Film Overview

Mac Arnold brought a new electronic bass beat to Muddy Waters’ Chicago blues band in the 1960’s. His decision to return to the blues after over 40 years, documented by award-winning filmmaker, Stan Woodward, is filled with living blues legends along the way.

“Mac Arnold is an organic farmer living in South Carolina who, over 40 years ago, played electric bass with the Muddy Waters Chicago Blues band in the 1960's, along with the John Lee Hooker, James Cotton and Tyrone Davis bands. When Mac was discovered by a blues-crazy harmonica player while repairing the farmer's truck, a ten year quest to get Mac Arnold to return to the blues began by harp player, Max Hightower. When they released their 1st CD, Nothing to Prove in 2005, I began shooting each step of Mac's effort to return to the mainstream blues. Five years and 170 hours of footage later we are able to take a journey on the inside of the 21st century blues world as Mac re-ups with all the old “big-name” blues legends he played with in Chicago. And in the end, Mac finds a new audience for the blues among young people in the "Blues in the Schools" program. The film's finish carries the viewer through the 1st Annual Mac Arnold Cornbread and Collard Greens Blues Festival in his hometown, reuniting old Muddy Waters musicians on stage with his band, and bringing teenage blues-guitar wonders along with them.

"This film began for me in the winter of 2005 when I was hired to shoot a concert at The Handlebar, a local blues club in Greenville, SC that books nationally recognized musicians and has a huge and loyal fan-base. The concert was by a local organic-farmer and bluesman, Mac Arnold. And he was introducing music from his first CD release, Nothing to Prove. The CD included original songs and everyone who came that night heard a new sound with a rich history behind it.

“I produce Southern culture and folklife documentaries (visit stanwoodward.com) that often deal with folk heritage foodways and I was drawn to the unusual name of Mac's band - Plate Full O' Blues. During intermission I slipped backstage with my hand-held camera and spontaneously shot an interview with Mac. Not more than two minutes into the interview I saw that this was a Southern Americana blues "roots" story that needed to be told. When done, I asked whether Mac would permit me to come out to his farm and continue my interview, and thus began a remarkably intimate and personal blues story shot spontaneously with a hand-held camera in the “first person”, where I followed Mac and the band every step of the way back into and up the ladder to the blues world's mainstream. Along the way we see Mac as he runs into blues legends still playing today who welcome Mac back from the time when they played together in Chicago during his Muddy Waters days...names like Bobby Rush, Willie "Big Eyes" Smith, James Harmon, Muddy's drummer, Francis Clay, Pinetop Perkins, Bob Margolin, Hubert Sumlin, James Cotton, Denise LaSalle, Eddie Shaw ... and when Mac reminisces about juke joints he played with Muddy and returns to the Delta to perform at Red's in Clarksdale current blues greats Big Jack Johnson and Slick Ballenger end up jamming with Mac and the band.

“ From performances in South Carolina blues clubs to the Charlotte (NC) Blues Society to the King Biscuit Blues Festival in Helena, Arkansas, to a surprise reunion with Muddy Waters drummer, Francis Clay to celebrate his 84th birthday at the Biscuit and Blues Club in San Fransisco, to the International Blues Competition in Memphis, to the State Capitol in South Carolina where he picks up the state's Folk Heritage Award and the concert following where Mac is reunited with the members of the band he left in Greenville, SC to go to Chicago, to Mac's dream-come-true - The First Annual Cornbread and Collard Greens Blues Festival in his hometown that re-united blues legends who played with Muddy Waters on stage with his band - we travel with Mac as these events occur, truely weaving together an intimate, personal, and inside passage through the center of the blues world in America in the 21st century.

“Five years and 170 hours of footage and two years of editing later we have brought Mac Arnold's return to the blues in an inspirational unfolding story that makes two and a half hours seem like 30 minutes, and leaves you feeling that the world is in a much better place with the bluesman Mac Arnold alive and well and performing….
It's all about the blues!

“As 2009 laps over into 2010, I am pleased to release the Director's Cut - a two-part two-DVD set that fills out and tells the full story of this great bluesman’s return to the blues; and the state of the blues in the early 21st century passes before you as we do.

“And, having suffered a mild stroke two weeks after completing shooting Mac's first blues festival that leaves me without the ability to hand-hold my camera any longer, I find that this will be my last and final documentary. But what a wonderful way to end a career!”