The musician Dr John once described James Carroll Booker as “the best black, gay, one-eyed junkie piano genius New Orleans has ever produced”. This documentary about the damaged, unpredictable brilliance of Booker captures something of his skills as a performer but struggles to fully convey the bottled lightning of his mercurial personality. The man who referred to himself as the Black Liberace shrouded himself in myths, the better to protect the vulnerable individual underneath the afro wig stuffed with cannabis and the star-adorned eyepatch. Bayou Maharajah is worth watching for the performance footage alone.
