As a genre, blues music was developed at the beginning of the twentieth century by rural black musicians. They shaped it with brilliant inspiration from disparate elements of black song. By the early 1920's, recorded urban performers solidified the standard three-verse, 12 bar meter structure that has identified most blues. Fortunately, during that same period, there were recorded musicians who grew up with the blues and whose guitar styles were more fluid and improvisational. They played with a personal adaptation of their regional style, shaping blues and related material to their own needs and those of their audience. The music they played was alien to formula, possessing such skill and robustness as to be captivating. Their fame was local, tied intimately to their time and place, and only the providence of a chance encounter with a talent scout or record company preserved their art. Even then, it seemed fated that they would remain flamboyant names on exotic record labels. The blues revival of the early '60's brought many of these survivors to the forefront of traditional music. The technique of a Rev. Davis, the power of a Son House, the charm of a Mississippi John Hurt suddenly leaps into sight, becoming more tangible, more awesome and more human. The rare footage presented in this video is a treasure beyond imagining, drawn from a myriad of sources, depicting some of the greatest blues musicians who ever lived.