Take Me to the River is a 2014 American documentary film directed by Martin Shore about music of Memphis, Tennessee. It premiered on March 11, 2014, at SXSW film festival in Austin, Texas. The film was released on Netflix in August 2016, two years after its initial release.
The documentary celebrates the intergenerational and interracial musical influence of Memphis in the face of pervasive discrimination and segregation. The film brings multiple generations of award-winning Memphis and Mississippi Delta musicians together, following them through the creative process of recording a historic new album, to re-imagine the utopia of racial, gender and generational collaboration of Memphis in its heyday. A related education initiative partnered with Berklee College of Music to produce a curriculum and events based on the film.
Contents
Cast
Terrence Howard as himself (host/narrator)
Mavis Staples as herself
Snoop Dogg as himself
Alphonzo Bailey as himself
Cedric Coleman as himself
Mario Mims as himself
Benjamin "Lil' P-Nut" Flores Jr. as himself
Bobby "Blue" Bland as himself
Charles "Skip" Pitts as himself
William Bell as himself
Soundtrack
Take Me to the River: Music from the Motion Picture was released on September 9, 2014 via Stax Records/Concord Music, and consists of twelve songs.
Reception
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 74% of 27 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "Scattered and uneven, Take Me to the River never adds up to much in terms of narrative documentary, but the music it honors is more than powerful enough to compensate." Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 56 out of 100, based on 11 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.
Sequel
Take Me to the River: New Orleans was premiered on April 20, 2022 at the Broadside Theater in New Orleans. The film stars Aaron Neville, Ivan Neville, Ledisi, G-Eazy, George Porter Jr., Irma Thomas, Dr. John, Galactic, Mannie Fresh, Preservation Hall Jazz Band, Christian Scott and Donald Harrison, with William Bell and Snoop Dogg reprised their appearances.