The days of the troubadour may be numbered, but at least we have this fine document of the calling's modern incarnation. This is a tale lovingly and movingly told, with excellent insight into the life of those who follow the troubadour's muse.
For all the talk these days of how hard life is for a musician, how hard it is to make a living at music, one has to wonder the degree to which what is meant by such protestations is that it is hard to make a killing at it. This documentary does a wonderful job of showing how hard some musicians struggle just to get by, but regardless of the difficulty they are compelled to keep traveling, making music, playing in front of audiences, small though the audience numbers may be. In some ways this is a great antidote to commercial notions of stardom. The artists portrayed here are stars in their own right, and bring light and inspiration to others in important, intimate ways that cannot, and perhaps should not, be commercially mediated.
This film is a real treat, and I hope the filmmaker will follow up on it, perhaps even following up with the same artists some years down the road. And let's hope those artists receive enough encouragement, and compensation, to be making music still down that road.