Best movies like Leadbelly
You can't bury a black legend like Leadbelly!
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Leadbelly Starring Roger E. Mosley, Paul Benjamin, Madge Sinclair, Alan Manson, and more. If you liked Leadbelly then you may also like: What's Love Got to Do with It, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Nina, Ray, Killer Diller and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.
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Why Do Fools Fall In Love
In the mid-80s, three women (each with an attorney) arrive at the office of New York entertainment manager, Morris Levy. One is an L.A. singer, formerly of the Platters; one is a petty thief from Philly; one teaches school in a small Georgia town. Each claims to be the widow of long-dead doo-wop singer-songwriter Frankie Lyman, and each wants years of royalties due to his estate, money Levy has never shared. During an ensuing civil trial, flashbacks tell the story of each one's life with Lyman, a boyish, high-pitched, dynamic performer, lost to heroin. Slowly, the three wives establish their own bond.
Ray
Born on a sharecropping plantation in Northern Florida, Ray Charles went blind at seven. Inspired by a fiercely independent mom who insisted he make his own way, He found his calling and his gift behind a piano keyboard. Touring across the Southern musical circuit, the soulful singer gained a reputation and then exploded with worldwide fame when he pioneered coupling gospel and country together.
Killer Diller
A guitar playing car thief meets an autistic savant piano player, and together they transform a group of reluctant halfway house convicts into The Killer Diller Blues Band.
The Apple
In the glitzy, glittering futuristic world of 1994, music is king -- and the man who controls it is all-powerful malicious mogul Mr. Boogalow. Now he has his eye on two fresh-faced young singers, Alphie and Bibi, who score a hit at his WorldVision Song Festival and fall under the irresistible spell of fame, money, and temptation.
Bound for Glory
A biography of Woody Guthrie, one of America's greatest folk singers. He left his dust-devastated Texas home in the 1930s to find work, discovering the suffering and strength of America's working class.
The Buddy Holly Story
A chronicle of the rise and brief career of rock 'n' roll star Buddy Holly, who aspires to play music the way he wants it to sound. Holly and his band, the Crickets, are first invited to record in Nashville, where they encounter creative differences with the producing staff. Later they play a major booking at the Apollo Theater, scheduled there under the mistaken assumption that they're a black band. Holly's career eventually goes solo -- until the tragic day the music dies.
Britney Ever After
Biopic detailing the tumultuous story of pop icon Britney Spears' rise to fame, fall from grace and eventual triumphant resurrection, firmly securing her position as one of the world's greatest entertainers.
Coal Miner's Daughter
Biography of Loretta Lynn, a country and western singer that came from poverty to fame.
Crossroads
A wanna-be blues guitar virtuoso seeks a long-lost song by legendary musician, Robert Johnson.
Ma Rainey's Black Bottom
Tensions rise when the trailblazing Mother of the Blues and her band gather at a Chicago recording studio in 1927. Adapted from August Wilson's play.
The Great White Hope
A black champion boxer and his white female companion struggle to survive while the white boxing establishment looks for ways to knock him down.
Prey for Rock & Roll
Prey for Rock & Roll is set in the Los Angeles club scene of the late 1980s and follows the story of Jacki (Gershon) and her all-girl punk rock band, Clam Dandy. On the verge of turning 40, Jacki decides that if the band's one last shot at the big time is unsuccessful, she will give up her dreams of stardom. Along the way, the women are rocked by personal tragedies that threaten to break up the band before they can get their last shot at success.
Crazy Heart
When reporter Jean Craddock interviews Bad Blake—an alcoholic, seen-better-days country music legend—they connect, and the hard-living crooner sees a possible saving grace in a life with Jean and her young son.
Festival
Black and white footage of performances, interviews, and conversations at the Newport Folk Festival, from 1963 to 1966. The headliners are Peter, Paul and Mary, Joan Baez, Pete Seeger, and Bob Dylan, who's acoustic and electric. Son House and Mike Bloomfield talk about the blues; John Hurt, Howlin' Wolf, and Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee show its range. The Osborne Brothers perform bluegrass. Donovan, Johnny Cash, Judy Collins, Mimi and Dick Farina, and others less well known also perform. Several talk musical philosophy, and there's a running commentary about the nature and appeal of folk music. The crowd looks clean cut.
The Five Heartbeats
In the early 1960s, a quintet of hopeful, young African-American men form an amateur vocal group called The Five Heartbeats. After an initially rocky start, the group improves, turns pro, and rises to become a top flight music sensation. Along the way, however, the guys learn many hard lessons about the reality of the music industry.
Lady Sings the Blues
Chronicles the rise and fall of legendary blues singer Billie Holiday. Her late childhood, stint as a prostitute, early tours, marriages and drug addiction are featured.
Great Balls of Fire!
The story of Jerry Lee Lewis, arguably the greatest and certainly one of the wildest musicians of the 1950s. His arrogance, remarkable talent, and unconventional lifestyle often brought him into conflict with others in the industry, and even earned him the scorn and condemnation of the public.
The Black Godfather
The heroes in The Black Godfather are members of an African-American criminal organization. Like Brando in The Godfather, they're not averse to robbery and murder, but they do draw the line at narcotics. When the Mafia infiltrates the 'hood with dangerous drugs, the Black Godfather (Rod Perry) orders his minions to put an end to this perfidy.
La Bamba
Los Angeles teenager Ritchie Valens becomes an overnight rock 'n' roll success in 1958, thanks to a love ballad called "Donna" that he wrote for his girlfriend. But as his star rises, Valens has conflicts with his jealous brother, Bob, and becomes haunted by a recurring nightmare of a plane crash just as he begins his first national tour alongside Buddy Holly.
South Central
During a 10-year sentence for murdering the leader of a rival South Central Los Angeles gang, Bobby Johnson finds religion and rehabilitation with the help of Muslim inmate Ali. Upon his release, Bobby returns home to find that his young son, Jimmie, has joined the Deuces, his old crew. Tensions rise as Bobby struggles to convince Jimmie to leave the gang that was his only family during the painful years his absent father spent behind bars.
Selma, Lord, Selma
In 1965 Alabama, an 11 year old girl is touched by a speech by Martin Luther King, Jr. and becomes a devout follower. But her resolution is tested when she joins others in the famed march from Selma to Montgomery.
The Vernon Johns Story
In 1948, Johns served as the outspoken spiritual leader of the Dexter Avenue Baptist Church in Montgomery, Alabama. Incensed at the racial injustice that pervaded the South, he was determined to fight for equality for all African Americans.
Paris Blues
During the 1960s, two American jazz musicians living in Paris meet and fall in love with two American tourist girls and must decide between music and love.
Gospel Hill
Gospel Hill tells the intersecting story of two men in the fictional South Carolina town of Julia. Danny Glover plays John Malcolm, the son of a slain civil rights activist. Jack Herrod (Tom Bower) is the former sheriff who never got to the bottom of the murder. Their paths begin to cross when a development corporation comes to town with plans to raze Julia's historic Gospel Hill.
Cadillac Records
The story of sex, violence, race and rock and roll in 1950s Chicago, and the exciting but turbulent lives of some of America's musical legends, including Muddy Waters, Leonard Chess, Little Walter, Howlin' Wolf, Etta James and Chuck Berry.
Selena
In this biographical drama, Selena Quintanilla is born into a musical Mexican-American family in Texas. Her father, Abraham, realizes that his young daughter is talented and begins performing with her at small venues. She finds success and falls for her guitarist, Chris Perez, who draws the ire of her father. Seeking mainstream stardom, Selena begins recording an English-language album which, tragically, she would never complete.
Two of Us
In this purely fictional story, Paul McCartney drops by The Dakota to visit John Lennon in 1976. Paul is still on top of the music world, reaching #1 with his new band, Wings. John, however, has retired from public life, choosing to raise his son, Sean. Rumors are rampant that The Beatles are going to reunite to play a concert. Paul, the consummate entertainer, is intrigued by the possibilities. But John, still fighting his inner demons, is content keeping Beatlemania a thing of the past. But even though the two men are still at odds over the band, they rediscover that they still have bonds from the past that will never go away.
What Happened, Miss Simone?
The film chronicles Nina Simone's journey from child piano prodigy to iconic musician and passionate activist, told in her own words.
Satchmo the Great
In this 1957 biography film of the jazz-great Louis "Satchmo" Armstrong, he and his band tour the world as American good-will ambassadors bring jazz at its best to the people of the world. Within the film, the life of Louis Armstrong is portrayed through the music. One of the outstanding scenes in this "biography/docudrama" shows blind songwriter W. C. Handy, with tears streaming down his face, as Armstrong, backed by Leonard Bernstein leading the New York Philharmonic Orchestra, play Handy's immortal "St. Louis Blues."
A Man Called Adam
A famous jazz trumpeter finds himself unable to cope with the problems of everyday life.
Brave New Girl
Holly has everything it takes to be a star; the voice, the dream and the dedication, but she lacks the means to break away from her humble Texas upbringing. Then she gets the chance to attend an art and music school on the East coast and her future suddenly looks bright. But the road to stardom is a bumpy one.
I Want to Destroy America
A documentary film by Peter I. Chang which traces the life of the Japanese musician Hisao Shinagawa through his early years as a folk singer in Tokyo to his current occupation as a street performer in Los Angeles.
Jimi: All Is by My Side
A drama based on Jimi Hendrix's life as he left New York City for London, where his career took off.
Scott Joplin
The life story of Scott Joplin and how he became the greatest ragtime composer of all time.
The Search For Robert Johnson
Robert Johnson was one of the most legendary and mysterious Delta Bluesmiths of all time. Little is known about his life, but his music has influenced many different artists, like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. Now, John Hammond Jr., son of legendary record producer John H. Hammond, who also organized a concert for Robert Johnson right before he died, goes to the Deep South to learn more about this amazing man, trying to find information about Johnson's birth date, place and parents, his early musical development, performances and travels, romances, his mythic "pact with the devil," his untimely murder in his late twenties, the discovery of possible offspring, and the uncertainty over where Johnson is buried. Throughout, Johnson's music is both foreground and background, from recordings of Johnson and as performed on camera by Hammond, David Honeyboy Edwards, and Johnny Shines.
That Rhythm, Those Blues
A documentary covering the R&B (rhythm and blues) field from the 1940s to the early 1950s. Included is footage of performances by major R&B singers of the time, and interviews with singers, producers and others involved in the field.
The Genius of Bert Jansch: Folk, Blues & Beyond
Interviews and rare archive footage weave together performances from a landmark multi-artist concert at the Royal Festival Hall in London, celebrating the songs and artistry of the great folk-blues troubadour Bert Jansch.
Meet Danny Wilson
A lounge singer sees his career skyrocket after he signs a contract for a mobster nightclub owner.
The life of Blues and folk singer Huddie Leadbetter, nicknamed Leadbelly is recounted. Covering the good times and bad from his 20s to 40s. Much of that time was spent on chain gangs in the south. Even in prison he became well known for the songs he had composed and sung during and before the time he spent there.
A unique, carefully handpicked, selection of the best movies like Leadbelly Starring Roger E. Mosley, Paul Benjamin, Madge Sinclair, Alan Manson, and more. If you liked Leadbelly then you may also like: What's Love Got to Do with It, Why Do Fools Fall In Love, Nina, Ray, Killer Diller and many more popular movies featured on this list. You can further filter the list even more or get a random selection from the list of similar movies, to make your selection even easier.
What's Love Got to Do with It
Singer Tina Turner rises to stardom while mustering the courage to break free from her abusive husband Ike.