Honeydripper, a film by John Sayles

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STLBlues.net

Arthur Lee Williams is a native of Tunica, Mississippi. As a boy he moved to Chicago with his family, and there, inspired by such neighborhood greats as Sonny Boy Williamson II and Little Walter, taught himself to play harmonica. He began gigging in the mid ‘50s, sitting in with luminaries such as Muddy Waters, Elmore James and Eddie Taylor. He returned to Mississippi and his country roots after high school, breaking in on Memphis radio with Barber Parker and the Silver Kings and played countless dates in juke joints and roadhouses similar to the one depicted in Honeydripper, eventually partnering with Frank Frost and Sam Carr on several blues records. Relocating to St. Louis in the early ‘70s, he formed the Bluesmasters and became a vital part of the Midwestern music scene.

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Eddie Shaw and the Wolf Gang

Eddie Shaw has played his tenor sax with many of the legends of the blues, including Hound Dog Taylor, Freddie King, Otis Rush, Muddy Waters and a long run with Howlin Wolf. He continued with many of the members of that band to form the Wolf Gang. His son Eddie ‘Vaan’ Shaw is a guitarist, while his son Stan Shaw has become a highly-regarded film actor. While Shaw’s appearance in Honeydripper is his first film work, he has long been known for his dramatic, powerful playing style.

Hailing from the Windy City, Kel Mitchell began his acting career at the young age of 12 with the ETA Creative Arts Foundation. Young Kel wowed audiences with his on-stage performances in Chicago theatrical productions such as Kasimu & the Coconut Palm and Dirt. But it was his outstanding performance in Eden at the historic Victory Gardens Theater which caught the attention of a prominent talent agent.

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Singer-songwriter and guitarist Keb’ Mo’s music is a living link to the seminal Delta blues that traveled up the Mississippi River and across the expanse of America - informing all of its musical roots — before evolving into a universally celebrated art form. Born Kevin Moore in South Los Angeles to parents originally from the deep South, he adopted his better known stage name when he was a young player who became inspired by the force of this essential African-American legacy. In the storied tradition of bluesmen before him including Muddy Waters — formerly McKinley Morganfield — and Taj Mahal, who began his days as Henry St. Clair Fredericks, Moore became known as Keb’ Mo’. His acclaimed self-titled 1994 debut album introduced that now famous appellation to the world, and his latest album, 2006’s Suitcase, brings it to new heights.

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Toby Corbett, a three-time Emmy Award nominee, received a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Washington where he studied painting with renowned African-American artist Jacob Lawrence and film theory with noted film scholar Richard Jameson.

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Hope Hanafin was born in North Carolina, but raised in New York City, New York and San Diego, California. She earned her B.A. with Honors from Santa Clara University and an M.F.A. from New York University (NYU). She has designed costumes for numerous television movies, including Lackawanna Blues, Normal, A Lesson Before Dying and Geppetto - for which she won the Costume Designers Guild Award for Excellence for Costume Design for Television - Period/Fantasy and was nominated for an Emmy®. Her film work includes Because of Winn Dixie, Kazaam, House Arrest and After Dark, My Sweet.

Film composer Mason Daring has explored many paths on the way to his current career -entertainment lawyer, folk singer, cabbie and truck driver, commercial director, and potential rock star among them. But his professional life has always returned to the world of music.

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Dick Pope, BSC became interested in photography as a young boy, when his father gave him a box brownie camera and he began making portraits of his family and neighbors in Kent, England. A few years later, an uncle suggested a career as a cameraman. Pope began as a trainee at the Pathé Film Laboratory in London and then started crewing on movies before moving across to 16mm factual documentaries, first working as an assistant and then cameraman, for many companies including the BBC. He traveled the world, often to remote and inaccessible places including war zones, and also specialized in films about the planet’s threatened and disappearing indigenous tribes. Eventually he moved into drama via these documentaries and many music promos/concerts.

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Sean Patrick Thomas recently wrapped production on The Burrowers for Lionsgate, a unique take on the western genre about a band of courageous men who set out to find a family of settlers that have vanished from their home under mysterious circumstances. Prior to that, he shot the TV adaptation of Raisin in the Sun opposite Sean Combs, Phylicia Rashad, Sanaa Lathan and Audra McDonald.

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John Huston once said of Stacy Keach that “Stacy is not a star. He is a constellation. The audience will come to see whatever character he portrays.”

Versatility embodies the essence of Stacy Keach’s career. As an actor he has expressed his talent in the theatre, in film and television, and the range of his roles is remarkable.

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