Product Review

Bayou Maharajah explores the life, times and music of piano legend James Booker, who Dr. John described as 'the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced.'

Lily Keber's roller coaster portrait traces Booker's life from his early years as a chart-topping child prodigy, to his star-studded years touring and playing as a sideman, through his outrageous solo career in America and Europe. First-person narrators lead the viewer through Booker's unbelievable onstage performances, occasionally in his underwear, dishing out drug-fueled conspiracy theories. Featuring interviews with the likes of Harry Connick Jr., Dr. John, Irma Thomas and Allen Toussaint, together with a generous helping of archival footage, the film brings to life the unforgettable story of this amazing musician.

Bayou Maharajah has already won a series of awards, including Best Southern Film (Oxford American), Best Louisiana Feature (New Orleans Film Festival), Jury Mention (New Orleans Film Festival) and Grand Jury Prize (Fairhope Film Festival).

The dvd is packaged as a case bound book and includes a 24-page booklet featuring rare photographs, memorabilia and an essay by Stephen F. Rose.
Subtitles: English, French, Spanish, German, Italian

'The life and times of the New Orleans jazz/blues pianist and singer James Booker are conjured up in this richly enjoyable documentary tribute. It takes account of his troubled psyche and covers plenty of the wild-man anecdotes, but pays close attention to the musicianship. Booker was a self-taught virtuoso who studied Grieg, Chopin and Rachmaninov as well as Liberace, but had a natural understanding of the piano that went beyond formal study. Playing came as easily as talking which itself came very easily: Booker's onstage loquacity was part of his appeal.

His early single Gonzo was said to have inspired Hunter S Thompson to invent gonzo journalism, and Booker was a massive drinker, drug-abuser and hell-raiser a way of life that brought grimly predictable results. Some of the film s most touching contributions are from Harry Connick Jr, who very ably analyses Booker s musical style and reveals that Booker was his mentor, favourite honorary uncle and friend. It was a sadness in Booker's life that, in finding the European acclaim that was the destiny of so many American jazz greats, he was exiled from his native land, unable to make a living in the US, to which he felt compelled to return. It was a melancholy end to a heroic career.' .... The Guardian

'A fascinating documentary on New Orleans piano legend James Booker - It's like the setup to a surreal joke: a gay one-eyed schizophrenic ex-con junkie piano player walks into a bar... But despite a tendency to refer to himself as the Black Liberace, blues musician James Carroll Booker was no novelty act. As this insightful documentary proves, Booker was a true one-off. A poor New Orleans boy, he went on to back Aretha Franklin, Fats Domino and Little Richard before wowing the European musical aristocracy with rambling live shows incorporating everything from Chopin to Ray Charles.

It takes a fairly skeletal approach to the nuts and bolts of Booker's life story friends and fellow musicians fill in all we need to know, and not much more. That leaves Bayou Maharajah free to focus on mood and music, balancing wild reminiscences with cherry-picked selections from Booker s slim studio output and prodigious live recordings, often laid over entrancing old footage of New Orleans in the 1960s and 70s. What emerges is a sympathetic portrait of a genuinely idiosyncratic, outrageous individual whose towering musical talent never stood a chance against his rampaging personal demons.' .... Time Out Magazine UK.

'...Keber's film is one of most culturally important documentaries made in recent years' - Caitlin Love, Oxford American