Category Archives: DVD Review

Heart: Night at Sky Church

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Heart returns to Seattle for 2010 concert

As was heard on last year’s Red Velvet Car, Ann Wilson’s voice is still a power to be reckoned with, Nancy Wilson’s still got instrumental chops, and the duo fits together like, well, sisters. Though the band’s held a steady lineup (save bassist Ric Markmann, who’s been replaced by Kristian Attard) since the release of Jupiter’s Darling, the group can at times feel more like a backing combo for Ann and Nancy Wilson than a working concern. The guest appearance of Alison Krauss on three tracks is both a treat and a distraction. Her voice is uniquely beautiful as she sings “These Dreams,” but it takes the song out of the realm of Heart. The same is true for the group’s cover of Krauss & Plant’s “Your Long Journey.” It’s a beautiful song, wonderfully sung by Krauss and Ann Wilson, but feels out of place amongst Heart’s material.

The set list mostly sticks to the group’s hits, non-charting singles and a few album tracks. There are five tunes from Heart’s then-latest album, Red Velvet Car, and they blend seamlessly with material from the mid-70s and 80s. Ann Wilson still thrills with rock ballads, but doesn’t always hit the high, powerful notes with the same authority of her younger years. That said,  she’s a cannier vocalist than thirty years ago, navigating around the minor limitations of age to imbue her singing with new textures and more dynamic range. Nancy Wilson sings lead (and plays autoharp) on “Hey You,” Ann Wilson pulls out her flute for “Mistral Wind,” and the near prog-rock jamming on “Mistral Wind” is superb. The main set closes with a rousing version of “Crazy on You,” led off by some powerful, bluesy acoustic strumming.

This is far from a flawless performance – the band’s jam on “Barracuda” breaks down before catching a second wind, and the signature riff of “Crazy on You” seems muddled (much more interesting is guitarist Craig Bartock’s soloing on “Magic Man”). But it’s a live show, and the band’s got plenty of energy and great songs. The multi-camera video (shot in March 2010 at the Experience Music Project in Seattle) is well lit, and the editing is fluid; at times, two or three video streams are collaged Woodstock-style. There’s little between-song patter, which leaves the set feeling compressed; one is left to wonder if the Wilsons simply don’t talk much, or if the editors snipped away their interaction with the crowd. This is a nice complement to earlier heart live DVDs Alive in Seattle and Dreamboat Annie, and shows the Wilson sisters still rocking in their 50s. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Simon and Garfunkel: Bridge Over Troubled Water (40th Anniversary Edition)

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Brilliant video additions to Simon & Garfunkel’s studio swan song

Simon and Garfunkel’s fifth and final studio album marked their commercial peak. Though many fans find the previous album, Bookends, to be the apex of the duo’s artistic creativity, it’s hard to think of another pop act that exited with a success comparable to this album and its title track. Despite Garfunkel’s initial reservation, “Bridge Over Troubled Water” made good on Simon’s feeling that it was the best song he’d ever written, topping the Hot 100 for six weeks and winning Grammy awards for song and record of the year. Though the recording is deeply tied to Garfunkel’s brilliant vocal performance, the composition spawned dozens of successful covers, including Aretha Franklin’s Grammy-winning R&B chart-topper and Buck Owens’ Top 10 single. In the 1970s it became a staple in Elvis Presley’s stage show, and cover versions continue to be recorded to this day, with a live version from the 2010 Grammys having charted, and the television show Glee having featured the song the same year.

But the title song is far from the album’s only jewel. With Garfunkel away for the better part of 1969 filming Catch 22, Simon was left to work alone, and apparently consider a post-Garfunkel career. “The Only Living Boy in New York City” and “Why Don’t You Write Me” are easily heard to be contemplations of Simon’s isolation, while “So Long, Frank Lloyd Wright” includes the telling lyric “so long Frank Lloyd Wright, all of the nights we harmonized ‘til dawn,” an allusion seemingly tied to Garfunkel’s study of architecture at Columbia. The seeds of Simon’s multicultural solo career can be heard in the Peruvian flute of “El Condor Pasa (If I Could),” broad rhythm instrumentation of “Cecilia,” and reggae styling of “Why Don’t You Write Me.” The album topped the chart, won Grammys for engineering, arranging and Album of Year, and spun off four hit singles.

This CD/DVD set marks the 40th anniversary of the album’s January 1970 release, and combines the original eleven tracks with two hours of video material. The DVD includes the duo’s rare 1969 CBS television special, Songs of America, and a new documentary, The Harmony Game: The Making of Bridge Over Troubled Water. The special, aired only once on November 30, 1969, has been bootlegged many times, but never before officially reissued. At the time of its airing its social and political viewpoints – particularly its explicit anti-Vietnam war messages – caused sponsor Bell Atlantic to pull out. But with backing from CBS (the same network that had fired the Smothers Brothers earlier in the year), the program found a new sponsor (Alberto Culver, the makers of Alberto VO5) and was aired uncut.

Both video features are extraordinary documents. The 1969 special, originally shot on film and pieced together from two different sources, is a post-Woodstock look at America in which Simon and Garfunkel seem to be trying to explain the younger generation to adult viewers. They surface the questions and doubts on the minds of many young people in 1969, starting with the incalculable loss of the decade’s heroes – JFK, MLK and RFK – and reflections on the brutality of poverty and the activism of the farm workers, UAW and Poor People’s March. First-time director (and future famous actor) Charles Grodin skillfully mixed compelling newsreel imagery with voiceovers and interviews, and interwove performance footage and behind-the-scenes shots of the duo at work. Simon and Garfunkel are spied working out arrangements of new songs, rehearsing their stage band and recording in the studio.

The making-of documentary repeats some moments from the ’69 special, but adds context with discussions of the program’s creation and controversies. There’s additional concert footage and contemporary interviews with Simon, Garfunkel, their manager, Mort Lewis, their engineer/producer, Roy Halee, and two of the studio players (drummer Hal Blaine and bassist Joe Osborn) featured on the album.. The conversation with Halee is particularly illuminating, as he describes how the duo’s studio sound was produced, and provides specifics of the album’s tracks. The song-by-song discussion reveals numerous details on personnel (Fred Carter Jr., for example, played guitar on “The Boxer,” Joe Osborn played an 8-string bass on “Only Living Boy in New York City,” and Larry Knechtel developed the gospel piano on “Bridge Over Troubled Water”), recording locations, production techniques, and brightly highlights the creativity everyone concerned poured into the album.

Missing from the CD are the bonus tracks (“Feuilles-O” and “Bridge Over Troubled Water (Demo Take 6)”) available on earlier releases, as well as the oft-bootlegged session track “Cuba Si, Nixon No,” but the video disc is priceless and a fantastic bonus to celebrate this album’s anniversary. [©2011 hyperbolium dot com]

Simon & Garfunkel’s Home Page

Albert King with Stevie Ray Vaughan: In Session

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Superb meeting of two blues guitar legends with added DVD

This 1983 live performance summit meeting between a legend and a soon-to-be legend has been reissued a few times on CD, including a hybrid SACD in 2003 and a remastered CD edition in July 2010. This latest version augments the original eleven audio tracks with video of seven performances, adding “Born Under a Bad Sign,” “Texas Flood” and “I’m Gonna Move to the Outskirts of Town” to the song list. At the time this pair met in a Canadian TV studio, Vaughan was blazing a trail into the blues world with his debut album, Texas Flood. King was long since a legend, and though he apparently didn’t recognize the name “Vaughan,” he immediately recognized the young guitarist who’d sat in with him whenever he played in Austin.

The video dimension turns this session into a master class for both Vaughan and the viewer. Vaughan is seen soaking up lessons from King’s guitar playing, stage manner and the verbal notes he provides between songs. What was previously a musical conversation now becomes a visual one as well. King is often seen marveling – almost in surprise – at Vaughan’s playing, and Vaughan’s expressions capture the joy he feels in so clearly making the grade. Without a live audience, the two bluesmen play for each other and for the blues. The ease of King’s play, the naturalness with which the guitar forms an extension to his soul is awe inspiring. The snippets of dialogue between the CD’s tracks have always shown the personal bond that complemented the guitar slingers’ artistic connection, but the visuals shed new light on the deep affection they clearly have for one another.

King and Vaughan are backed by the former’s tack sharp road band, and run through a set drawn mostly from King’s catalog. You can hear what was on the horizon, though, as Vaughan rips into his own “Pride and Joy” with monster tone and a gutsy vocal. Throughout the session the players trade licks and prod each other with solos that quote all the great players from whom they learned. King’s influence is clear in Vaughan’s playing, but hearing them side-by-side gives listeners an opportunity to hear how the same fundamentals change as they filter through different fingers and hardware. As Samuel Charters points out in one of the three sets of liner notes, Albert King fans will particularly savor the rare opportunity to hear and see him play rhythm guitar. The audio does a nice job of keeping their guitars separated slightly left and right, and the video lets you see exactly who’s playing what.

As free as both guitarists play, the band, the catalog, and the deference Vaughan shows King all tipped in favor of the latter setting the tempos, leading with his guitar and providing lessons and advice between songs. In any other venue Vaughan would be the master, but here he plays the role of apprentice. How many chances do you get to play with someone who can introduce “Blues at Sunrise” with “This is that thing, uh, I recorded with Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin out there at the Fillmore West”? It was a good time to be the apprentice, and the addition of songs originally cut from the broadcast (to make room for commercials) notches this package up to five stars. Anyone who loves King, Vaughan or great blues guitar should catch this. [©2010hyperbolium dot com]

The Runaways

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A Joan Jett hagiography masquerading as a Runaways biopic

Perhaps its simply ironic justice that a group so thoroughly abused by their managers, the press and each other would, in the ostensible retelling of their story, be so thoroughly abused by their filmmaker and two of their members. The most obvious clue to the on-going animosity between the band members is that bassist Jackie Fox is spitefully renamed in film as the fictional “Robin.” This follows latter-day bassist Victory Tischler Blue being denied the use of original Runaways studio recordings for her documentary Edgeplay: A Film About the Runaways. Add to that the near complete absence of dialog for guitarist Lita Ford and drummer Sandy West in this “biopic,” and you have a film that posits the Runaways as a springboard for Joan Jett’s solo stardom. Even vocalist Cherie Currie, upon whose biography this script is ostensibly based, has her story short-changed in the telling.

The screenplay, credited to first-time feature director Floria Sigismondi, is a mess. The motivations and timeline are muddled, and the band’s story isn’t given any context. Was the band famous or only infamous? What led up to Cherie quitting the band? What happened to Lita and Sandy after The Runaways (or, for that matter, during their time in the Runaways)? The action and plot points often feel made up, rather than based on actual people and events. Worse, the characters’ unending moroseness suggests there wasn’t a moment of joy in the Runaways’ career, and it remains unclear why any of the girls stayed involved in the band. The pacing is tortoise-like and the film’s modern style fails to capture the mood of the times. The dialog and direction often reduce the ‘70s rock milieu to trite shorthand and communicate little feel for the period. The fictional Foxes, in which Currie was featured alongside Jodie Foster in 1980, is a better window into the hard partying hopelessness of late-70s Los Angeles.

Were the script and direction the only weak link, the film’s leads might still have been entertaining, but they’re out of their depth. Kristen Stewart shows little conviction as the firebrand Joan Jett. Dakota Fanning is no better, showing little charisma, sex appeal or rebel spirit, and often looks scared of her role rather than scared within it as an acted emotion. The real-life Currie is compelling and authoritative in the DVD’s making-of documentary, showing Fanning’s characterization to be docile and lost in comparison. The film would have been better cast without movie stars, so as to allow the actual band members’ characters to take center stage. Michael Shannon provides a bravura performance as Kim Fowley, but Sigismondi gives him only one note to play, and his character quickly dissolves into repetition. The script fails to provide any of the characters dramatic arcs – no one is transformed, and when Currie declares that she wants her life back, the viewer is left to wonder why she wants to return to a life that was portrayed as being terrible to begin with.

The historical liberties and omissions are numerous, including the fictionalized introduction of Currie’s infamous corset on the band’s 1977 tour of Japan. Currie’s been widely quoted as having purchased the item in Los Angeles and she can seen wearing it in a 1976 promotional video of “Cherry Bomb.”  More damaging to the film’s credibility, the transformational sexual assault that Currie details in her autobiography is barely alluded to. Jackie Fox’s departure is necessarily skipped, since the bassist was skipped altogether as a character in the film, and the film’s end skips past the Runaways initial post-group activities, including Currie’s solo album, her album (and hit single) with sister Marie, Joan Jett’s trip to the UK, her work with Sex Pistols Paul Cook and Steve Jones, the recording of her 1980 eponymous debut, and Lita Ford’s emergence as a metal guitar goddess. Instead, the film rushes to Jett’s canonization as a solo superstar.

The film’s credit-roll bios of Currie, Jett and Fowley provides the final FU to the rest of the band, whose contributions and post-band lives were apparently insufficiently important to merit mention. One might excuse the mythologizing of the Runaways as the first all-girl rock band (discounting Goldie & The Gingerbreds, the Feminine Complex, Fanny, and numerous garage-rock bands cataloged on Girls With Guitars), but the notion that Joan Jett was the band’s sole artiste serves only to propagate the petty jealousies that tore the group apart in the first place. Floria Sigismondi’s deft work as a modern music video director fails to provide the eye needed to sympathetically capture the feel of the 1970s, and in doing so she fails to tell the Runaways story in a way that does the band justice. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Various Artists: British Invasion

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Stellar box set of four documentaries and a bonus disc

Reelin’ in the Years’ five-DVD set includes excellent documentaries on Dusty Springfield, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Herman’s Hermits and the Small Faces, which are also available individually. Each film is packed with full-length performances (some live, some lip-synched for TV) and interview footage with the principles and other key personnel. Though all four documentaries are worth seeing, the chapters on the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits are particularly fine. In both of these episodes the filmmakers were able to get hold of a deeper vein of period material, and with the Small Faces relatively unknown in the U.S. and the Hermits known only as non-threatening hit makers, the stories behind the music are particularly interesting.

The bonus disc, available only in the box set, adds nine more performances by Dusty Springfield, seven more by Herman’s Hermits, and over ninety minutes of interview footage that was cut from the final films. The music clips include alternate performances of hits that appear in the documentaries, as well as songs (such as a terrific staging of Springfield’s “Twenty Four Hours From Tulsa” and the Hermits’ obscure “Man With the Cigar”) that don’t appear in the finished films. The interview material really show how unguarded and unrehearsed such encounters were in the 1960s. Fans of specific acts are recommended to their individual film, but anyone who loves the British Invasion should see all four plus the bonus disc. For reviews of the individual documentaries, please see here, here, here and here. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Dusty Springfield: Once Upon a Time – 1964-1969

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Sizzling performance clips perk up documentary of soulful ‘60s songbird

One Upon a Time: 1964-1969 is one of four documentaries released as part of a five-DVD British Invasion box set by Reelin’ in the Years Productions. Of the four artists profiles (which also include Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits), Dusty Springfield made perhaps the largest artistic impact on America. Herman’s Hermits had more hits, and the Small Faces were a bigger influence on the mod movement in the UK, but Springfield’s key works, “I Only Want to Be With You,” Bacharach & David’s “Wishin’ and Hopin’,” “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me,” and especially “Son of a Preacher Man” harbored a soulfulness that none of her UK peers could match. She exuded class in her demure, self-contained dance moves, elegant frilled blouses and long skirts.

As with many pop stars of the era, Springfield’s television appearances mixed lip-synching and live performances. Unlike most others, though, her lip-synching was truly expressive. While others simply mimed their vocals, Springfield acted them out with her movements, doing with her body and face what she’d already done with her voice in the studio. Better yet, she was a great live singer, as evidenced by a terrific 1965 performance of “All Cried Out” on the Ed Sullivan show and 1966 NME poll winner’s performances of “In the Middle of Nowhere” and “You Don’t Have to Say You Love Me.” She exhorts the crowd while singing covers of Betty Everett’s “I Can’t Hear You” and Otis Redding’s “Shake,” and without a monitor speaker in sight, delivers pitch-perfect vocals.

Springfield had greater chart success in the UK than the US, but even songs that failed to conquer the states, such as “Some of Your Lovin’” and Bacharach and David’s “I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself,” were strong enough to lodge in the ears of American fans. Even her lower-charting US hits, such as “Stay Awhile” (perfectly covered in 1978 by Rachel Sweet) remain familiar. In 1968 Springfield took her singing to a new level with the sessions that resulted in the album Dusty in Memphis and the single “Son of a Preacher Man.” Amid players and producers whose music had provided the template for her own recordings, she sang with a reserve that spoke to her underlying strength rather than the explicit power she could unleash. Her gospel phrasings and confessional tone gave the hit an intimacy with which listeners connected on a deep, emotional level. Amazingly, the single only reached #10 and became her last hit until a 1987 teaming with the Pet Shop Boys on “What Have I Done to Deserve This?”

This 69-minute documentary includes sixteen performances, each of which (and four more) can be seen in full in the DVD’s extras. There’s also a 24-page booklet that’s stuffed with liner notes by Annie Randall, photos, ephemera and credits. Period interview clips with Springfield from 1964, 1971 and 1978 and contemporary interviews with two of her backup singers (Madeline Bell and Simon Bell) and Burt Bacharach provide interesting personal reflections. The details of Springfield’s anti-apartheid contract clause (for shows in South Africa) are particularly enlightening. The performances are terrific, but, in the end, the documentary doesn’t tell enough of Springfield’s story, and fails to explain (as the liner notes do) why her commercial success faded at the end of the ‘60s. This is worth seeing, particularly for fans, but if you’re interested more generally in the British Invasion, the volumes on the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits are better documentaries. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Gerry & The Pacemakers: It’s Gonna Be All Right – 1963-1965

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Winning documentary of early British Invasion hit-makers

It’s Gonna Be All Right: 1963-1965 is one of four documentaries released as part of a five-DVD British Invasion box set by Reelin’ in the Years Productions. Of the four artists profiled (which also include Dusty Springfield, the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits), Gerry & the Pacemakers might seem the most lightweight. But like all of the artists in this series, what U.S. audiences saw were just the tip of a larger artistic iceberg, and this collection of seventeen vintage musical performances and interviews, television and stage appearances, and contemporary interviews with Gerry Marsden and Bill Harry (founder of the Mersey Beat newspaper) tells more of the band’s story beyond their oft-anthologized hits. The Pacemakers emerge as early exponents of Liverpool’s beat rock, and an act that vied with the Beatles for the seaport town’s music fans.

The parallels between the Pacemakers and the Beatles are many. Both were Liverpool bands with Skiffle roots that turned to covering American R&B. Both honed their live performances in demanding Hamburg gigs, played the Cavern Club, were managed by Brian Epstein, wrote some of their own hits, were produced by George Martin, starred in their own film (Ferry Cross the Mersey), toured America and appeared on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964. The Pacemakers’ music wasn’t as edgy as the Beatles, and Marsden never really varied from his smiling, sometimes hammy, showmanship as a front-man. The group broke in 1963 with “How Do You Do It?” and “I Like It,” and crossed the Atlantic the following year with “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying.” Their earlier U.K. singles would find later success in the U.S., though “You’ll Never Walk Alone” and “I’m the One” (#1 and a #2, respectively) remained UK-only hits.

The group was on the front-lines of the British Invasion, appearing in the 1964 T.A.M.I. Show, but like many of their peers, they never really evolved. Their success in the UK tailed off in 1965, they charted their last single in the States with 1966’s “Girl on a Swing,” and disbanded a month later. Unlike the Small Faces and Herman’s Hermits volumes, this film provides little documentation of the band’s musicians, and few details of their time in the studio or on the road; this is more a nostalgic pass through their catalog (including a nice anecdote about “Don’t Let the Sun Catch You Crying”) than a revelatory document of the band’s history. In addition to the 72-minute documentary, the full individual performances can be viewed via DVD menu options. Bonuses include additional interview footage with and extensive liner notes by Bill Harry. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Gerry & The Pacemakers’ Home Page
Gerry Marsden’s Home Page
Reelin’ in the Years’ Home Page

Herman’s Hermits: Listen People – 1964-1969

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Stellar documentary of endearing British Invasion hit-makers

Listen People 1964-1969 is one of four documentaries released as part of a five-DVD British Invasion box set by Reelin’ in the Years Productions. Like the other three, it’s a terrific collection, spanning twenty-two complete vintage performances, period promotional footage, television and stage performances, and contemporary interviews with Peter Noone, Karl Green (bass), Keith Hopwood (guitar) and Barry Whitwam (drums – sitting in front of his awesome gold-sparkle Slingerland drum set). Noone was – and is – one of the most charming front-men of the British Invasion, and the documentary reveals the band to be much more than a backing unit for their vocalist. Their hits were often the lightest of pop songs, but written, played and sung exceptionally, and the group was a charming live act.

The group’s hit singles were brought to them by producer Mickey Most, who had a golden ear for material and arrangements. Their first single, a 1964 cover of Earl-Jean’s “I’m Into Something Good,” was a worldwide smash and followed by a string of singles, some unreleased in the UK, some unreleased in the US, that kept the group at the top of the charts on both sides of the Atlantic well into 1967. The unusual release strategy left U.S. audiences with a different picture of the group than those in their home country; in particular, “Can’t You Hear My Heartbeat,” “Mrs. Brown, You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter,” “I’m Henry VIII, I Am,” “Listen People,” “Leaning on the Lamp Post,” and “Dandy” were all stateside smashes that went unreleased as singles in the UK.

The documentaries’ interviews reveal the unorthodox story behind the recording and release of the music hall styled “Mrs. Brown,” and recollections of the band’s first NME Poll Winners Concert are born out by a winningly nervous performance. The group looks more comfortable with their up-tempo cover of Sam Cooke’s “Wonderful World,” with the young Noone in his schoolboy suit playing the part of the song’s protagonist. It’s easy to see why he was the sort of heartthrob who induced Beatlemania hysterics in young girls. An early performance of “Fortune Teller” at the Cavern Club shows the group to have had a grittier R&B side that was mostly unused for their hits. The liner notes and commentary mention a hot version of Chuck Berry’s “I’m Talking About You” that unfortunately didn’t seem to make the final cut of the DVD.

The group’s hits rarely strayed from polite pop, failing to navigate many of the changes wrought by the latter half of the 1960s. Their recordings of songs by P.F. Sloan (“A Must to Avoid”), Ray Davies (“Dandy”) and Graham Gouldman (“No Milk Today”) took them towards folk-rock and more poetically crafted lyrics, but even as their clothes took on the fashions of 1966 and 1967 their singles remained “romantic, boy-next-door stuff.” They continued to record through the psychedelic era, having a Top 40 hit with Donovan’s “Museum” (not included here) and thickening their productions with strings and a hint of country twang on “My Sentimental Friend,” but the heavy sounds emanating from San Francisco and elsewhere spelled the end of their hit-making days.

Herman’s Hermits were a feel good band whose chipper music became anachronistic in the face of Monterey Pop and Woodstock. Their singles weren’t trendsetting (though Noone suggests his over-the-top English accent on “Mrs. Brown You’ve Got a Lovely Daughter” freed other British bands to abandon their faked Americana), but they were catchy, sold extremely well, and to this day remain memorable. In addition to the 78-minute documentary, the full individual performances can be viewed via DVD menu options, and bonuses include a 24-minute concert filmed for Australian television, a commentary track, and fifteen minutes of interviews that recollect the Hermits’ 1967 tour with the Who. This is a great documentary for both fans and those who only know a few of the group’s hits. [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

Herman’s Hermit’s Home Page
Herman’s Hermit’s UK Home Page
Peter Noone’s Home Page
Reelin’ in the Years’ Home Page

The Small Faces: All or Nothing – 1965-1968

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Stellar documentary of British Invasion giants

All or Nothing 1965-1968 is one of four documentaries released as part of a five-DVD British Invasion box set by Reelin’ in the Years Productions. It is a spectacular collection of footage that spans twenty-seven complete vintage performances, interviews with the principle band members reflecting on their time as seminal mod and psychedelic rockers, and superb vintage clips of the band creating in the studio, shopping on Carnaby Street and gigging at iconic clubs like the Marquee. The producers have performed miracles in digging up rare television and film footage, and archival interviews with Steve Marriott (from 1985) and Ronnie Lane (from 1988, his last filmed appearance) are complemented by contemporary interviews with Kenney Jones and Ian McLagan.

Though the Small Faces had only one chart hit in the U.S. (1968’s “Itchycoo Park”), their fame in the UK and Europe, not to mention their style, sound and musicianship, were in league with the Who and Stones. The band members post-Small Faces gigs brought a greater helping of stateside fame (Marriott with Humble Pie; Lane, McLagan and Jones with the Faces; and Jones with the latter-day Who), but this 101-minute documentary shows the Small Faces were a group to be reckoned with. Marriott was a ferocious front-man with an aggressive vocal delivery, hot guitar licks and a songwriting partnership with Ronnie Lane that matured from derivative R&B to original tunes that wove pop, rock and psych influences into their bedrock soul. The interviews trace the group’s original influences, the pop sides forced upon them, and the turning points at which they made artistic leaps forward.

Among the biggest events in the Small Faces’ development was a change in management and label from Don Arden and Decca to Andrew Loog Oldham and Immediate. The mod sounds and styles of their early singles quickly became psychedelic, but not before launching their new phase with the 1967 ode to methadrine, “Here Comes the Nice.” Their hair and fashions in the accompanying television performance find the band in transition between the dandy style of the mods and the floral and flowing elements of the hippie revolution. The influence of LSD can be heard in “Green Shadows” and the band’s U.S. breakthrough, “Itchycoo Park,” which McLagan suggests was a rebuttal to England’s formal system of higher education. The group’s pièce de résistance, Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake, is essayed here with a lip-synched clip of the title tune and a seven-song live-sung (but not played) set from the BBC’s Colour Me Pop.

The progression from the hard R&B of “Whatch Gonna Do About It” to their crowning concept album is impressive, but that it happened in only three years is amazing. The story of the Small Faces is told here in the band’s words and music, with interview footage woven among the music clips. The full performances, including four not featured in the documentary, can be viewed separately via DVD menu options. Lane’s full interview and a photo gallery are included as extras, along with a 24-page booklet featuring detailed credits and song notes. This disc will strike a deep nostalgic chord for UK fans, and will be a voyage of discovery for Americans familiar only with “All or Nothing,” “Itchycoo Park,” “Tin Soldier,” and “Lazy Sunday.” [©2010 hyperbolium dot com]

The Small Faces’ Home Page
Reelin’ in the Years’ Home Page

Elvis: Love Me Tender – The Love Songs

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DVD_ElvisLoveMeTenderTheLoveSongsElvis’ career refracted through some of his love songs

This made-for-DVD (and PBS pledge night) special traces a line through Elvis’ career by examining the love songs he performed and the reaction they provoked from his fans. Depicted early on as a hip-swiveling instigator, Elvis’ balladry, though present at the very start of his hit-making career (e.g., 1956’s “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” and “Love Me Tender”), didn’t make for sensational headlines. Still, his ballads were hits, regularly evoked shrieks and swoons from his female audience and became an essential part of his television appearances, film soundtracks and live shows. Early clips here feature Elvis crooning on the Steve Allen and Ed Sullivan shows, the latter a sublime version of “Love Me” in which Elvis plays to the girls in the balcony. There’s a post army clip of Elvis goofing with Frank Sinatra on a television special, and the ’68 comeback special yields Elvis reconnecting with “Are You Lonesome Tonight” and “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

Much of Elvis career in the ‘60s is painted through musical clips drawn from his films. This provides ready-made widescreen color footage, but shortchanges many classic hit ballads in favor of lesser soundtrack material. Luckily, with Elvis’ reentry into live performing at the end of the decade, live footage is once again introduced, with Las Vegas performances of “I Can’t Stop Loving You” and “The Wonder of You” finding Elvis fit and energized, and Aloha From Hawaii yielding “What Now My Love” and “I’ll Remember You.” When there are no film or live performances to draw from, the producers switch to photo montages to accompany studio recordings, such as Elvis’ take on “For the Good Times.” The video closes with a Vegas-era live take of Elvis coming full circle to his early ballad hit, “Love Me Tender.” Elvis prowls the stage and kisses women in the audience as he sings.

The special is narrated by Ashley Judd, who provides background on songs, recording sessions, career machinations and a variety of Elvis trivia. There are also interview clips with Gordon Stoker of the Jordanaires, Joe Moscheo of the The Imperials, Ed Enoch of the Stamps Quartet, and Myrna Smith of The Sweet Inspirations. Thirty-five minutes of additional interview footage is included as an extra, and the stories from those who knew and worked with Elvis are often more compelling than Judd’s scripted narration. Three short commercials for Graceland are also included. Fans will enjoy this 79-minute collection of previously released performances and clips, songs and photos, but if you want deeper analysis, you’ll need to read Peter Guralnik’s biographies. [©2009 hyperbolium dot com]

Elvis Love Songs Home Page