American Folk Blues Festival. The British Tours 1963 1966 [DVD]

Customer Reviews

Sonny Boy makes it 5 Stars

2007-10-28
I have all of the DVD's for this series. If you love the blues and want to see the people who lived it and created it, these DVD's are great. I'm a harmonica player and Sonny Boy Williams II really was a showman. He plays a few songs on this DVD, I imagine he was quite a character.

American Folk-Blues Festival: The British Tours 1963-1966 (DVD)

2007-08-09
Overall i absolutely loved this DVD, it's a classic watch.
You can't go passed the great Howling Wolf, and it was a joy to be able
to watch Hulbert Sumlin play.
Honourable mention goes to Sister Rosetta Tharpe and her Gibson SG, she is an inspiration!

Outstanding Blues Disc!

2007-07-30
Wonderful footage of classic blues artists! The Howling Wolf footage alone on this disc is worth the price. I was floored by Sugar Pie DeSanto's performance and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. Watch drummer Fred Below lose a drumstick right after Little Brother Montgomery's piano solo during the Big Joe Turner number- and I don't think he ever got it back!
I only have 2 complaints: I don't think there is any excuse for not doing some serious homework and finding out who the bass player and drummer were who were playing on the bonus tracks with Muddy Waters and Sister Rosetta Tharpe. A previous reviewer said the drummer was Willie Big Eyes Smith. If that's true and a reviewer knew that, how hard would it be for the producer/editor/liner notes guy to dig up that information before the disc comes out? These guys who are perfectly recognizable on the disc deserve better. My only other complaint is that this disc doesn't last long enough. Enjoy!

ENGLAND LOVES THE BLUES

2007-07-05
Not much to add to Perrys great review,but mention should be made of the accompanying 2opage booklet,includes photos of the artists and great memories and facts by the great English blues researcher Mike Rowe.
Sound and vision on these wonderful performances are as good as you can expect some 40yrs after the events---back in the days when us English boys used to put on shirt and tie,nice suit and go to the concert.
If you have the previous 3 releases in this series,this is a great addition,if you have any interest in blues history, essential.Thank you to everybody who put this release together--wonderful!!

This IS the Real Blues!

2007-06-29
This series originally came out during the Year Of The Blues (2003) and provided us with glimpses of the real originals in this genre. The first three volumes gave us a lot of wonderful clips of Wolf, Sonny Boy, Memphis Slim, Otis Rush, Muddy, T-Bone, Big Mamma, Lonnie Johnson and so on. The German settings were a bit sterile and often staged to look like a Juke or with strange back drops of urban America. This set, from 1963-1966, is more like a concert. And it's great!

The concert format with an appreciative audience is really fantastic and well done for the time. We see Sonny Boy Williamson in three performances with the harp in his mouth sideways and playing with his NOSE! He is cool, no wonder he taught Little Walter (whose only recorded performance is in Vol. 3 of this series!).We also see Hubert Sumlin play with Sonny Boy on his second offering in this show. He turns in one of his most unusual solos in "Getting Out Of Town"- very chromatic and almost jazzy! We see Muddy as a stand up singer (no guitar), on "Mojo" and in two bonus performances. He has Matt "Guitar" Murphy playing behind him on this one (who was playing with Memphis Slim at the time). There is a rare look at the great Lonnie Johnson, who plays by himself and shows us why he is one of the original inventors of the Urban Blues guitar style. Big Joe Williams gives us a close up view of his famous nine string guitar.

Lightnin' Hopkins plays his distinctive Texas-style acoustic blues, with a few tricks on the fretboard as well. Howlin' Wolf puts in, to me, his best ever filmed performance-it's worth the price of the whole thing!!! He does an update of "Smokestack Lightning" (without its famous riff) and "Don't Laugh At Me" in a "Killing Floor" groove, a song which had just been recorded. And we also see a young Hubert Sumlin playing with Wolf and also with Sugar Pie Desanto's female input (these shows always had at least one female performer).

Big Joe Turner does his usual big voiced thing and he has Otis Rush on lead guitar, it's a fantastic performance, one of the best insight's into Otis's guitar style we've seen. A bonus in this tune is that we see maybe the only existing footage of pianist Little Brother Montgomery who wrote "The First Time I met the Blues" and "I Can't Keep From Crying"-this is a rarity. Also scarce is film of drummer Fred Below, who gave the beat to Chess Records. Fred plays on this tune and in Junior Well's section.

Junior Wells is in his James Brown groove (he always did this! In Australia in 1991 when I saw him he led off with "I Feel Good"). He does Ray Charles'"What'D I Say" in a JB style, but we hear no harp! Sister Rosetta Tharpe, one of the first US Blues/Gospel acts to crack the UK, finishes the set with two of the bonus tracks. They are superb as is Muddy Waters' two bonus tracks staged and filmed at a railway station-very effective. His slide playing (standing up) is another extremely rare view of Muddy.

This is one of the most historic releases for urban blues yet available. The sound has been remixed by Eddie Kramer (of Jimi Hendrix fame) and Reelin' In The Years Productions have done it again! I hope they can find more of these rarities soon. We need the Fillmore Concerts that were on PBS in the late sixities. Get this for your Blues collection and check the price, what a bargain!

american folk blues festival

2008-03-10
Having a live recording is owning a piece of history,I wish that I could name the concerts that I attended way back when and bam heres a live recording of a piece of your life frozen in time.Very well done.Can you come up with a live performance of Paul Butterfield in 1968....??...

legends.

2008-03-07
Great to see these legends in their prime. The English audience is more lively than the German one.

Vol. 4 -

2007-12-26
Can't wait for the arrival of V 4 of this series. V1-3 are must haves for any serious students of American Blues. The DVD captures performances of some of the the greatest - Bluesmen/women - America has ever produced.

As iternated in the booklets of V. 1-3, many modern rockers/bluesmen - ie Eric Clapton, Mick Jagger, Robert Plant . . etc. say, these gaints were major influences on their careers.

Don't hesitate - - - order it !!!

Nina Jensen

Just as good as all the rest-And that's the best there is!

2007-12-24
WOW! I don't know how much they found of this stuff, but I can't get enough! Fantastic footage of the legends in their 60's prime--Muddy, the Wolf, Lightnin', Sonny Boy, and all the rest, as always preserved in two more incredible hours of super clean B&W footage with beautifully preserved live audio. The railroad station show is weird, but I sure loved seeing Big Joe Turner accompanied by Otis Rush, and Willie Dixon backing nearly everyone on accoustic bass (as he did on most of the previous 3 vols.)Dig Sonny Boy's two tone suit, and the phenominal funk of Junior Wells, who kicks hell out of "What'd I Say" without even picking up his harp! Sugar Pie, a fish out of H2O, is the only weak link. Long live Reelin' In The Years and the Hendrix family!

Just got more warmed up for more Blues

2007-11-28
Now I want to purchase the other American Folk Blues DVDs - Great footage of these giants of the blues - Sound is outstanding as well - I will be purchasing the other DVDs in this series next