Honolulu Museum of Art's Summer Concert Program: Summertime Blues

The museum heats things up in August with an inspirational blues documentary, and a must-see concert featuring Hawai‘i Public Radio's Chris Vandercook. For the Aug. 10 concert, writer and musician Chris Vandercook—and co-host of Hawaii Public Radio's The Conversation—brings together some of Hawai‘i's finest blues artists to tell the story of modern blues and how it got to be that way. J.P. Smoketrain, Mark Prados, Kimberlei Bradford, and the Chris Vandercook Band will trace the evolution of this American art form with music, narration, video, still photographs, and archival material—all shown for the first time. In the run-up to the big event, the museum screens an inspirational and uplifting documentary about the transformational power of the blues. Music from the Big House, directed by Canadian auteur Bruce McDonald, follows Rita Chiarelli, Canada's Queen of the Blues, as she makes a pilgrimage to the music genre's birthplace—the Louisiana State Maximum Security Penitentiary, a.k.a Angola Prison. The result is a historic jailhouse performance with the inmates, caught on film.