Arthur
Fiedler/Boston Pops Greatest Hits Of The '70s, V1 + V.2
(1973, 74/Sony/Vocalion Quadraphonic Hybrid Super Audio
CD/SA-CD/SACD)/Jeanette
(2017/KimStim Blu-ray)/Rock
& Roll Hall Of Fame Encore
(2010 - 2013/Time Life Blu-ray)/US
Festival 1982 (Icon/Plum
w/DVD)/YesSongs
(1972/both MVD Visual Blu-rays)
Picture:
X/B-/B-/B- & C+/B- Sound: B+ B B-/B-/B-/C+/B- Extras:
C-/C/C/B-/B Main Programs: B-/C/B-/B/B
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Arthur
Fiedler
Import Super Audio CD (SACD) is only available from our friends at
Vocalion in the U.K., plays on all CD, DVD, Blu-ray and 4K Blu-ray
players and can be ordered from the link below.
Here's
some very notable, even key music for you to know about and catch,
mostly with video
Though
he never had a hit record, Arthur
Fiedler
was played all the time on adult contemporary radio when it existed
and put The
Boston Pops
further on the map. His music was also referred to as elevator
music, but in retrospect, his usually instrumental remakes of
established hits were not always that far form the mark. The two
albums, Arthur
Fiedler/Boston Pops Greatest Hits Of The '70s, Volume 1
(1973) and Volume
2
(1974) have been paired on a single
Super
Audio CD from the Sony catalog thanks to the great U.K. record label
Vocalion, making the 4.0 Quadraphonic mixes available for the first
time since the albums debuted.
Though
these songs in their original versions might not appeal to some
today, they come from a peak tome of great music worldwide and even
if you don't like his covers, Fiedler and company definitely are
having fun here and demonstrate good taste in the choices of hits,
many of which are true classics and even standards by now (save #4,
which was already a classic, but Aretha Franklin made it a hit
again).
Tracks
for each album are...
Popcorn
(Kingsley)
Play
Me (Diamond)
Me
and Julio Down by the Schoolyard (Simon)
Amazing
Grace (Traditional)
Everything
is Beautiful (Stevens)
Lost
Horizon (from the musical motion picture, Bacharach; David)
Help
Me Make it Through the Night (Kristofferson)
Song
Sung Blue (Diamond)
The
First Time Ever (I Saw Your Face) (MacColl)
We've
Only Just Begun (Nichols; Williams)
PLUS
11. Love's Theme (White)
12. The Way We Were (Hamlisch;
Alan & Marilyn Bergman)
13. (I Never Promised You a)
Rose Garden (South)
14. One Less Bell to Answer (Bacharach;
David)
15. Leave Me Alone (Ruby Red Dress) (Laurie)
16. Time in a Bottle (Croce)
17. The Most Beautiful Girl
(Wilson; Sherrill; Bourke)
18. You Are the Sunshine of My
Life (Wonder)
19. Killing Me Softly with His Song (Fox;
Gimbel)
20. Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy (Raye; Prince)
21. Take Me Home, Country Roads (Danoff; Nivert; Denver)
22.
Joy to the World (Axton)
Some
remakes are good, others not quite getting why the original worked,
but each one is a surprise, especially if you know the given song. I
got a real kick out of these and now that you can hear them in
multi-channel stereo surround, you can tell Fiedler and the Pops were
way more serious about how good they felt their music was than not.
The sonics certainly make it more than just mere 'elevator music' or
token run-throughs of the songs. No, they are not as good as the hit
versions, but they offer nice alternatives that have aged and held up
better than you mighty expect.
A
paper pullout with illustrations is the only extra, but I like the
album cover art for both release.
Bruno
Dumont's Jeanette
(2017) wants to be a musical about Joan Of Ark as a child, but with a
limited budget and it is a strange, risk-taking effort, but it
ultimately falls flat unless you are a big fan of the history
surrounding her. However, I found it a very long and sometimes
trying 115 minutes and thought it was showing things only it
ultimately understood. I was intrigued that it was shot in the old
1.33 X 1 frame, but nothing out of the ordinary is done with that
narrow-vision frame and the music was very forgettable.
Only
see if you are really curious, but I am giving it credit for trying.
It could have been worse!
Extras
include a 16-minutes interview with Director Dupont by Critic Olivier
Pete, Original Theatrical Trailer and Deleted Scenes.
The
Rock & Roll Hall Of Fame Encore
(2010 - 2013) Blu-ray is a follow-up to the excellent Blu-ray release
of the four induction ceremonies that followed these. I liked those
better (no reviewed, but highly recommended) and was struck by how
laid back these four annual get-togethers were. Certainly with a
rich amount of talent, great speeches, jokes and music performances,
each show has undeniably classic moments. Inductees
include Genesis, The Stooges, The Hollies, Tom Waits, Dr. John, Leon
Russell, Darlene Love, Freddie King, Donovan, Small Faces/Faces,
Heart, Paul Shaffer, ABBA, Public Enemy, Alice Cooper, Randy Newman,
Albert King, Freddie King, The Beastie Boys, Rush, Quincy Jones and
The Red Hot Chilli Peppers.
Highlights
(form the press release) include...
''The
legendary Canadian power trio Rush performing fiery classics Tom
Sawyer and The Spirit of Radio for their fervent fans.
Red
Hot Chili Peppers leading a searing all-star jam session of Higher
Ground anchored by Slash and Ron Wood.
Heart
going Crazy on You before being joined onstage by fellow members of
Seattle rock royalty from Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains.
Alice
Cooper ripping into ferocious versions of Eighteen and Under My
Wheels before closing the set with Rob Zombie on School's Out
The
Hurdy Gurdy Man Donovan is joined onstage by John Mellencamp for a
chilling performance of Season of the Witch.
and
the complete HOF induction speeches including Don Henley inducting
Randy Newman, Neil Young inducting Tom Waits and many more.''
Billy
Joe Armstrong inducting The Stooges, Steven Van Zandt inducting The
Hollies, Barry & Robin Gibb inducting ABBA, Bette Midler
inducting Darlene Love, Chris Cornell (now sadly gone) inducting
Heart and Don Henley inducting Randy Newman worked particularly well
for me.
The
only
extra is a booklet that offers a guide to all four ceremonies that
tends to be very handy, making this another great Hall
Of Fame
set worth your time.
The
first of two huge events, The
US
Festival 1982
tends to be a lost classic, an event that many loved, too many forgot
or never heard of and a set that some politically wished never
happened because they hated Rock Music, youth, intelligence, success
and wanted to gut the country. Launched by Apple Computer's Steve
Wozniak, who epitomized (with his tech ans science knowledge, along
with his counterculture and maybe even semi-hippie (if you can call
it that) attitude, the Reagan Era and those implementing it wanted to
ignore it all and hope he'd go away (not knowing how far he or Apple
would go). He did not, but the show and its greatness (great
performances little seen since and hardly shown or released anywhere)
is owned by the man himself.
Instead
of a concert film, it is a documentary that features many interviews
and clips of parts of the big performances (a few at full length, but
I wanted more) and the live
performances from The Police, Tom Petty, Fleetwood Mac, Eddie Money,
The Ramones, Santana, The Cars, The Talking Heads, The B-52s and the
like led to some of the biggest paydays in the histories of all the
acts involved.
I
liked seeing the empty Glen Helen Regional Park in San Bernardino,
California turned into the performance site for three days, how he
spent his money, who he hired to make this happen (it came down to
legendary super-promoter Bill Graham to deliver the talent the most)
and that it did all actually work!
As
the press release notes, the film includes archived appearances by
Johnny & Joey Ramone, Carlos Santana, Sting, Ric Ocasek, Danny
Elfman, and Fred Schneider; plus exclusive sit-downs with festival
founder Steve Wozniak, Mick Fleetwood, Eddie Money, Marky Ramone,
Kate Pierson, Stewart Copeland, and Mickey Hart with its priceless
archival footage.
Extras
include an audio commentary track by Director Glenn Aveni and
extended interview pieces by Wozniak, Mick Fleetwood and Stewart
Copeland of The Police.
Needless
to say this is very overdue and hope it is the beginning of
unearthing the US
Festival
archives. Let's hope so.
Finally,
we finally get the U.S. Blu-ray release of Peter Neal's concert film
YesSongs
(1972), capturing the greatest of all Progressive Rock bands in their
early peak giving a great show (one of many endless brilliant live
shows, as fans will convincingly claim) and we have covered the gem
twice before, starting with this Import Region B Blu-ray...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11939/Color+Me+Obsessed:+A+Film+About+The+Replac
and
the Import Region Free PAL DVD before it...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11875/ABBA+Essential+Albums+Gold/The+Doors:+Total
The
show (see more details on it in that coverage above) has aged very
well over the years and is one of the best live filmed concerts ever,
looking good in 16mm, never long enough and proving they were just as
great on stage as they were in the studio creating some of the
greatest, most remarkable music albums ever.
This
is the same transfer as the import Blu-ray and that's a good thing,
but now we are in the 4K era, so we'll get into specifics below in
the tech section. The band has released several concerts shot on
analog tape or HD since, but this is as strong as any of them and the
audience is great here too. The film was originally Quadraphonic in
its theatrical release, but what happened to that soundmaster?
Along
with repeating the extras from the older import Blu-ray, this new
version adds art postcards by Roger Dean inside the Blu-ray case and
I really appreciated that.
Now
for playback quality. Though the Fiedler
SACD has no images, it is the sonic champ here when you hear how good
the 4.0 Quad mixes are in the ultra high definition DSD (Direct
Stream Digital) sound format. Again, no sloppiness here, they were
engineering and producing this to sound as good as a classical music
recording and they succeeded more than you'd think. The 2.0 Stereo
DSD is fine and also shows how well this was recorded, so that makes
the PCM 16/44.1 2.0 Stereo regular CD tracks sound lacking, though
they sound fine otherwise.
For
some reason, Jeanette
is presented in a 1080p 1.33 X 1 frame within a 1.78 X 1 digital High
Definition image with some softness and slight blur in color, but it
was not very memorable and if this was to be close to the Dreyer
silent classic (reviewed on Criterion Blu-ray elsewhere on this
site), why not black and white? This lands up looking more like a
sloppy Dogme '95 production than a musical and that's not good.
The
1080i 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on
Encore
can look good, but has more soft spots and detail issues than the set
with the newer shows. I wish at least some of these shows were shot
on film, but it is fine, colorful and clear otherwise.
The
1080p 1.78 X 1 digital High Definition image on the US
Festival
Blu-ray does its best to upgrade the old analog videotape
to go with the new HD interview footage, but you can still see some
flaws on the older tapes including video noise, video banding,
telecine flicker, tape scratching, cross color and tape damage.
Cheers to Stewart Copeland of The Police for having the initiative to
shoot some of his show and arrival on actual Super 8mm film (that's a
late model sound Sankyo movie camera he has, which hold up fine until
they die and are very difficult to fix) giving us some of the best
shots of the show by default. Wish there was more of his work, which
his in 1.33 X 1 like the analog video, but centered in the 1.78 X 1
frame like the anamorphically enhanced DVD that is a bit weaker.
The
1080p 1.33 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on YesSongs
from its original 16mm film materials can show the age of the
materials used, but this is far superior a transfer to all previous
releases of the film from the recent reissue (likely Eastman
Color Kodak film) and is centered in the 1.78 X 1 frame. I like the
color very much and likely went a little overboard on the last
Blu-ray, especially now that that the 4K era (and my 4K Ultra HDTV)
shows the flaws (including some dirt, dust and slight scratches) more
clearly. Needless to say this remaster is fine, but was done a few
years ago and could use a 4K scan, which would work (it does great
things for Super 8mm film) and I could see a 4K Blu-ray down the line
working for this and all Rockumentary films.
As
for sound, the DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless mix on Jeanette
is nothing sonically great, but passable and sometimes too quiet and
refined for its own good. The DTS-HD MA (Master Audio) 5.1 lossless
mix on Encore
fares better, especially when the music kicks in, but we also get the
talking and speeches, which are just fine. The US
Festival
only features lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on the DVD and Blu-ray
editions, especially shocking for the Blu-ray and to the detriment of
the music. A concert set of both the 1982 and 1983 shows need to be
issued with 5.1 to 11.1 sound mixes, but this will have to do for
now.
Like
the Fiedler
albums, YesSongs
was also originally quadraphonic in theaters it played at its best at
the time, but the sound here continues to not be from that 4.0
soundmaster like the previous import DVD (which was distorted) and
import Blu-ray (the Dolby True HD 5.1 lossless mix not totally
discreet), so the options we get here are a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1
that is very low and compressed and PCM 2.0 sound that is barely
stereo if that, but the best I have heard the film to date. Someone
PLEASE find that 4-track mix!
You
can order the Arthur
Fiedler
Super Audio CD at this link...
https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLK4598
-
Nicholas Sheffo
