Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues

Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues

29 mins | Documentary | Jan. 1, 1981

Marlon Riggs and Peter Webster’s thesis project reflects on the heyday of Oakland blues in the late 1940s and ’50s, when an influx of African American shipyard workers mostly hailing from Louisiana and Texas arrived in the Bay Area. Combining vintage photographs, archival footage, interviews, and performances at venues like Eli’s Mile High Club, Riggs and Webster chronicle Oakland’s vibrant past while revealing an uncertain present.

Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues

29 mins | Documentary | Jan. 1, 1981

Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues
Marlon Riggs and Peter Webster’s thesis project reflects on the heyday of Oakland blues in the late 1940s and ’50s, when an influx of African American shipyard workers mostly hailing from Louisiana and Texas arrived in the Bay Area. Combining vintage photographs, archival footage, interviews, and performances at venues like Eli’s Mile High Club, Riggs and Webster chronicle Oakland’s vibrant past while revealing an uncertain present.
Producers University of California Berkeley
Original title Long Train Running: A History of the Oakland Blues
Directors Peter Webster, Marlon Riggs
Writers Peter Webster, Marlon Riggs

Cast

J.P. Phillips

as Narrator