Chavela
(2017/Music Box DVD)/Grace
Jones: Bloodlight and Bam
(2018)/Live At Boggo Road
Jail (1993/Thorpe -
Aztecs/both Umbrella Region Free PAL Import DVDs)/Lynn
Anderson: Rose Garden/Greatest Hits
(1970/1972/Vocalion Records/Columbia/Sony/Quadraphonic Hybrid Super
Audio CD/SACD/SA-CD)/Records
Collecting Dust II
(2018/MVD Visual DVD)
Picture:
B-/C+/C/X/C Sound: B-/C+/C+/B+ B B-/C+ Extras: B/D/D/C-/C
Main Programs: B/B/B-/B/B-
PLEASE
NOTE:
The Grace
Jones
and Live
Import DVDs are now only available from our friends at Umbrella
Entertainment in Australia and can only play on Blu-ray, 4K Blu-ray
and DVD players that can handle the PAL DVD format, while the Lynn
Anderson
double feature Super Audio CD is only available exclusively through
Vocalion Records as an import as well. All can be ordered from the
links below.
Now
for a strong group of new music releases you should absolutely know
about if you like or love music...
Chavela
(2017) is
an interesting documentary about musician Chavela Vargas, a talented
young woman who became one of Mexico's most iconic Ranchera Singer in
the 1950s. Directed by Documentary filmmakers Catherine Gund (Born
to Fly)
and Daresha Kyi (Dispatches
from Cleveland),
the well made film is
sure to entertain and warm your heart simultaneously.
The
interviewees includes Director Pedro Almodovar, Miguel Bose, Tania
Libertad, Martirio, and Elena Benarroch. The film has went on to win
several awards including notoriety from AFI Docs and Outfest.
Chavela
Vargas was a brave musician in a time when women didn't have the same
rights as they do today. Unafraid to wear pants, smoke, and be
herself in front of a live audience on stage. Her memorable music
became a favorite amongst many and ultimately her presence and words
become legendary. In later life, she became a muse to Filmmaker
Pedro Almodovar, earn a Lifetime Achievement Grammy, and sold out
performances even in her later years.
Special
Features include...
Commentary
with Directors Catherine Gund and Daresha Kyi
Filmmaker
Q and A from the New York Premiere
Interview
with the Filmmakers
Rare
1991 Interview with Chavela
Live
Chavela Concert Performance
Sophie
Fiennes's Grace
Jones: Bloodlight and Bam
(2018) is a fine look at the all-time music icon working on a new
album she is backing herself, touring, dealing with family and
looking at where her life stands now. The legend whose beginnings
were out of the harder side of Disco, Punk and New Wave has several
classic hits to her credit (she performs some of them here very well,
far from any kind of legacy act indeed), we see her also dealing with
the music business today, her ups and downs and get an honest
character portrait of one of the most underrated music artists of our
time and maybe of all time.
Running
two hours, this never gets repetitive, boring or lost, though her
feature film appearances never come up. I like her and it is amazing
how well she has aged, her voice has endured and how she never sold
out her audience. Still selling out shows worldwide, it reminded me
of the recent look at Gary Numan's career today, but he needed to
deal with issues Miss Jones has managed to dodge for the most part.
Glad to see both icons doing well from what is the most underrated
period of modern music around.
Though
other editions offer extras, this import DVD sadly does not.
Next
up is a triple DVD set called Live
At Boggo Road Jail
(1993) that actually collects three previously issued DVDs from the
same locale and time, including a great show from The DiVinyls and
uncompromising Rose Tattoo show we reviewed in the same text here...
http://www.fulvuedrive-in.com/review/11627/DiVinyls+Live:+Jailhouse+Rock/Rose+Tattoo+Live
The
show we missed is by Billy
Thorpe & The Aztecs,
whom we've covered before in compilations in the past, but never an
entire disc of them. Here, they reunited for the first time since
1972 (!!!) in what is a serious genre event for Rock Music fans Down
Under (et al) and the results fall somewhere between DiVinyls (still
my favorite of the three) and Rose Tattoo. All three shows are worth
seeing once and it is sad that since we covered the DiVinyls show,
lead singer Christine Pamphlet passed away far too young.
None
of the discs have any extras, unfortunately.
Next
are two of the biggest albums ever released by one of the greatest of
all country singers in the genre's history. Lynn
Anderson: Rose Garden
(1970) and Greatest
Hits
(1972) have been issued on one disc by the great indie record label
Vocalion.
Both originally issued by Columbia Records (now part of Sony Music),
the first album has a title song that is one of the all-time
crossover hits of all time, both the title song (sometimes also
listed as ''(I Never Promised You A) Rose Garden'') topped the Hot
100 and Country charts, the album was top Country and #3 200 Album
Survey chart, plus it is one of the first hits to inspire an entire
movie and was one of the most pop-culture referenced songs of thw
1970s and of all time. That's a classic.
Proving
that classic Country Music is audiophile quality and as worthy of
such upscale treatment, this new disc is a Hybrid Super Audio Compact
Disc (aka SACD or SA-CD) offering the original 2-channel mixes, but
especially delivering the music in 4-track sound from the original
quadraphonic masters made at the time. One may wonder if it can make
that much of a difference, but it absolutely does and this is now
some of the sonically most capable Country in print anywhere, ever.
Then
there are the songs, a mix of cover tunes and originals that show off
Anderson's range, recorded with two different, but very effective
backing vocal groups. Of course, we all know the Jordanaires from
their classic work with no less than Elvis Presley. Here are the
track listing for each album...
Rose
Garden
1.
Rose Garden (South)
2. For the Good Times (Kristofferson)
3.
Another Lonely Night (Butler; Crutchfield)
4. I Don't Wanna Play
House (Sutton; Sherrill)
5. Snowbird (MacLellan)
6. Your Sweet
Love Lifted Me (Sutton; Richey)
7. Sunday Mornin' Comin' Down
(Kristofferson)
8. I Still Belong to You (Foster; Rice)
9. I
Wish I Was a Little Boy Again (Sutton; Edwards)
10. It's Only Make
Believe (Twitty; Nance)
11. Nothing Between Us (Anderson)
Lynn
Anderson (vocal)
The Nashville Edition (background vocals) [1-4,
7-8]
The Jordanaires (background vocals) [5-6, 9-11]
Note
that #4 might sound familiar as it was featured in an early scene,
very effectively, in Ridley Scott's Thelma
& Louise
(reviewed elsewhere on this site).
Lynn
Anderson's Greatest Hits
12.
Rose Garden (South)
13. Cry (Kohlman)
14. How Can I Unlove You
(South)
15. Stay There 'til I Get There (Sutton)
16. That's
What Loving You Has Meant to Me (Sutton)
17. Listen to a Country
Song (Messina; Garth)
18. You're My Man (Sutton)
19. No Love at
All (Thompson; Christopher)
20. Don't Say Things You Don't Mean
(Sutton)
21. I'm Gonna Write a Song (Sutton)
22. Nothing
Between Us (Anderson)
Lynn
Anderson (vocal)
The Nashville Edition (background vocals) [12,
14, 16-17, 19-20]
The Jordanaires (background vocals) [13, 15, 18,
21-22]
The
label cleverly holds some of the good songs on the original studio
album instead of giving them away one the hits set, so the overlap is
limited between the two. I'll get into the technical details more
below, but will say Anderson was a great singer, this is all the
evidence you need with this great disc and she only recently passed
away. Reba McIntyre noted how vital she was for women in Country all
the way to today when she left us, reminding us that Anderson was
part of a new generation of female solo Country singers (like Loretta
Lynn, Dolly Parton, Tanya Tucker, Tammy Wynette and even Olivia
Newton-John) that brought new honesty and realism to all women in
music (by way of Patsy Cline, some would suggest) and should never be
forgotten. The work holds up, sounds greater than you'd expect here
and is highly recommended.
Good
liner notes are the only extra.
Finally
we have Records
Collecting Dust II
(2018) which is a sequel to a currently out-of-print documentary we
never got to cover. Essentially, Punk Rock musicians (et al) spend a
surprisingly rich 78 minutes talking about their favorite music, the
first vinyl records (LPs and singles) they ever bought, how music
first impressed them, where else they encountered music that made
them dive permanently into the art form and also share other personal
stories in what tends to be very fun viewing. The only flaw is I
wish someone who loved music was asking them additional questions,
but that would make it another kind of program.
You
may recognize the names or at least some of the music bands various
interviewees are (were) associated with, but either way, music lovers
will find it hard not to relate to what we see and hear here. Cheers
to the makers showing off the many covers and actual discs
throughout.
Extras
include more footage and interviews that did not make the final cut.
Now
for playback performance. The 4.0 Quadraphonic DSD (Direct Stream
Digital) lossless sound mix on the Anderson
SA-CD is easily the sonic champ here, especially in the face of
nothing but DVDs, but she was one of the first Country artists (and
female artists for that matter) to get the four-track treatment when
that trend started in the 1970s. The results are impressive, allow
you to hear details you've never heard in any of the songs before,
make the musicianship and backing vocals all the more clear and prove
that Anderson was one of the best singers in the history of the genre
and an American treasure. The 2.0 DSD Stereo is fine and PCM 2.0
16/44.1 Stereo CD layer as good as any CD of her work out there, but
the 4.0 mixes are revelations and audiophiles will love this disc as
much as fans. Those without SA-CD capacity will want to upgrade!
Chavela
is presented in standard definition DVD with an anamorphically
enhanced widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and a lossy Spanish Dolby
Digital 5.1 mix with English Subtitles. The film features many high
quality images and great editing. While the quality of some clips
are a bit rough due to age, the overall look and feel of the doc is
on point.
The
anamorphically enhanced 1.85 X 1 image on Grace
looks so good, I cannot wait to see it in HD, but the 1.33 X 1 image
on Boggo
and anamorphically enhanced 1.78 X 1 on Dust
can be problematic at times. Both have analog videotape flaws
including video noise, video banding, telecine flicker, tape
scratching, cross color, faded color and tape damage, while Dust
can also have some digititis. Still, it is worth suffering some of
their flaws to see the material.
The
lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 on Grace
is fine and would definitely sound better lossless, but the lossy
Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo on Thorpe
(probably would also benefit from lossless treatment and restoration
like the other DVDs, including an HD upscaling down the line) and
Dust
(talking interrupted by good music) are about as good as they can
get.
To
order either of the
Umbrella import DVDs, go to this link for them and other hard-to-find
releases at:
http://www.umbrellaent.com.au/
...and
to order the great Lynn
Anderson
SA-CD, which includes its CD layer that will play on all CD-capable
players, go to this link to order...
https://www.duttonvocalion.co.uk/proddetail.php?prod=CDLK4612
-
Nicholas Sheffo and James
Lockhart (Chavela)
https://www.facebook.com/jamesharlandlockhartv/
