Summary
This documentary pays tribute to the rich African American blues heritage of the largest city in Texas by tracing the unlikely relationship between a cast of colorful characters and a Chicagoborn photographer now living in Ireland. The primary focus is a 1998 reunion of almost 80 musicians for a group portrait, an event staged in a Third Ward building that dates back to Temple Beth Israel, the state's oldest Jewish congregation. Yet the larger story incorporates additional video produced, in Houston and in Ireland, between 1995 and 2018. Ultimately, Our Great Day blends diverse elements of local history - musical, socioethnic, even entrepreneurial and architectural - with blues performances, interviews with artists and insiders, and personal reflections by and about a fortunate photographer and his transatlantic connection to the original blues people of Houston.