Your recent series on the blues was terrible. It’s the worse thing I’ve seen since your hack job on: Gangs of New York, Last Temptation of Christ, The Color of Money, The King of Comedy, Raging Bull, the Last Waltz, Taxi Driver, Alice Doesn’t Live Here Anymore and Boxcar Bertha. It’s obvious that you have no talent and no reason to be doing a show about the blues. The other directors were (nearly as bad) (even worse.) You left out:
Piedmont Blues
Tommy Johnson
Ishmael Bracey
Jim Jackson
The Mississippi Sheiks
Memphis Minnie
and other subject too numerous to mention. The directors showed Tom Jones and Lou Reed instead. Please don’t ever make any flims about music again, especially the blues.
Sincerely,
Many IGS posters

OR:

Dear Mr. Scorcese and PBS:

Thank you for reminding me of the value of Vestapol Videos. Please remember not to talk when the videos are being shown -- it's very distracting.

Sincerely,
A. Music Fan

Now, I hated this series, despised it with a passion, especially because of their handling of prewar blues, which is the only kind of blues that I'm crazy about (though there are other artists here and there that I like). But of all the prewar Mississippi blues people they left out, Bracey's gotta be near the bottom of the list. I mean, I like Bracey, I'm not denigrating his recordings, but I would have been happy--though my expectations were too low to expect--seeing Patton and Tommy Johnson get sufficient screen time. Bracey is not a great blues player, not a particularly important blues player and would only merit mention within the realm of prewar Mississippi blues. I hate to belabor this point, since I more or less agree with your criticisms, but pick your battles. Prewar blues was not sufficiently covered in any way whatsoever. I suppose it was the subject of Wenders' episode, and many great prewar recordings were played in Burnett's piece, but every prewar blues fan I know has been disgusted by the way everything was handled.

And you seem biased against Scorsese. It's fine if you don't like his films, you're not the only one, but to say that you've seen Taxi Driver, Raging Bull and Goodfellas and that it's clear that he has no talent is no argument whatsoever. I've seen all those films, and it's clear to me that he does have talent. But if I was making an argument, I would explain why he has talent. Since most of the movies you mention are considered classics, why don't you tell us--and Scorsese himself, to whom you addressed your complaint--why he has no talent.

I opt for the second letter.

Muddy liked money and wanted to tap into the sixties rock scene. From the two recent books on Muddy and Chess, it seems like he was easily led when money was promised.

Dennis you restated my "quote" from Sandra Tooze's book, Muddy sure did like money. Thank you!

I had to change the profanity to protect the innocent

Hasn't that whole project been scrapped?
Or at the very least on hold with slim chance of being filmed?