Edgar Winter & Rick
Derringer (Ohne Filter)
Picture: C+
Sound: B- Extras: C+ Concert: B-
In one of the more interesting installments of the German
music concert series Ohne Filter, the March 30th 1990 taping
features the pairing of Edgar Winter and Rick Derringer. Both veterans of Rock music beginning in the
late 1960s, Winter had million-selling albums with his Edgar Winter Group that
Derringer played on, including Roadwork (1972), They Only Come Out At
Night (1973, featuring their seminal chart-topping instrumental hit Frankenstein
and the ever-energetic Free Ride) and Shock Treatment (1974), the
latter of which is when Derringer joined the band outright. Derringer was also their producer in all
this, having had several hits in the mid-1960s with the Pop/Rock band The
McCoys, whose hits included Hang On Sloopy and a remake of the popular
Little Willie John classic that was a bigger hit for Peggy Lee and a more
recent hit for Madonna. Derringer had
an early solo hit classic with Rock And Roll, Hoochie Coo, which would
have made him a one-hit wonder if he had not charted otherwise.
This is a reunion concert that is better than expected,
with Derringer’s voice still in decent shape and Winter also sounding
good. That is a plus, but the fact that
these guys can all still play and try to do them in a slightly different form
is a plus. The songs here include:
1) Keep
Playing That Rock-N-Roll
2) Free
Ride
3) I Play
Guitar
4) Cry Out
5) Hang On
Sloopy
6) Tobacco
Road
7) Rock-N-Roll
Hoochie Coo (spelled differently here)
8) Frankenstein
Once again, it would have been nice if they could have
went on longer and come up with some more gems out of their collective
catalogs, but this fills the under-hour timeslot nicely and is consistent with
something good to offer throughout, so it does not get boring at any point,
something most new bands cannot claim.
The full
frame PAL color video is what one would expect for a taping of this age, with
some good color, but definite limited definition. The sound is available in 16bit/48kHz PCM CD-type Stereo and
Dolby Digital 5.1 AC-3, which are about even in this case with some depth in
the 5.1 here, as heard in the Mark King and Tony Joe White DVDs from the
series, reviewed elsewhere on this site.
Too bad this one was not in DTS, but it may be one of the programs that
qualify for the new Ohne Filter SACD series, so we’ll look forward to
that. The same extras are here as on
other DVDs from this series, repeating the same stereo cords plug, other DVDs
in the series, and Ohne Filter producer
interview, it’s biography text squeezes both performers in the same place. Fans will especially enjoy this one.
- Nicholas Sheffo
