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Take Me to the River
'Take Me to the River' is a feature film celebrating the inter-generational and inter-racial musical influence of Memphis in the face of pervasive discrimination and segregation. Music legends from Stax records and Memphis also mentor and pass on their musical knowledge to contemporary artists in this documentary.
16 November 1945, Germantown, Tennessee, USA
3 October 1947, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
January 27, 1930 in Rosemark, Tennessee, USA
20 October 1971, Long Beach, California, USA
20 August 1942, Covington, Tennessee, USA
8 October 1941, Greenville, South Carolina, USA
12 November 1944, Memphis, Tennessee, USA
October 23, 1937 in Chicago, Illinois, USA
February 27, 2016
While you may stick around for the stories, the film's true draw is the music.
September 18, 2014
"Take Me to the River" includes just enough history of the civil rights era to lend it gravitas. The color-blind recording practices of studios like Stax were an anomaly at the time and are well worth noting.
September 25, 2014
A moving tribute to a grand piece of Americana.
September 25, 2014
While those sessions result in full songs, some of the most memorable, iconic tunes in music history, this film never coalesces into something greater than a collection of mildly interesting pieces.
September 25, 2014
Three of the guitar marvels shown here - Hubert Sumlin, Teenie Hodges and Skip Pitts - have died since filming. This is a marginal but worthwhile footnote to their legacy.
September 25, 2014
It feels like a mishmash effort overall, more a home movie than a theatrical release. That's fine. If you approach it on those terms, you can't help but feel the love, too.
September 25, 2014
The premise for this documentary couldn't be more stilted, and some of the matchups are enough to make you wince. But there are a few striking intergenerational moments.
September 11, 2014
"Take Me to the River" is at its most interesting when zeroing in on the back-and-forth between musicians of different eras ...
September 25, 2014
Flawed as it is, "River" reminds us where all the great music came from.
January 13, 2015
Take Me to the River is a good-spirited but patchy documentary, less about dropping beats and more about dropping names.