Eating Alabama
Synopsis
In the late 1980s, Timothy Duffy, a penniless North Carolina musicology student, became deeply involved in Winston-Salem’s drink-house music scene, an off-the-grid hotbed of gritty traditional blues. He established a foundation after observing and living with the deep poverty of the blues artists he befriended and championed. Footage of the foundation’s early artists, including Guitar Gabriel, Cootie Stark, and Willa Mae Buckner, informs modern day performances from Music Maker artists, who are captured in the organization’s small North Carolina studio, at their homes, and on the road. The foundation now helps hundreds of older Southern musicians with everything from financial assistance to tour support. North Carolina musicians Captain Luke and Macavine Hays serve as an unofficial welcoming committee, and ‘Toot Blues’ travels with them and other Music Maker artists as they tour Europe and South America, where they receive star treatment, while enduring a grueling tour schedule at an advanced age.
