Filmmaker Les Blank created some of the most engaging music documentaries ever during his four decades traveling off the beaten path, capturing Cajun music, zydeco, Tex-Mex and other cross-cultural regional music of the Americas. Yet his first feature-length documentary has remained unreleased for more than 40 years.
Wednesday night’s screening in Los Angeles of “A Poem Is a Naked Person” is made all the more intriguing since the film’s subject, Oklahoma rocker and recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee Leon Russell, will be on hand to participate in a question-and-answer session. He'll do so in a talk with Blank’s son, Harrod, that will be moderated by superstar Americana music producer T Bone Burnett.