Alan
Jackson: Keepin' It Country - Live At Red Rocks
(2016/Eagle DVD)/Dolly
Parton's Coat Of Many Colors
(2015/Warner DVD)/Johnny
Winter & Dr. John: Live In Sweden 1987
(MVD Visual DVD)/Pride And
Joy: The Story Of Alligator Records
(1992/MVD Visual Blu-ray)/Theory
Of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents
(2015/Film Movement Blu-ray)/The
Kingdom Of Zydeco (1994)
+ Zydeco Crossroads: A
Tale Of Two Cities
(2015/Mugge/MVD Visual Blu-rays)
Picture:
C+/C+/C/B/B-/B-/B- Sound: B-/C+/C/B-/B-/C+/C+ Extras:
C-/C/C-/C+/C+/B- Main Programs: B-/C+/C+/B/B-/B-/B-
Here's
the latest group of music releases you should know about...
Alan
Jackson: Keepin' It Country - Live At Red Rocks
(2016) is a pretty good recent concert by the very successful Country
performer, but the sad thing that struck me is in an era where the
genre he thrived in has transmuted into some very bad pseudo Rock/Pop
music in too many tired hands, he is one of the last of a line of
uncompromised performers in the genre who is the real thing;
authentic, purely Country without any of its edge sanded away and has
not forgotten the real roots of the genre.
Taped
May 17, 2015, the 15 songs performed include Gone
Country, I Don't Even Know Your Name, Livin' on Love, Good Time,
Small Town Southern Man, The Blues Man, Who's Cheatin' Who, Little
Bitty, Country Boy, Drive (For Daddy Gene), Where Were You (When the
World Stopped Turning), Don't Rock the Jukebox, Here in the Real
World, Wanted, Chasin' That Neon Rainbow, It Must Be Love, Song for
the Life, Pop a Top, Angels and Alcohol, You Never Know, As She's
Walking Away, Remember When, It's Five O'Clock Somewhere,
Chattahoochee, Where I Come From
and Mercury
Blues.
Not for everyone, but succeeds in setting out to do what its wants
to do, making serious Country fans happy.
An
illustrated pullout with text and color illustrations is the only
extra.
Dolly
Parton's Coat Of Many Colors
(2015, directed by Stephen Herek) is the first of several planned
telefilms based on the extensive catalog of extensive hits by the
Country Music powerhouse and it also happens to be qualify as a
faith-based project. However, in a rare turn, it is not a preachy,
phony, formula entry. Instead, it is about Dolly's childhood and the
real life story of how her mother made her a coat out of what she
could when they had nothing. This only goes so far, but is not bad
and Rick Schroder is especially interesting as her father.
However,
it is only worth a look, nothing I was shocked or surprised by, but
it is family-safe enough and the only thing Parton fans could
compilation about is that the period is only brought to life so well.
Oh well.
Deleted
Scenes and a Making Of featurette are the extras.
Lennart
Wetterholm's Johnny
Winter & Dr. John: Live In Sweden 1987
is the latest of a long series of releases of Winter's work from MVD
and this one has Dr. John joining him in an hour-long show (the
actual show likely lasted longer) and include Sound
the Bell, Don't Take Advantage of Me, Mojo Boogie, You Lie Too Much,
Sugar Sweet, Love Life & Money, Jumpin Jack Flash
and Prodigal
Son.
It's a
solid show and Blues fans will be particularly happy, but this is
otherwise really for fans of the performers and that's not a bad
thing.
A
performance of Prodigal
Son
from 1972 is the only extra.
Robert
Mugge's Pride
And Joy: The Story Of Alligator Records
(1992) is not only the solid look at an independent record company
surviving and sometimes thriving by embracing at the time what
thought of as a declining genre in Blues music, but turns out to be
an excellent time capsule and historical look at the record industry
in its later years of big success before new technology caught it off
guard (along with some of the arrogance that the employees of
Alligator had to deal with) that puts this over ands makes it a
must-see.
At
the center if this all is Bruce Iglauer, the founder of the label who
is very funny, candid, blunt and holds nothing back about how his
label operates and how its become his life. Much of this can be
thankless, but the roster, people and success seem to make it just
about all worth it. Again, Blues fans will like the music more than
those who don't, but this is a fine film more than worth your time.
Bonus
audio from 10 performances from the 20th
Anniversary celebration of the label is the only extra.
Don
Hardy's Theory
Of Obscurity: A Film About The Residents
(2015), a performance group that was more theatrical than Genesis
(hear that Phil Collins!?!) could ever be and up there with DEVO,
Bowie and Zappa as being as bold and on the outside of things as
possible all the way to trying out things with then-new media like
videotape and the rise of video to go to new places most music
artists had not considered. Like DEVO, the band had issued one of
the first 12-inch LaserDiscs exploring new visual dimensions (both
from Criterion's Voyager Press label became serious even releases for
serious music and video fans), so having this new documentary on
Blu-ray is a belated-but-welcome event.
They
may not be a music and performance act for everyone, but the material
is always challenging, interesting and hardly any music acts since
have been this bold, ambitious or even attempted to be this
innovative. This is a remarkable overview of their history so far
and is a must-see for all serious music, movie or art fans.
Adding
to this impressive Film Movement Blu-ray release are a great set of
extras including
footage
of the band's first EVER performance at The Boarding House in San
Francisco, footage & outtakes from their uncompleted film
Vileness
Fat.
three remastered classic short films they made (now in HD!), new
short film created from never-before-seen footage from The Residents'
Hello
Skinny
sessions for their song Mellon
Collie Lassie,
animated short film from an unfinished feature called Freak
Show,
pioneering found footage short film called The
Walking Woman,
short on the delivery of one of only two existing copies of the
Ultimate Box Set to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC contained in a
refrigerator! How can you miss that one?
We
conclude with two more Robert Mugge's work, The
Kingdom Of Zydeco
(1994) and Zydeco
Crossroads: A Tale Of Two Cities
(2015), a concert documentary and documentary with plenty of concert
performances that show us in great detail the people, sound ands
origins of Zydeco music. The Blues/R&B combo is brought together
by Southern Louisiana Creole culture synthesizing into a very unique
and distinct sound fans of the former larger genres are likely to
embrace, but even if they are not your favorite music genres, we get
some interesting music and a genre that is as American as it is World
Music.
Mugge
has painstakingly filmed and recorded as much of it as he could so
you can get the full impact of the sound, feel and culture that makes
it all possible, which he really has a knack for. If you like or
discover you like this music, you'll love both releases, but if it
might not be your thing, a little can go a long way. Fortunately,
all materials have superior journalistic integrity and it is great to
have them on Blu-ray.
Kingdom
as a 55-minutes long Rosie's
In The House Tonight
film, while Crossroads
adds the 1996 film Iguanas
In The House
(27 minutes), a 10-minute intro to the main film by Mugge and A
Royal Title
(3 minutes) with Michael Tisserand are the extras.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on Residents
and Crossroads,
plus 1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfers on Pride
and Kingdom
can show the age of some of the materials used as expected, but they
look as fine as they ever will in the format and Pride
(shot in color and 16mm) is the most consistent. We bet it was shot
in Eastman
Color. The anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 image on Jackson
and Coat
tie for third place, looking pretty good for the older format and
clean enough, but the 1.33 X 1 color, videotaped image on Winters
has some analog videotape flaws including video noise, video banding,
telecine flicker, cross color and possibly a bit of tape damage.
However, there's not much more to fix any of that without spending a
good bit of money.
The
DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Residents,
plus the PCM 2.0 Stereo on all three Mugge
Blu-rays have their ups and downs, though the Zydeko
releases are a bit weaker, these all sound as good as they are likely
to and cheers to Mugge
for recording things as well as he was able to at the time. The
regular DTS 5.1 on the Jackson
DVD (it has lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo and 5.1 that are not as
warm, though the DTS can sound a bit bass-ish) ties the Residents
and Pride
Blu-rays for best-sounding releases here, then the lossy Dolby
Digital 5.1 on Coat
ties the sonics on the Zydeco
Blu-rays for second-best sonics, but the lossy Dolby Digital 2.0
sound on Winters
is stereo-at-best if that seems a generation down and is the poorest
performer in that respect here.
-
Nicholas Sheffo