John Sayles's 16th feature film casts a humble rock-and-roll fable through the lens of the Jim Crow South. Danny Glover is Tyrone Purvis, owner of the Honeydripper Lounge, a failing nightclub in rural Harmony, Alabama, in 1950. In a last ditch attempt to save the bar, Purvis replaces his longtime blues singer with a renowned guitar player for a make-or-break blowout. But the guitarist is a no-show, and Tyrone must pass off a young guitar-playing hobo with professed chops as the headliner. What happens next will decide all for Tyrone, and maybe the history of popular music.