"Bluegrass Country Soul" Re-mastered
In 1971, young filmmaker Albert Ihde set out to make a documentary about an annual Bluegrass festival held in rural North Carolina. That film became “Bluegrass Country Soul,” a gem of a music documentary featuring greats of the genre such as Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys, The Country Gentlemen and Earl Scruggs and the Earl Scruggs review. The film helped bring bluegrass music to the mainstream. Now, on the eve of the concert’s 50th anniversary, the film is being re-mastered and released as part of a commemorative box set. It will also screen at the brand-new Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame and Museum in Owensboro, KY later this year.
Ihde and Ellen Pasternack, Executive Director, are also producing a new documentary for the box set, “The Making of Bluegrass Country Soul,” which will chronicle the young production team from Washington, D.C. for which the film was their first feature length documentary.
The Henninger team is deeply involved in the production of the box set, scanning the original film in 5K and restoring the color, creating a 5.1 Surround audio mix, encoding and authoring the Blu-ray and DVDs and assisting with the production of new documentary material. You may even recognize a very young Bob Henninger in behind-the-scenes material from the making of the film! (That's him in the cowboy hat in the picture above).
"I met Bob Henninger right after we were given the 'go' on our feature film project in August, 1971. We both had theatre production experience and shared a love of film, and I knew immediately that he should be one of the partners for The Washington Film Group. We were all in our mid-twenties, and starting on our first feature film, so it was a great adventure into the unknown for each of us. Now, nearly fifty years later, Bob is still a great partner, making it possible to restore an historic film that might otherwise have been lost. The newly restored version of Bluegrass Country Soul will be donated to and premiered at the Bluegrass Music Hall of Fame & Museum on November 2, 2019, where it will be shared with music lovers for years to come,” said Ihde.
You can purchase the special, advance sale box-set and help contribute to the crowdfunding campaign that is helping to make this project possible. If you order before April 30th, your name (or the name of your choosing) will be included in the film’s final credits. Check out the website for more sponsorship levels or to purchase the box set, watch a trailer, or see a line-up of the artists featured in the film.