I have to admit, I like the blues well enough, but am not a die-hard fan. However, after seeing Ramin Niami's documentary about the oldest blues club in LA, Babes & Ricky's Inn, I have a new found appreciation for the genre and its players. A slice of musical and cultural history of Los Angeles in a very special place run by a very special lady affectionately called 'Mamma' by everyone. Laura Mae Gross emigrated out west from the Deep South in a time when life was not easy for African Americans and especially women. She loved blues music so much she opened a club and fostered (sometime literally) musicians of all ages helping build their craft and often their self esteem too. She took in the wandering and coached them diligently, reminding them to "practice, practice, practice and them practice some more". She also told them to listen. In a sense she was encouraging them to drop in on every aesthetic level of their being until they could embody the music with their instrument. There was an infectious, inviting vibe Babes & Ricky's had and Mamma was the spark. Everyone who played there, played for the love and to please Mamma because they knew if she liked it, they got it right.
Everyone played there from Eric Clapton to Muddy Waters and certainly a very long list of others over the span of several decades. All ages, colors and nationalities have been to Babes & Ricky's. I don't think there was anyone I'd mentioned this place to that hadn't been there at one time or another; whether they were blues fans or not. It was a place to experience even if you aren't an aficionado. Veteran documentarian Niami's edited with such a steady rhythm it doesn't really feel like a documentary, but intimate conversations the audience is dropping in on. This is a peek into a place and time where color, race or socio-economics don't matter and the love for blues (and Mamma) is the focus. I think this film serves as an important archive of local history that reached so many people over 54 years from a little club in an Afro-American neighborhood of Los Angeles.