Diana Ross (1976 Expanded Edition/Motown CD Set)/The Jeff Healey Band Live In Belgium 1993 (Eagle DVD/CD Set)/Live From Tokyo (2010/Underground Music/MVD Visual DVD)/Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991/Miramax/Lionsgate Blu-ray)/Pal Joey (1957/Sony/Twilight Time Blu-ray)

Picture: X/C+/C/B-/B Sound: B/B/C+/C+/B- Extras: B/C-/C-/C-/B- Main Programs: B/B-/B-/B-/B-

PLEASE NOTE: The Pal Joey Limited Edition Blu-ray sadly out of print, so it is now a collector's item if you can get it, so now we wait for a 4K upgrade. Also note that the Diana Ross 1976 CD set may only stay in print for so long, so you might want to get one now.

Here is our latest look at the diverse world of music releases, including some classic releases and some newer material.

Before Disco hit and with major competition, Diana Ross was having some of the biggest success any female solo artist ever had when in 1976, she released an album called Diana Ross. Following other special editions, Universal/Motown has released an Expanded Edition CD Set of the album following the success of many others including the 1980 Diana album and endless (no pun intended) hits sets, as the following links will show:

Diana: Deluxe Edition

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/312/Diana+Ross+-+Diana+(Deluxe+CD+Set

The #1s

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/741/Diana+Ross+&+The+Supremes+-+The

This album is diverse to begin with, features several of her #1 hits and this new set is awash in unreleased material, rarities and alternate cuts and takes that make it more amazing than even non-fans would expect. Here are the tracks:

CD 1

1) Theme From Mahogany (Do You Know Where You're Going To?)

2) I Thought It Took A Little Time (But Today I Fell In Love)

3) Love Hangover

4) Kiss Me Now

5) You're Good My Child

6) One Love In My Lifetime

7) Ain't Nothin' But A Maybe

8) After You

9) Smile

10) Sorry Doesn't Always Make It Right (single version)

11) Together (single version)

12) I Thought It Took A Little Time... (single version)

13) Love Hangover (single version)

14) One Love In My Lifetime (single version)

15) To Love Again (alternate version)

16) We're Always Saying Goodbye (alternate version)

17) This Christmas (alternate version)

18) Coming Home (a soda pop ad)

CD 2

1) Theme from Mahogany (alternate version #1)

2) I Thought It Took A Little Time

3) Love Hangover (alternate version)

4) Kiss Me Now (alternate version)

5) You're Good My Child (alternate version)

6) One Love In My Lifetime (alternate version)

7) Ain't Nothin' But A Maybe (alternate version)

8) After You (alternate version)

9) Sorry Doesn't Always Make It Right (alternate version)

10) Together (alternate version)

11) Theme from Mahogany (alternate version #2)

12) Harmony (a remake of an Elton John classic)

13) Le Lo Li

14) Go Where Your Mind Is

15) Diana Ross Interview (originally made for TWA Airlines, 16 minutes)

The Mahogany theme was a huge hit on the soft side, while Love Hangover was a big soul and early disco hit that promised at the time that she may become the big disco diva, expanding her reign of success, but Donna Summer showed up and changed that. It is easy to forget what a great singer she was and post-Lady Sings The Blues became more formidable as she delivers so many amazing vocal performances. You can also here her experimenting and trying alternate phrasing in the familiar hits here. I Thought It Took A Little Time and To Love Again are hugely underrated songs that should have been big its, but the set offers even more.

Extras include all the new tracks and a 32-page illustrated booklet with a fine essay and technical information. The interview (not heard for decades) is one of the best I have ever heard her give and even the cola ad demonstrates how huge she had become and was the Guinness Book Of World Record's most successful female vocalist of all time when we first posted this. Madonna pulled ahead in recent years, but Miss Ross is still up there. This album is one of the reasons. All in all, a solid set that exceeds expectations.

The Jeff Healey Band Live In Belgium 1993 (Eagle DVD/CD Set) is a follow-up set to another fine DVD/CD set of the band Eagle issued a while ago, which you can read more about at this link:

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/4240/The+Jeff+Healey+Band+%E2%80%93

That was six years later, but this earlier show is just as good with the expected overlap in tracks (Angel Eyes, While My Guitar Gently Weeps) and other tracks they do so well. I think this show up to the other one from the last set and if you are unfamiliar with the band, either choice is fine, especially with the bonus CD included. I am surprised they have not had more commercial success, but this is a yet another quality release of their work from Eagle (the show runs 13-songs long) and I recommend this one too. A booklet with an essay, technical information and illustrations included is the only extra as we will not count the CD.

In case you think we are being too retro, the newest material is represented by Lewis Rapkin's recent documentary Live From Tokyo (2010) which is a bout the little-known or covered alternate music scene in Japan involving Rock-influenced bands en masse trying to do new things with the music, including using visual media and electronics to make the music their own. Though the sounds are interesting, nothing stood out, yet I liked the energy and the many bands trying something different.

This is also a character study of the music, the people and Japan, which makes it worth a look even if the viewer is not happy with the music. Still, at least they have a seen where people enjoy music and are trying versus the apathy that has befallen too much of the U.S. music scene. The footage of Japan is a plus. A trailer and paper slip in the DVD case are the only extras.

Alex Keshishian's Madonna: Truth Or Dare (1991) is another documentary, but was designed as a button-presser typical of the strategy of its star. Are all the scenes authentic, or is it all staged? Is some of it staged? Unfortunately, it set a bad precedent for the evil we now know as ''reality TV'', but it still has some interesting off camera moments (spoofed in comedian Julie Brown's amusing Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful) and the concert sequences are a great portrait of the singer/dancer at her early peak.

It has aged oddly as a result (and not because the concert is in color and backstage (et al) is in black and white), but reminds us that she was not just all hype and no the face of what has happened in recent years, more clever than she was getting credit for being at the time. A trailer is the only extra.

Finally we have a backstage music of sorts in the comic George Sidney film Pal Joey (1957) that Frank Sinatra made with Columbia Pictures back in 1957. Now available as a Limited Edition Blu-ray from Twilight Time, this amusing romp (despite all the changes to modernize it at the time

versus the original stage production) has Sinatra as the singing and hustling title character torn between an older female connection form his past (Rita Hayworth, playing down her beauty for the role) and stunning new singer/dancer (Kim Novak in amazing form) with an almost in joke being that the backstage is of nightclubs and not on a prestige stage setting.

Sinatra is at his smart alec best, the script is amusing, some of the songs classic (like The Lady Is A Tramp and My Funny Valentine among others by the great Rogers & Hart) and the sets are Old Hollywood in their late glory, though the outdoor footage of San Francisco is a plus, but you can tell what is shot on a lot. This also goes on longer than it should, but is not bad and holds up more than well enough for a film its age. Bobby Sherwood, Barbara Nichols, Hank Henry and a long cast of credited actors make this all work. Any serious music fan should see it at least once.

Extras include a trailer, new featurette with Kim Novak, Isolated Music Score and illustrated booklet with an essay and tech information on the film.

Now for playback performance. The PCM 16/44.1 Stereo on the Ross and Healey CDs are as good as they can be for the format with the Ross tracks sounding exactly like their quality counterparts issued on the earlier CDs reviewed and some of the newer tracks having even more of a sonic edge. I wish a DVD of some kind with higher audio fidelity was also included. The Healey CD is as good as the previous Healey CD despite being a recording six years older. The CD format is not dead yet, especially when they do the transfers correctly as is the case here. The 1.33 X 1 image on the Healey DVD is from an analog video source and looks about as good as it is going to with good color, even more so than the anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Tokyo which is a little softer than expected.

The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on our two Blu-rays both have good color, but Madonna has definition and noise issues in its black and white footage it should not have despite being shot on 16mm film. Director of Photography Robert Leacock (Zappa's Baby Snakes) does a fine enough job giving this a memorable look. At least the color footage looks good for the most part

Joey was originally issued in dye-transfer, three-strip Technicolor 35mm prints and the source used here has much of that great color throughout, consistent and impressive including many demo shots for any HD system. Director of Photography Harold Lipstein (Any Wednesday, Rampage, Damn Yankees!) is an underrated cameraman and delivers a fine-looking film here in a solid transfer that can show its age, but is a nice surprise. This compares well for the impressive Blu-ray Warner issued of Sidney's later Elvis Presley musical Viva Las Vegas (1963), reviewed elsewhere on this site.

The lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on the Healey concert DVD is better than the Dolby 2.0 Stereo mix, but both lack some of the richness of the bonus CD. The lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Tokyo is good, but can be inconsistent in keeping with a documentary and we get location audio issues as well as lesser sound.

Both Blu-rays also have DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mixes, though neither film was originally a 5.1 sound film. Madonna was actually originally issued in theaters in Dolby's advanced analog Spectral Recording (SR) format and that is 4.1 at best, but here, someone has botched the sound badly, placing the mix too much in the front speakers and especially the center channel. SR Dolby films seem to get botched the most in these supposed upgrades and even the concert music has issues unfortunately.

Joey was originally issued as a theatrical optical monophonic film, but the music was recorded in high quality (for its time) stereo and the upgrade is impressive here as a result, offering the best audio on any video program here ironically as it is the oldest release. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 2.0 Stereo lossless versions of the soundtrack and isolated music score are also offered and sound good. On the isolated score, sometimes you can hear the singer in the background and other times, not at all, but that once again makes it another collectible limited edition from Twilight Time worth going out of your way for. Fans will love it.

- Nicholas Sheffo