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Emerging Pictures It’s Alabama in the ‘50s and Tyrone Purvis (Danny Glover) is mired in debt. His only way to freeing himself is by bringing a large crowd into his place of business, The Honeydripper. Purvis’s elaborate competition, Touissant’s, is nearby and receiving more patronage. So Tyrone fires his regular chanteuse Bertha Mae (Mable John) and hires a musical legend, Guitar Sam, to do a single performance. But when Sam fails to arrive, Tyrone decides to replace him with an unknown performer (Gary Clark Jr.) whom he plans to pass off as Sam. Writer-director John Sayles turns out a novel rock ‘n’ roll flick with a great cast and a brilliant approach. – forrest green III