Sheena Easton: Take My Time (1981/EMI/Deluxe DVD/CD Edition*)/Georgia (1995/Miramax/Imprint/ViaVision Region Free Import Blu-ray)/Elton John: Honky Chateau 50th Anniversary Edition (1972/Rocket/Mercury/Universal Music CD Set)/Liquid Gold: Dance Yourself Dizzy The Collection (1978 - 2009/Polo Records/CD Set/*both Cherry Red)

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

PLEASE NOTE: The Georgia Import Blu-ray is now only available from our friends at ViaVision Entertainment in Australia, can play on all 4K and Blu-ray players, while the Sheena Easton DVD/CD and Liquid Gold DVD Sets can be ordered from out friends at Cherry Red Records. All can be ordered from the links below.

Now for more music and music-related releases for you to know about....

At the beginning of the 1980s, after so many women broke out and had huge success as solo singers (Olivia Newton-John, Donna Summer, Helen Reddy, Roberta Flack, Barbra Streisand, Diana Ross, Linda Ronstadt, etc.,) the question was, who would be the next big woman in music? Madonna, Whitney Houston and Cyndi Lauper eventually emerged to great success, but before they had their first hits, a young woman who was told in a music documentary she did not have enough talent to make it in the music industry suddenly had a tons of hits. Sheena Easton: Take My Time (1981) arrived the same year she voiced the classic title song to the all-time great James Bond film For You Eyes Only and it looked like she might be the next big thing.

Well, she was, but more so in Europe and like Ronstadt, puzzling critics and audiences by moving into other genres, and very successfully. For the first album, it was pop songs with some rock or adult contemporary leanings, including the international smash Morning Train (9 To 5), the Bond song was as big and Modern Girl was also a big hit that all showed off how good she was. Now defunct EMI Records was smart enough to release more singles in When He Shines (not bad, but a little too slow for me, despite her great vocal on it) and the title song, do they knew how good she was and a star was born.

This Deluxe DVD/CD Edition shows how much the label backed her, from music videos just before MTV arrived (!!!) to how grade-A these songs are in their production. Her voice and singing here are better than you remember and she was just getting started. She landed up with over a dozen hits during the decade, plus some singles that fared better on other charts and not including deep cuts and fan favorites. She is still touring as this review posts over four decades later.

Though it does not have the bonus materials, a larger CD set called The Definitive Singles 1980 - 1987 has also been issued on CD, so the work speaks for itself and if you like to love her like we do, you'll want to get these sets. Recommended!

Ulu Grosbard's Georgia (1995) is a mixed drama about the trails, tribulations and addiction of Sadie (Jennifer Jason Leigh) and her more well-grounded sister (Mare Whittingham as the title character) trying to have success in a blues band. Capable journeyman director Grosbard wants this to be a character study, but the screenplay is mixed and uneven, so we get a good moment, followed by a predictable one, followed by another good one, then one that does not work or really forward the film

It is musically sound like Altman's Nashville (1975, i.e., it works musically, even if you are not a fan of the chosen music genre) and you will not likely recognize most of the cast, save a solid turn by a young John C. Reilly and a naturalistic performance by a pre-Silence Of The Lambs Ted Levine. It has been a long time since I've seen the film and I did not remember liking it much or finding it very memorable. It has actually aged better than you might think, being part of a small series of films featuring blues music in their fictitious narratives here and there, but I still think it has too many issues. Now you can see for yourself, but needless to say the cast is good, it was ambitious and they at least tried to make a mature film for adults with a brain. You can see the fine list of extras at the order link.

When you have a classic album, you can tell when it not only holds up, but just keeps getting better with time. Some artists even have several of them and in some cases, they are also huge-selling hit albums. Elton John: Honky Chateau 50th Anniversary Edition (1972) is on that shortlist of Pop, Rock and otherwise musically savvy albums that just continue to be great. You can read about it and all I had to say about it when the still-remarkable Super Audio CD version arrived a few decades ago and I stand by what I said then...

http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/2404/Elton+John+-+Honky+Chateau+(SACD

Of all the classic here, Rocket Man of all tracks has found itself being quoted, licensed and discussed more than the other tracks that are always playing somewhere as you read this and it is not even the most typical of the songs here. However, don't let that stop you if you have never heard the album or not heard it in a long time. There is no such thing as a bad Elton John album, but this is among his most remarkable classics. Also being issued in several vinyl configurations, here are all the tracks in this strong 2-CD set:

Disc 1:

Honky Cat

Mellow

I Think I'm Going to Kill Myself

Susie (Dramas)

Rocket Man (I Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

Salvation

Slave

Amy

Mona Lisas and Mad Hatters

Hercules

HONKY AT THE CHATEAU (SESSION DEMOS) PART ONE

Salvation (Session Demo)

Susie (Dramas) (Session Demo)

Rocket Man (It's Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time) (Session Demo)

Mellow (Session Demo)

Slave - Alternate "Fast" Version (Session Demo)

Disc 2:

HONKY AT THE CHATEAU (SESSION DEMOS) PART TWO

Honky Cat (Session Demo)

I Think I'm Going To Kill Myself (Session Demo)

Hercules (Session Demo)

Slave (Session Demo)

LIVE AT THE ROYAL FESTIVAL HALL, LONDON, FEBRUARY 5TH 1972

Susie (Dramas)

Salvation

Mellow

Amy

Mona Lisas And Mad Hatters

Honky Cat

Rocket Man (It's Think It's Going To Be A Long, Long Time)

Hercules

Like the Tumbleweed Connection CD set (reviewed elsewhere on this site) from a few years ago, all the bonus material and the new booklet do nothing but enhance the classic itself and as Elton winds down his very long career in touring, it makes us all realize what a giant in music and entertainment he was, is and always will be. Definitely catch this set!

Liquid Gold: Dance Yourself Dizzy The Collection (1978 - 2009) is another great, fun, yet informative collection of a good music act you have heard little of, if at all, though maybe you did, forgot and might again when revisiting them. This band was more successful in the U.K., starting with Anyway You Do It, Dance Yourself Dizzy was their big smash, plus they had other hits like My Baby's Baby and Substitute. Unfortunately, it is part of that strange twilight zone of a memory hole in music history that only seems to apply to Disco music acts from the mid-1970s to their early-1980s foldings and demises.

Fortunately, excellent sets like this (from the many remixes, 12-inch singles, instrumentals, the exact songs minus most or all of their vocals, bonus tracks and booklet) leave no stone unturned and because almost all of the music from this era has not been heard since its debut, you will be shocked at how well this music was recorded, engineered, produced and mastered. You can see the tracks list at the order link, but we get separate versions for the U.S. and U.K. markets, so you can really hear a wide variety of what the group was doing and this set doe4s great justice to their work and legacy. I was very curious and when I finished the set, was very satisfied.

Now for playback performance. The 1080p 1.85 X 1 digital High Definition image transfer on Georgia can show the age of the materials used, but this looks pretty good and is a 2K master. The film is meant to be a bit subtle and dark, even more so than Straight Time. Pretty accurate overall. The PCM 2.0 Stereo sound is off of a film originally issued in Dolby's older analog A-type noise reduction, so home theater owners should play it back in Pro Logic mode or something very similar. The sound shows its age a little more, but is not bad.

The 1.33 X 1 image on the Sheena Easton DVD claims it is from the original master videotape, but the James Bond credits sequence from For Your Eyes Only was shot on 35mm film, is likely coming to 4K disc soon and ought to feature this textless version as made by the late, great Maurice Binder. This version is letterboxed, so it is not even as good as the general DVD, let alone Blu-ray. That leaves the four other videos, all shot on PAL analog video, but Morning Train is actually shot on 16mm film, so that footage needs to be located, restored and given a 4K scan. Otherwise, these will do. The sound is PCM 2.0 16/48 Stereo on all five videos and sound fine.

The PCM 2.0 16/44.1 Stereo on on Easton, Elton and Liquid CDs sound as good as they can for the format, solid transfers and some of the Liquid tracks are surprisingly strong. The original album tracks for Elton are no match for the DSD on the older Super Audio CD edition, but the outtakes and live tracks are impressive. They al show regular CDs are still alive and well when one this well.

To order the Liquid Gold CD set, go to this link:

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/liquid-gold-dance-yourself-dizzy-the-collection-3cd-digipak/

Sheena Easton: Take My Time Deluxe DVD/CD Edition, go to this link:

https://www.cherryred.co.uk/product/sheena-easton-take-my-time-deluxe-cd-dvd-edition/

...and to order the Georgia Imprint/ViaVision Region Free Import Blu-ray, go to this link for it and more hard to find releases:

https://viavision.com.au/shop/georgia-1995-imprint-collection-208/

- Nicholas Sheffo