R&B Jukebox + Live At The Rock ‘N’ Roll Palace
– Volumes Two & Three + Martha Reeves + Bobby Vee + Mary Wells (1980s/Quantum Leap)
Picture:
C Sound: C Extras: C- Concert/Compilation: C/D/C-/C-/C
Following
up two titles from the same series and 1980s broadcasts, which covered The Platters & The Coasters and Live At The Rock ‘N’ Roll Palace – Volume
One, we have received the next two volumes plus an R&B variant with no
indication of follow-up and separate volumes on Martha Reeves, Bobby Vee
and Mary Wells. Again we get poor footage that looks like it
barely survived coming from tapings of the same 1950s jukebox-styled stage all
this material was performed on.
On the
follow-up Palace volumes, a format
of eight acts having two songs a piece is here including a rough Tommy Sands,
forgettable Diamonds, mixed Platters, Buddy Holly-less Crickets, OK Ace Cannon,
Johnny Tillotson and Bobby Vee, who has his own so-so disc to himself including
the two songs here. The third Palace volume includes The Coasters, an
off Lou Christie, Bobby Vee again, Joey Dee, Johnny Tillotson again, Platters
again and a still surprisingly in tact Bryan Hyland.
The R&B Jukebox includes that bad
version of The Dixie Cups with only one of the three original members (which might
explain The Pointer Sister knock-off outfits), Coasters, Shirelles in decent
form, Sam Moore in good form, Angels in odd form, Crystals in so-so form,
latter-day Platters, Contours, Mary Wells and Martha Reeves. The last two ladies get their own discs, with
Reeves not having a good night, but Wells offering some of the few performances
worth checking out.
All three
of the solo discs had to be padded out with more overlapping repeats of other
performances, showing that the label is stretching out things a good bit
here. Unfortunately, it makes you want
to get other materials, especially the original hits, from the original
artists.
The 1.33
X 1 image is in color, but is incredibly soft and looks like second or third
generation NTSC or PAL analog video with a harsh look all around. The Dolby Digital 2.0 is barely stereo,
compressed and somewhat distorted throughout.
Extras include previews for other Quantum Leap titles and text on the
acts.
- Nicholas Sheffo