The Chicago-produced, Chicago-themed feature film The Rhythm and the Blues, was screened at the historic Lincoln Center in New York City’s African Film Festival, Saturday May 11, 2024 to a sold-out crowd. Actor Leon (The Temptations) stars as the frustrated unsung 1960s-era blues guitarist Eddie Taylor Sr., challenged by a corrupt industry, family drama, and British rockers' appropriation of his music. Broadway actor/bluesman Guy Davis appears as Eddie’s better-known road partner Jimmy Reed--racked harmonica, epileptic seizures and all.
Building on themes from Cadillac Records, told from a Black family viewpoint, The Rhythm and the Blues was filmed in Chicago by Darryl Pitts (Reel Black Love), producer and director. The script, written by Pitts and blues journalist Bonni McKeown, is based on recollections of Eddie Taylor’s oldest son, West Side blues singer/drummer/bandleader Larry Taylor. Eddie’s songwriting wife Vera, portrayed by Toni Belafonte, was the mother of today’s talented and still relatively unsung Taylor family of blues musicians. Music by Larry and his brother, the late Eddie Taylor Jr., spices up the film.
Darryl Pitts and Leon were hand at the May 11 film screening, set for 5:30 p.m. at Lincoln Center on W. 65th Street.