Hendrix, Fogarty, Lennox, Johnny A. and Home of the Blues

Take Five: Session IV casts a net over five DVDs that were on my book shelf, waiting around for me to give them another look. Take Five reviews offer you a quick glimpse at some of the stuff we’ve got hanging around the shop here. Session IV focuses on five DVDs that we popped into our pc DVD drive. Let’s check them out together and see if there’s something here worth watching.

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The Jimi Hendrix Experience Live At Monterey: Let’s start this review with a simple, “Go out and buy this now!” The first part of the DVD is titled, “The Jimi Hendrix Experience: An American Landing” and opens up with Jimi smashing his Strat on stage at Monterey. You’ve got to keep in mind that although Jimi had been playing in the States for years, he made his name in England, before the Yanks realized who and what he was, the best and most formidable guitarist in the world, one who would become the indisputable king of guitar.

Clips of music icons like John Phillips, Michelle Phillips, Chas Chandler, Dave Mason, Noel Redding (Bassist, Jimi Hendrix Experience), Mitch Mitchell (Drummer, Jimi Hendrix Experience), along with Jimi and ‘60s and ‘70s era archival video reflecting the scene at the time. Allan Pariser (Founder, Monterey Pop Festival) and others offered their perspectives of the festival, how it came together and the headliners, including the coup de grace, The Jimi Hendrix Experience.

Behind the scenes clips take us not only back to the day, but backstage, as the festival concept and logistics were conceived and delivered. Excellent footage of Hendrix at his best on “Killing Floor,” “Foxy Lady,” “Hey Joe,” “The Wind Cries Mary,” “Purple Haze” and a monstrously sexual “Wild Thing” performance where Jimi added fuel to the excitement by lighting his Strat, before smashing it to bits on stage, feeding the frenzied crowd the first glimpse of the legend.

Click to Buy Jimi Hendrix at Monterey from Amazon.com

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Antone’s Home of The Blues – Obsessed with the blues, Clifford Antone helped pioneer a new appreciation for the blues when he opened Antone’s on July 15, 1975 in Port Arthur, Texas. Antone’s quickly became a hot spot circuit stop for blues artists, featuring such luminaries as Buddy Guy, Hubert Sumlin, James Brown, Albert Collins, Gatemouth Brown, Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, Willie Nelson, George Jones and a remarkable list of blues, country, and other music giants.

Antone’s Home of the Blues is a cool little historical masterpiece with commentary by Clifford, Buddy Guy, Jimmie Vaughan, and others telling it like it was back in the day when the blues was reduced to a backwater style of music full of underappreciated and out of work blues masters who were barely surviving in the wake of “white bread” rock ‘n’ roll. Enter Clifford Antone and his club that offered a venue, a payday and sometimes a place to sleep. The historical video of Eddie Taylor, Albert Collins, Luther Tucker, B.B. King, and Stevie Ray Vaughan are really sacred clips for those of us who play guitar.

You’d think Antone must have made a bundle of bucks with the line up of musicians playing his club, but his sense of appreciation of the blues masters and his own generosity, barely kept the doors open. As much as Antone’s Home of the Blues is about the club, it’s an introduction to some of the grand masters of blues guitar and a must have in my opinion.

Click to Buy Antone’s Home of the Blues from Amazon.com

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John Fogerty: Premonitions – Grab a tub of butter dripping popcorn and a giant soda and sit down for an amazing session with swamp rat, John Fogerty, hanging out on the bayou. With a stage complete with moss covered Cypress trees, a backwoods shack, and low lying fog, the atmosphere is just right for Fogerty to crank out hits like “Born on a Bayou,” “Green River,” “Who’ll Stop the Rain,” “Centerfield,” “Travelin’ Band” and enough swamp rock to make Mary proud.

John latches onto some pretty cool guitars while on stage with a mix of Gibson Les Pauls, a red burst Rickenbacher, a red Tele, a Strat, a slide guitar and a unique axe shaped like a baseball bat on “Centerfield.” Fogerty’s playing is solid and his vocals are in top form. It’s well worth it to fork over some bucks for Premonition, sitting back launching popcorn into your mouth, while trying to sing along. A fun romp.

Click to Buy Premonitions from Amazon.com

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Annie Lennox: Live in Central Park – I’ve always considered Annie Lennox a great artist and her own art form. She’s got that hipster androgynous lanky cool about her that can’t be bought, uh, like her first song on the video claims, “Money Can’t Buy It.” Over the years, Lennox has been a chameleon, changing like a shape shifter, in her style and musical inclinations. From slinky cool lyrics to bop rock and even the eerily seductive soul reflected in her videos intriguing phantasmagorical rendition of Procol Harum’s ‘67 hit, “A Whiter Shade of Pale.” Live in Central Park sold out in 10 minutes!

As much fun as the concert clips are on this video, I got a kick out of the short studio clip of her and her session group. AL: Live in Central Park features 16 video tracks that include: “Little Bird,” “Legend in My Living Room,” “Sweet Dreams are Made of These,” “Walking on Broken Glass,” “A Whiter Shade of Pale,” “Why” and more. Hollywood Reporter got it right when it said, “A magical evening…”

Click to Buy Live in Central Park From Amazon.com

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One November Night – Johnny A. – Anyone familiar with Johnny A., will certainly dig this video, with its group of honey-laden guitar instrumentals, beginning with a jump start called “I Had To Laugh” that cruises along in high gear. Always melodic and tasteful, Johnny has a talent for selecting just the right songs to fit his style, and his fans love it. One their favorites, “Sing Singin’,” locks in tight with a splurge of cool hip riffs, before he takes on the Jimi Hendrix classic “The Wind Cries Mary,” hard-wired with a funky backbeat.

A performance by Johnny A. really isn’t complete without “Get Inside,” a track that I consider his signature track that injects the blues-funk piece with enough turgid reverb and sneering fuzz to make anyone a fan. I particularly dug his take on a tune from The Beatles’ Help album, “The Night Before” that treated the classic just right, with a great feel of the styles of Chet Atkins and George Harrison. In between performances, Johnny talks about his music, what it means to him and what he hopes it means to his listeners.

For my bucks, Johnny A. doing Jimmy Webb is the ultimate in guitar dreaminess and Webb’s ’68 hit composition, sung by Glen Campbell is a perfect fit for Johnny’s style. “Memphis, Tennessee” keeps things moving along nicely, until the next track where Johnny pushes the envelope of his Gibson Signature model, with a funk rock tribute to Jimi Hendrix, called “Jimi Jam”. As much as I enjoyed watching this CD, I was really hoping for more Jimmy Webb tracks. Still, this is a cool DVD by a guy who should be a household name, at least in households with a guitar.

Click to Buy One November Night from Amazon.com