Orenda Media Group

26/03/2024

Another Orenda project hits the airwaves. If you love the spooky stuff, this is for you!!!

Stream Now

20/03/2024

Another project I worked on last year has just gone live on Netflix!

New Movie Trailer From Netflix - Homicide: New YorkHomicide: New York, a new Netflix documentary series from Wolf Entertainment, the creator of Law & Order. ...

29/02/2024

Another project I was on last year that I'm very proud of. Besides an incredible trip back in time for the 80s generation... an amazing slice of American history! Hope you'll tune in March 21st!!
Mass Appeal Hulu

From executive producers Luther "Uncle Luke" Campbell, Jermaine Dupri and 21 Savage, Freaknik: The Wildest Party Never Told premieres 3/21. Watch Freaknik on...

08/02/2024

Orenda Media Group is very proud to be a part of this project on an incredible story about a tragic point in history and U2's Light that showed the world what was going on. U2 Pearl Street Films

This is "07_KTF_90_V8_SpecialScreening" by eric burton on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them.

20/11/2023

& No Sudden Movements present 'Memphis '69'. This concert documentary, shot over 3 days in June of 1969, celebrates an American art form that uni...

04/10/2023

12/09/2023

20/08/2023

The Blues Brothers, Ray Charles · Song · 1980

31/07/2023

15/09/2022

"I'm a blues singer. I am the son of a sharecropper and I am the grandson of slaves. I am America."

-McKinley Morganfield

McKinley Morganfield, better known as Muddy Waters, was a blues singer and songwriter who helped shape the sound of modern music. Born in 1913 on a cotton plantation in Mississippi, Muddy Waters grew up picking cotton and singing gospel songs with his family.

He became known as “the king of the electric blues” for his unique guitar playing and vocal style that broke down barriers between country and urban

08/09/2022

1958(?)

Alex Korner, Ramblin' Jack Elliott and Big Bill Broonzy

18/06/2022

Billy Strayhorn and Lena Horne, 1945
Photo: Metronome
http://www.billystrayhorn.com

02/05/2022

28/03/2022

13/03/2022

HOWLIN' WOLF (1910-1976) aka Chester Burnett was born in White Station, Mississippi. In the 1930's he learned to play guitar directly from Charley Patton and was influenced by Tommy Johnson, and blue yodeller Jimmie Rodgers. By 1951 he was living in West Helena, Arkansas and played live on West Memphis radio station KWEM and with Sonny Boy Williamson II (Rice Miller, Wolf's harmonica mentor), on KFFA in Helena. He made records with Sam Phillips, then running the Memphis Recording Service. Chess leased some of these songs, which lead to Wolf moving to Chicago in 1952, where he made his legendary recordings "Smokestack Lighting," "Spoonful," "How Many More Years?" "Meet Me at The Bottom," and many others. Cub Koda said "no one could match Howlin' Wolf for the singular ability to rock the house down to the foundation while simultaneously scaring it's patrons out of their wits."

WORLD'S #1 SOURCE of new Nationals: www.catfishkeith.com/national-guitars/

Photo by Peter Amft.

08/03/2022

Love this picture of Josephine Baker. She looks beautiful and happy.

Here is one of her many quotes:

“Surely the day will come when color means nothing more than the skin tone, when religion is seen uniquely as a way to speak one’s soul; when birth places have the weight of a throw of the dice and all men are born free, when understanding breeds love and brotherhood.”

This is an awesome picture with Hadda Brooks, Maggie Hathaway (founder of the Hollywood-Beverly Hill Branch of the NAACP) and a young Dorothy Dandridge.

Old Black Hollywood is excited to be promoting STARZ. If you have a subscription to STARZ, you must be enjoying the great shows and movies as I am. I especially love watching Black Cinema and supporting black shows. But if you do not, no worries, here is your opportunity to take advantage of the $5 a month for 3 months subscription.

Subscribe today and pay a low monthly payment. Click the link to begin https://www.anrdoezrs.net/click-100550547-15151880

08/03/2022

https://fb.watch/bD9ri5ztte/

06/03/2022

23/02/2022

Lead Belly

21/02/2022

Your favorite music probably has Black roots, but over and over again, non-black musicians are the faces and highest earners of genres originated by underpaid and overlooked Black artists.

12/02/2022

10/02/2022

Saddened by the passing this week of one of America’s (and the world’s for that matter) most pioneering, radical and unsung Divas!
I took a moment to reflect on who she was/is and the many things she did, the people in her life she was connected to and inspired and was an iconic example to during her lifetime!
I met her briefly when a tour manager who worked for me, who knew her, brought her back after a show we did in NYC! From that encounter I learned she was personal friends with Miles Davis and Jimi Hendrix! It was she who introduced Miles to Jimi and vice-versa!
Between meeting Jimi and seeing Sly & The Family Stone, one can get how Miles moved forward and embraced contemporary music and musicians with incredible amazing results! What coup for Betty, what a fantastic musical outcome!
She in my opinion brokered the way for Grace Jones, who, again in my opinion, (was born ready to be who she became and do the things she does so well!)
Interesting that they were on Island Records label nearly the same time!
Island Records, a company who definitely took chances and recorded artists the mainstream companies would have never recorded and released!
Betty’s shows were raw, raunchy, full of sly humor and double entendre and absolutely brilliantly inspired!
Definitely not for Casper milk toast or the faint of heart, but truly exciting and creative performance!! A powerful, forceful Woman, a genuine soul whose presence will be missed by those who are just learning about her and those who knew her well!

Peace
Taj

06/02/2022

Very proud to be a part of this incredible project! It premiers Feb. 11 on Showtime Networks Mass Appeal

A deep dive into America's past and present through the experiences of people of color. The docuseries marries humor with history as it confronts the facets ...

04/02/2022

BIG BILL BROONZY (1893?-1958) was born in Lake Dick, Arkansas. He was a groundbreaking singer, songwriter and guitarist that started his recording career in 1927.

He started out playing hokum, ragtime and country blues and evolved with the times, in the 1930s accompanying artists in combos on electric guitar (including Lil Green, Sonny Boy Williamson I, Jazz Gillum and Washboard Sam) and on many Bluebird records. He was really a founding father of what later became known as Chicago blues.

He had the most success later in his life when he reinvented himself as a solo country blues, or folk blues, artist. In 1949, Broonzy became part of a touring folk music r***e, "I Come for to Sing," formed by Win Stracke, which also included Studs Terkel and Lawrence Lane. His far-reaching overseas tours in the 1950s were a big influence on many then-young British rock 'n' roll, folk, and blues musicians.

He was a fascinating character with an instantly identifiable style. He played guitar with an undeniable rhythmic thump and sang signature pieces such as "Key to the Highway," "Hey Hey," "Willie Mae," "Ridin' on Down," "Saturday Night Rub," and "Black, Brown and White," which became an anthem against racial discrimination.

He copywrited over 300 songs in his life and to this day is an influential figure in blues music.

Worth reading is Robert Riesman's definitive biography of Big Bill called "I Feel So Good - The Life and Times of Big Bill Broonzy."

WORLD'S #1 SOURCE of new Nationals: www.catfishkeith.com/national-guitars/

Photo thanks to Bob Corritore!

04/02/2022

Clear Lake, Iowa