Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues

James Cotton survived getting shot five times during an altercation. To this day, his friends are not quite sure why it happened, but they hypothesize a woman might have partially been the cause. You can’t get much more blues than that. Even more importantly, he played a mouth harp (harmonica) in a manner they liken to a roaring freight train. Cotton’s colleagues and admirers look back on his life and music in Bestor Cram’s documentary Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues, which releases this Friday on VOD.

Cotton’s first gig dates back to his childhood on the Bonnie Blue plantation, where he sang and played to entertain workers on their water breaks. Indeed, his life was the blues. He was mentored by Sonny Boy Williamson II, a.k.a. Rice Miller, a.k.a. many other names, but he really came to prominence as a member of Muddy Waters band.

Cotton’s career really took off during the Blus revival. As his fellow musicians explain, his hard-charging style made him the harpist who most appealed young white fans who were initially attracted by classic blues guitarists. Unfortunately, he had bad management, who often just bundled him into package deals for much less compensation than their headliners. (Cram and company name names, in this case Albert Grossman, who also handled Dylan, Joplin, and Peter, Paul, and Mary.)

Eventually, Cotton signed with better people and had quite a good run—especially by blues standards. Nevertheless, time always has the last word. Still, Cotton went out on a creative high, with the help of his friends and blues songwriter Tom Hambridge.

Cram takes a pretty conventional approach to his subject, but elicits some wonderfully colorful stories form his interview subjects. He talks to several of the women who knew him best, as well as some truly real-deal blues and blues-influenced artists, including Hambridge, Jimmie Vaughn, Steve Miller, Keb’ Mo,’ and the great Bobby Rush and Buddy Guy.

Clearly, Cotton had a legit blues life, but the vibe of Bonnie Blue is mainly affectionately celebratory. Frankly, he ought to be more widely recognized as a blues master. The film also serves as a reminder of blues music’s power to dispel the blues. For sales and marketing reasons, the distributor really ought to be releasing it today, and targeting all the fans who bet on Kansas City (which is a town that always appreciated the blues). Regardless, it is a highly entertaining music doc. Recommended for all blues fans (not just for Cotton, but also Rush, Muddy, and everyone else involved in the film and Cotton’s story), Bonnie Blue: James Cotton’s Life in the Blues releases this Friday (2/14) on VOD and the following Tuesday (2/18) on DVD.