Sweet, Sweet Blues
Encyclopedia
"Sweet, Sweet Blues" is an award winning episode of the NBC
drama series In the Heat of the Night
, starring Carroll O'Connor
as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins
as Detective Virgil Tibbs.In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel
by John Ball
, which was also the basis for the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Rod Steiger
and Sidney Poitier
, directed by Norman Jewison
.
(Firecreek
) and written by William James Royce
, the episode guest stars musician Bobby Short
as bluesman Chester "Cat" Collins and actor James Best
as Nathan Bedford. The story revolves around the forty year-old, unsolved murder of Officer Wilson Sweet's grandfather, Louis Sweet. Although the crime was never solved, there was a witness, a young black man named Ches Collins. Ches is determined to see that justice is done, even if it has been delayed all these years. One night when he sees young Officer Sweet (Geoffrey Thorne) come into his club, he sings "Sweet, Sweet Blues." The song, written by William Royce and performed by Bobby Short, begins Sweet's heroic quest to see that justice is served before the aging murderer of his grandfather is allowed to pass away, taking his secret with him.
That season, In the Heat of the Night
won its first NAACP Image Award
for Outstanding Dramatic Series and James Best won the Crystal Reel Award for Best Actor.
who was murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963. Although it was widely known that Evers was shot by white supremacist and Klansman Byron De La Beckwith
, in 1991, when this story was written, Beckwith had apparently gotten away with murder.
In 1994, thirty years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict, De La Beckwith was again brought to trial based on new evidence, and Bobby DeLaughter took on the job as the prosecutor. An aging Klansman who had heard De La Beckwith brag about the killing felt compelled, after all these years, to come forward and give testimony in a court of law. De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994, after having lived as a free man for much of the three decades following the killing. He appealed, unsuccessfully, and died in prison at the age of 80, in January 2001.
The Medgar Evers story has inspired numerous works of art, including literature, music, and film, helping to assure that his legacy endures.
Musician Bob Dylan
wrote his 1963 song "Only a Pawn in Their Game
" about the assassination of Medgar Evers.On August 28 1963, at the historic “March on Washington,” Dylan sang “Only A Pawn in Their Game” at the Lincoln Memorial – where Dr. Martin Luther King made his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.
Medgar's widow, Myrlie Evers co-wrote the book For Us, the Living with William Peters in 1967.This book is the basis for the 1983 award-winning PBS biopic.
For Heat actor Howard Rollins
, this was the second project relating to the slain civil rights worker. In 1983, Rollins starred in For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
, a made-for-television biopic that aired on PBS's American Playhouse. The movie won the prestigious Writers Guild of America
award for Best Adapted Drama.
In 1996, director Rob Reiner
's film Ghosts of Mississippi
was released. The film, starring Alec Baldwin
and James Woods
, details the 1994 trial and subsequent conviction of Beckwith.
NBC
The National Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network and former radio network headquartered in the GE Building in New York City's Rockefeller Center with additional major offices near Los Angeles and in Chicago...
drama series In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night (TV series)
In the Heat of the Night is a television series based on the motion picture and novel of the same name. It was broadcast on NBC from 1988 until 1992, and then on CBS until 1995...
, starring Carroll O'Connor
Carroll O'Connor
John Carroll O'Connor best known as Carroll O'Connor, was an American actor, producer and director whose television career spanned four decades...
as Chief Bill Gillespie and Howard Rollins
Howard Rollins
Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr...
as Detective Virgil Tibbs.In the Heat of the Night was based on the 1965 novel
In the Heat of the Night (novel)
In the Heat of the Night is a 1965 novel by John Ball set in the fictional community of Wells, North Carolina. The main character is a black police detective named Virgil Tibbs passing through the small town during a time of bigotry and the civil rights movement.The novel is the basis of the 1967...
by John Ball
John Ball
John Ball may refer to:* John Ball , English Lollard priest of the Peasants' Revolt* John Ball , English author and scholar* John Ball , American minister from Nova Scotia...
, which was also the basis for the Academy Award winning film of the same name starring Rod Steiger
Rod Steiger
Rodney Stephen "Rod" Steiger was an Academy Award-winning American actor known for his performances in such films as On the Waterfront, The Big Knife, Oklahoma!, The Harder They Fall, Across the Bridge, The Pawnbroker, Doctor Zhivago, In the Heat of the Night, and Waterloo as well as the...
and Sidney Poitier
Sidney Poitier
Sir Sidney Poitier, KBE is a Bahamian American actor, film director, author, and diplomat.In 1963, Poitier became the first black person to win an Academy Award for Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field...
, directed by Norman Jewison
Norman Jewison
Norman Frederick Jewison, CC, O.Ont is a Canadian film director, producer, actor and founder of the Canadian Film Centre. Highlights of his directing career include In the Heat of the Night , The Thomas Crown Affair , Fiddler on the Roof , Jesus Christ Superstar , Moonstruck , The Hurricane and The...
.
Synopsis
Directed by Vincent McEveetyVincent McEveety
Vincent Michael McEveety is an American director and producer.- Career :TelevisionVince McEveety has directed numerous Emmy Award winning television series, including The Untouchables, Gunsmoke, six Star Trek , Magnum, P.I., How the...
(Firecreek
Firecreek
Firecreek is a 1968 western movie directed by Vincent McEveety and starring James Stewart and Henry Fonda in his second role as an antagonist that year. The film is similar to High Noon in that it features an entire town refusing to help a peace officer against outlaws, showing no backbone...
) and written by William James Royce
William James Royce
- Career :TelevisionWilliam Royce began his television career writing for the NBC television series In the Heat of the Night, starring Emmy Award winning actor Carroll O'Connor as Chief William O. Gillespie and Academy Award nominee Howard Rollins as Detective Virgil Tibbs...
, the episode guest stars musician Bobby Short
Bobby Short
Robert Waltrip "Bobby" Short was an American cabaret singer and pianist, best known for his interpretations of songs by popular composers of the first half of the 20th century such as Rodgers and Hart, Cole Porter, Jerome Kern, Harold Arlen, Vernon Duke, Noel Coward and George and Ira Gershwin.He...
as bluesman Chester "Cat" Collins and actor James Best
James Best
James Best is an American actor best known for his role as bumbling Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane in the CBS television series The Dukes of Hazzard. He has also worked as an acting coach, artist, and musician.-Early years:...
as Nathan Bedford. The story revolves around the forty year-old, unsolved murder of Officer Wilson Sweet's grandfather, Louis Sweet. Although the crime was never solved, there was a witness, a young black man named Ches Collins. Ches is determined to see that justice is done, even if it has been delayed all these years. One night when he sees young Officer Sweet (Geoffrey Thorne) come into his club, he sings "Sweet, Sweet Blues." The song, written by William Royce and performed by Bobby Short, begins Sweet's heroic quest to see that justice is served before the aging murderer of his grandfather is allowed to pass away, taking his secret with him.
That season, In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night
In the Heat of the Night is a 1967 mystery film based on the John Ball novel In the Heat of the Night published in 1965, which tells the story of a black police detective from Philadelphia who becomes involved in a murder investigation in a racist small town in Mississippi. The film won five...
won its first NAACP Image Award
NAACP Image Award
An NAACP Image Award is an accolade presented by the American National Association for the Advancement of Colored People to honor outstanding people of color in film, television, music, and literature....
for Outstanding Dramatic Series and James Best won the Crystal Reel Award for Best Actor.
Production notes
The inspiration for the episode is taken from the true life story of civil rights activist Medgar EversMedgar Evers
Medgar Wiley Evers was an African American civil rights activist from Mississippi involved in efforts to overturn segregation at the University of Mississippi...
who was murdered in front of his home in Jackson, Mississippi on June 12, 1963. Although it was widely known that Evers was shot by white supremacist and Klansman Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith
Byron De La Beckwith, Jr. was an American white supremacist and Klansman from Greenwood, Mississippi who was convicted in the 1994 state trial of assassinating the civil rights leader Medgar Evers on June 12, 1963....
, in 1991, when this story was written, Beckwith had apparently gotten away with murder.
In 1994, thirty years after the two previous trials had failed to reach a verdict, De La Beckwith was again brought to trial based on new evidence, and Bobby DeLaughter took on the job as the prosecutor. An aging Klansman who had heard De La Beckwith brag about the killing felt compelled, after all these years, to come forward and give testimony in a court of law. De La Beckwith was convicted of murder on February 5, 1994, after having lived as a free man for much of the three decades following the killing. He appealed, unsuccessfully, and died in prison at the age of 80, in January 2001.
In popular culture
Musician Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
wrote his 1963 song "Only a Pawn in Their Game
Only a Pawn in Their Game
"Only a Pawn in their Game" is a song written by Bob Dylan about the assassination of civil rights activist Medgar Evers. It was released on Dylan's The Times They Are a-Changin album of 1964...
" about the assassination of Medgar Evers.On August 28 1963, at the historic “March on Washington,” Dylan sang “Only A Pawn in Their Game” at the Lincoln Memorial – where Dr. Martin Luther King made his famous “I Have A Dream” speech.
Medgar's widow, Myrlie Evers co-wrote the book For Us, the Living with William Peters in 1967.This book is the basis for the 1983 award-winning PBS biopic.
For Heat actor Howard Rollins
Howard Rollins
Howard Ellsworth Rollins, Jr. was an American television, film, and stage actor. He is perhaps best known for his portrayal of Coalhouse Walker, Jr...
, this was the second project relating to the slain civil rights worker. In 1983, Rollins starred in For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story
For Us the Living: The Medgar Evers Story is a made-for-television biopic that aired on PBS on March 22, 1983. The film was based on the book, For Us, the Living, by Myrlie Evers-Williams and William Peters.-Synopsis:...
, a made-for-television biopic that aired on PBS's American Playhouse. The movie won the prestigious Writers Guild of America
Writers Guild of America
The Writers Guild of America is a generic term referring to the joint efforts of two different US labor unions:* The Writers Guild of America, East , representing TV and film writers East of the Mississippi....
award for Best Adapted Drama.
In 1996, director Rob Reiner
Rob Reiner
Robert "Rob" Reiner is an American actor, director, producer, writer, and political activist.As an actor, Reiner first came to national prominence as Archie and Edith Bunker's son-in-law, Michael "Meathead" Stivic, on All in the Family. That role earned him two Emmy Awards during the 1970s...
's film Ghosts of Mississippi
Ghosts of Mississippi
Ghosts of Mississippi is a 1996 American drama film directed by Rob Reiner and starring Alec Baldwin, Whoopi Goldberg, and James Woods. The plot is based on the true story of the 1994 trial of Byron De La Beckwith, the white supremacist accused of the 1963 assassination of civil rights activist...
was released. The film, starring Alec Baldwin
Alec Baldwin
Alexander Rae "Alec" Baldwin III is an American actor who has appeared on film, stage, and television.Baldwin first gained recognition through television for his work in the soap opera Knots Landing in the role of Joshua Rush. He was a cast member for two seasons before his character was killed off...
and James Woods
James Woods
James Howard Woods is an American film, stage and television actor. Woods is known for starring in critically acclaimed films such as Once Upon a Time in America, Salvador, Nixon, Ghosts of Mississippi, Casino, and in the television legal drama Shark. He has won three Emmy Awards, and has gained...
, details the 1994 trial and subsequent conviction of Beckwith.