964 to 1978. It notably features the band's last performance with long-term drummer Keith Moon, filmed at Shepperton Studios in May 1978, three months before his death.