Featuring Ruth Brown, B.B. King, Solomon Burke, Dr. John, and Bonnie Raitt. Rated PG.

Opens Friday, November 26, at the Cinemark Tinseltown

It's sometimes hard to get excited about concert films: all that sterile professionalism, with imperfections smoothed out in postproduction. Truth be told, though, there's a lot to be said about getting the highlights in Dolby Surround Sound, up-close-and-sweaty visuals, and nary a lineup for the loo. And certainly the highlights come frequently with Lightning in a Bottle, Antoine Fuqua's documentary record of the tribute instigated by Martin Scorsese and assembled by top drummer Steve Jordan for a night at Radio City Music Hall in New York City.

The concert, held February 7, 2003, brought together some of the top survivors of the blues. Interrupted only by interview snippets and brief archival glimpses of the music pioneers who survived the segregated South, the program is roughly structured around the evolution of the blues, with Angélique Kidjo, Odetta, and the late Mavis Staples pulling on the music's African and gospel roots, and the underwhelming Keb' Mo', unsung hero David "Honeyboy" Edwards, and others evoking the Deep South era of Robert Johnson and other early guitar pickers.

Of the Caucasians present (interestingly, there are no Brits), Bonnie Raitt, doing an Elmore James number, puts on the most show. And Natalie Cole, threatening to lose her "store-bought hair", does a surprisingly credible impression of the blues mamas of Bessie Smith's time. Throughout, and especially in the backstage and rehearsal footage, '50s great Ruth Brown adds good-natured authenticity. "I'm so glad to get the gig," she explains, when Odetta complains that the band is too loud, "I don't mind screaming."

Some screaming we could live without comes from Aerosmithers Steve Tyler and Joe Perry running through a speedy "King Bee" and David Johansen channelling Bob Seger. The Neville Brothers, Macy Gray, and Chuck D. somehow come across as irrelevant to the proceedings; John Fogerty appears to choogle off-topic, but he makes something rousing of his Leadbelly standard.

Mostly, though, in this deftly edited effort (which could have been called National Treasure if the name weren't already taken), you get the unsentimental version of blues from the inside. Attempts to bring the music up to date get mixed results, with Robert Cray and Shemekia Copeland walking a fine line between blues and R & B, while James Blood Ulmer and Vernon Reid (bombastic in the Hendrix tribute near the end) take a more academic view of the music's history. Plushly contoured old-timers such as Solomon Burke (who kills the house without even getting up from his throne) and B.B. King (still singing about his "Sweet Sixteen") are more casually sardonic.

"It's like being black twice," King sums up when asked to define the blues. But his best answers still come from that black guitar.