Tag Archives: John Lee Hooker

Broadcast, Concert, Music

BET Jazz Central TV show

John Lee Hooker photo © Eric Predoehl

BET Jazz Central TV show
Executive Producer: BET Network
Location Production Team: Jesse Block & Eric Predoehl
Production period: 1994- 2000

Hank Ballad photo © Eric Predoehl

One of the few contemporary television programs to highlight jazz music, “Jazz Central” on the BET network provided a regular forum for this great American art form. The Octalouie team provided support for this show, assembling crews for ongoing productions at their home base in San Francisco, as well as remotes from New York and New Orleans. The Octalouie team was honored to work on episodes that featured Betty Carter, Abby Lincoln, John Lee Hooker, David Brubeck, Gerry Mulligan, Chick Corea, Tootie Heath, Milt Jackson, Miles Perkins, Hank Ballard, Dave Ellis, Charlie Hayden, David Sanbourn, and Mal Sharpe, to name but a few.

Concert, Music

Sweetwater Sessions

The Sweetwater Sessions

Executive Producers: John Goddard, and others…

Production period: 1990- 1993

The Sweetwater club in Mill Valley, California holds many sentimental memories for the Octalouie team. Brought in to document some of the great parties hosted by John Goddard of Village Music, the Octalouie team was honored to produce multi-camera videotapes of these historic musical events, beginning in 1990. Those that attended John’s legendary parties could hardly forget all the great performances by John Lee Hooker, NRBQ, Carlos Santana, Ry Cooder, Richard Berry, Little Jimmy Scott, Charles Brown, Albert Collins, Pop Staples, Ann Peebles, Blind Boys of Alabama, Carla Thomas, and many others. When Gillian Grissman decided to assemble a documentary on her father, David Grissman and old friend Jerry Garcia, she found some superb concert footage produced by the Octalouie team, and used it in her “GRATEFUL DAWG” feature documentary, which was released by Sony Pictures Classic.