BACK IN THE U.S.S.R.

by Tim Frommer

The story behind the making of Paul Simon's Graceland has been told often enough to insure that home taping will never disappear. In a perfect world, a documentary that made the art house cinema rounds this past summer will do the same for short-wave radio.

Genghis Blues won the audience award at Sundance (and several other film festivals) earlier this year and, while I'd never bet on the Academy, it should receive an Oscar nomination for long-form documentary.

Genghis Blues tells the story of Paul Pena, a blind San Francisco blues musician who travels to the autonomous republic of Tuva in eastern Siberia to participate in the biennial competition of the native throat singing style. The film is part history lesson, part travelogue, part musical education and wholly heartwarming. Pena, blind since childhood, has played guitar with the likes of John Lee Hooker and B.B. King, and wrote the song "Jet Airliner," which Steve Miller brought to the masses.

Despondent following the death of his wife, Pena buys a short-wave radio and hears - via Radio Moscow - Tuvan throat singing. The style, which creates a sound similar to the hollow-bodied didjeridoo, is made by isolating a single note in the throat and then laying another note either above or below it. Over the course of a decade, Pena teaches himself how to sing in the style and a smattering of words in Tuvan.

After a concert by Tuvan folk hero Kongar-ol Ondar in San Francisco, Pena sings an impromptu traditional Tuvan song for him. Ondar, described as the JFK, Elvis and Michael Jordan of Tuva all rolled into one, insists that Pena come to Tuva to perform in the biannual festival of throat singing. Yes, truth is better than fiction - that's why there are documentaries.

Filmed by Roko and Adrian Belic (a pair of Gen-Xers whose parents refused to let them watch TV, save for PBS), Genghis Blues follows Pena, the film makers and their rag-tag ensemble two-thirds of the way around the globe to the festival. Stunning photography, medical mishaps, musical performances and the ghost of Nobel physics laureate Richard Feynman stitch together the chronology of the film.

What makes the film special is the blossoming friendship between Ondar and Pena that shimmers throughout. While Pena has taught himself some of the native language, the two are by and large communicating through their music and the warmth of their outsize personalities. One of the throat singing varieties, called kargyraa, isolates the low bass notes. This suits the gravely blues voice of Pena who incorporates it into the new music he is making and earns him the nickname "Earthquake" from the Tuvans, doubly appropriate considering his adopted home town.

There are numerous priceless moments throughout the film. Scenes of the competition include a tense moment where Pena almost makes a cultural faux pas by singing the equivalent of a rebel song, as well as an outpouring of appreciation from the won-over audience. At a school where boys are learning throat singing, Pena feels the faces of some of them to try and make new sounds himself. With Ondar as guide, the crew traverse the small republic on the Chinese and Mongolian borders, visiting villages, religious shrines and picturesque plateaus.

It goes without saying that music is a universal language and we are perhaps blinded in our overexposure to 4/4 time, the electric guitar and familiar chord progressions. The power of music is similarly transcendent. I left the theater extremely uplifted and reaffirmed in my musical faith.

Today, Pena is quite ill with cancer. He has traced his ancestry to the islands of Cape Verde off of the African coast and is saving his pennies to get there before his illness makes travel too difficult.

The soundtrack of Genghis Blues includes Pena originals, duets with Ondar and folk songs from Ondar himself, is available at the Friends of Tuva Web site.