The Book of Clarence (2017)

This documentary essay follows the life of legendary blind gospel singer and founding member of the Grammy award winning, Blind Boys of Alabama, Clarence Fountain. We learn of Clarence's life, music and health through his dreamlike and hallucinatory memories while he receives kidney dialysis. These memories are woven together with past performances and current performances with a small band featuring long time collaborator and guitar player Sam Butler Jr. These performances are mostly intimate and take place in Clarence's living room, in recording studios and in small African-American Baptist churches in the deep south of the United States - Baton Rouge, Birmingham, Mississippi and New Orleans. The kidney dialysis dream sequences feature the kinetic abstract light paintings by the artist Bill Ham of 1960s San Francisco psychedelic light show era. These elements are combined with scenes from Lee Breuer and Bob Telson's celebrated theater piece, " Gospel at Colonus", featuring Morgan Freeman and Clarence Fountain and the Blind Boys of Alabama filmed by PBS in 1985. In this presentation the story of Oedipus as acted by Clarence and the Blind Boys parallel's his journey to find a "happy death".