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Rating:  -
Without question this is the worst album in "The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966. Volume 3, is by far the best.
Rating: -
We have heard their recordings and seen their photographs but any live performances we may have attended or video recordings we may have seen were mostly of them very late in their career, past their best. So this discovery of early sixties recordings of Blues greats is something of a treasure trove.
There is a distinctly amateurish air to these recordings. The introductions are very awkward and wooden, with the performers introducing one another with much line-fluffing and a remarkable amount of stage fright. You may be startled to hear the second act introduced as "Sunny Terrace and Bonny McGhee" but not to worry, you'll be delighted by the subsequent performance by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. And the clips are strung together in a disjointed fashion, rather than being a properly edited sequence. One clip starts with a presenter leaving the stage and we will never know what it was he might have said. Others begin with the audience applauding the previous, unseen performance.
None of that matters when the actual performances begin. John Lee Hooker gives a truly visceral performance and Otis Spann is on top form. But all the performers are worth seeing.
Modern viewers may be disconcerted by the totally white, unfailingly polite audience, including ladies in fur stoles. But that is part of the period charm of these recordings, for that's how it was in the early sixties. Don't be misled. We may have dressed formally and behaved with decorum but that didn't mean we were not moved. We were. The Blues resonated with us and became a vital part of the European music scene. This influence began before the time of these festivals. The biggest British music star of the fifties, Lonnie Donegan, took his first name from Lonnie Johnson (who appears on this DVD). The Rolling Stones, The Animals and John Mayall are obvious examples of a continuing influence on the next generation of musicians. And in continental Europe today, especially in Amsterdam, you will hear more blues being played live than in most parts of the US.
The sound quality on this DVD is fine. It will serve as a great introduction to The Blues, and is essential for those who are already fans.
Rating: -
This is an excellent number in this series of specials videotaped in Germany in the early 1960s and contains precious rare filmed moments of the masters of the blues when their only American television appearances were on occasional specialty regional shows like Nashville's "The!!!Beat" (also now on DVD) and the Johnny Otis Show in LA (which exists on audio, but I'm not sure about video).
But in either case, this is more than classic stuff. Sonny Boy Williamson brings his "wah wah" harmonicizing and rakish charm to "Nine Below Zero" and joins Muddy Waters on a laid-back "Got My Mojo Working." Lonnie Johnson, who played with the great Satchmo in the 20s, appears as a dignifed elder statesman here in his number and was still full of talent, as was Mississippi Fred McDowell.
What REALLY blew things away form me is seeing the wonderful, stripped down, down-in the Delta (or Peidmont, in ther case)performance of Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee. With just their respective Harmonica and guitar, the twosome play a down-home-foot stomping tune which brings the Black extras on their feet as if they were at a get-together in rural Mississippi on a Saturday night! It just doesn't get more authentic than this! You can almost smell the kerosene lamps!
The grand finale with most of the above mentioned performers and 20s Blues diva Victoria Spivey closes things off wonderfully with "Bye Bye Blues" that even gets the stiff, proper German audience to clap their hands in time to the beat instead of waiting at the end to applaud as they do elsewhere in this DVD!
But enough set-GET IT! And put some of JB Lenoir's performances at these concerts on future DVDs! (Are you listening Reelin in the Years?
Rating: -
This collection has boundless merit. It dates from at time, when white-America wasn't interested in Black-America. Thank God for the Europeans( never thought I'd say that)that filmed these treasures. Every performance is STOUT. The packaging,literature, film, and sound quality are excellent. Stunning works! It's hard to pick a favorite performance. Please buy these, and show your children and friends what real, passionate, performances are like.I recently visited the Blues Museum in Clarksdale,MS. and guess what was showing on their film projector?...
Rating: -
The quality of this DVD is great. It's so nice to see these great Blues players up close. I bought VOL. 1, 2 & 3 at the same time and saved money. If you like the Blues you have got to see these DVDS on the early Blues. You can even see the chord progression that T-Bone Walker plays.
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