Muddy Waters-Classic Concerts (2005) (NTSC)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	Menu Animation & Audio Bonus Track-'The Blues Had a Baby' Interviews-Cast-Interview From 'The Old Grey Whistle Test' 1972 Interviews-Cast-Interview From The Molde Jazz Festival 1977 Booklet Bonus Track-Audio only from Newport Jazz Festival
Rating
Year Of Production	2005
Running Time	100:15 (Case: 120)
RSDL / Flipper	Dual Layered	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	1,2,3,4,5,6	Directed By	None Given
Studio Distributor	Universal Pictures Home Video	Starring	Muddy Waters
Case	Amaray Variant
RPI	?	Music	None Given

    Muddy Waters is most probably the greatest blues performer ever to walk the planet. I know that is a big statement but his influence is enormous and other great artists such as Buddy Guy and even the Rolling Stones quote him as a massive influence. His body of recorded work includes one classic song after another, many of which are now standards played by every bar blues band in the world. Accordingly, as a major fan of the blues, I was very excited to review this release called Classic Concerts. It certainly lives up to its name and is a great DVD production from top to bottom.

    The main program is made up of three concerts from three different eras of Muddy's career with three different and wonderful bands behind him. The first concert is his justifiably famous date at the Newport Jazz Festival in 1960, which was made into an LP by Chess Records. The producers of this DVD have used both the stereo masters of the LP and the original (but much poorer) mono sound from the film in combination to ensure that the best sound quality possible is available on each track. Of the five tracks included three have been synched to the stereo masters and two retain the original mono sound (as they were not included on the LP). This performance shows Muddy at his playful and yet blistering peak as he and the band burn through four famous tracks followed by a jam with other acts at the festival including Jimmy Rushing amongst others. The version included here of Got My Mojo Working is truly incredible with power and sexual potency. Muddy's band features greats such as Otis Spann on piano, Pat Hare on guitar and James Cotton on harmonica.

    The second concert is from the Copenhagen Jazz Festival eight years later in 1968. This set, although slightly more subdued is still certainly a wonderful performance by the band. This one includes 8 tracks including two sung by Otis Spann rather than Muddy. The band this time includes Luther 'Snake' Johnson, Pee Wee Madison & Paul Oscher on Harmonica.

    The third concert in the main feature is from the Molde Jazz Festival in Norway from 1977 towards the end of Muddy's illustrious career. It is obvious that age is catching up with Muddy in this performance as he sits down through most of it, however, the musicianship of both he and the band is not diminished. This band includes Bob Margolin (who wrote the wonderful notes in the extensive booklet included), Pinetop Perkins on piano, Jerry Portnoy on harmonica and the great rhythm section of Calvin Jones & Willie Smith.

    This is a fantastic collection of live shows and to my knowledge the only live DVD of Muddy available in Region 4 (the disc is all regions encoded). Excellent and very detailed work has been done to ensure this is an excellent DVD production including a comprehensive booklet with great detail about Muddy, his career, the shows included on the disc and the process of getting the DVD together. Even the DVD itself has artwork to make it look like a 45rpm single of Muddy from the Chess label. Great work!

    Extremely highly recommended and a must for blues fans.

Video

    The video quality is very good, especially considering the age and type of sources.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio non 16x9 enhanced which is probably the original aspect ratio. The disc is presented in NTSC so ensure your system can playback NTSC before purchasing.

    The first portion of the main feature from the Newport Jazz Festival had by far the worst video quality but I believe that it is as good as can be expected for live film footage of this age. It is in black and white and is quite dirty, grainy and noisy although always watchable. There were also some tape tracking errors although they were very minor.

    The second portion from Copenhagen was still in black & white although was significantly better in quality. There was some light grain although the picture was quite clear and sharp considering the age of the footage.

    The last portion from Molde was in colour but included a few artefacts such as comet trails from instruments and lights, quite a bit of microphony (eg 10:40) and some colour bleeding.

    There are subtitles available for the extra features but not otherwise, but this is certainly not a major issue.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is excellent considering the various sources.

    This DVD contains an English Linear PCM 48/16 2.0 soundtrack encoded at 1536 Kb/s. This is mostly in stereo except for two tracks from the first show as mentioned above. The mono tracks were a bit muffled and indistinct, muddy if you will (ha, ha). The stereo stuff was great, with clear and distinct instrumentation, surprisingly so on the Newport tracks. I suppose considering that these have been taken from the live recording masters from the Chess Records archive, you would expect them to be good.

    The surround speakers and subwoofer were not used.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    Some excellent extras round out this wonderful package.

Menu

    The menu included music, moving footage of the various band members for each concerts and a nice design. Good stuff!

Booklet

    A 16 page booklet is included with long time Muddy Waters guitarist Bob Margolin writing the lines notes which are detailed, personal and fascinating. Also included are details of all the tracks included, band listings and lots of photos. It has been made to look like a passport. Bill Wyman also provides a foreword.

Picture Disc

    I don't usually consider a picture disc to be an extra but this one has been made to look like a classic Chess Records single with the same design as Chess singles of the time Muddy was recording. Another example of the great thought and detail which went into this production.

Bonus Tracks - Audio (16:51)

    Extra audio only tracks are included from the Newport performance, ones which were on the LP but not included on the film. They are presented with footage of the festival running behind and include I Got my Brand on You, Soon Forgotten, I Feel So Good and Goodbye Newport Blues. Great addition.

Bonus Track - The Blues Had a Baby And They Named it Rock & Roll (5:37)

    A track from a UK live show in 1977 which was shown on the television show So It Goes including dodgy introduction by the show's host. The track is great and another excellent addition.

Interview - Old Grey Whistle Test (4:16)

    An interview on the venerable British television show from Jan 1972. Muddy discusses the history and status of the blues which is quite interesting.

Interview - Molde Jazz Festival 1977 (6:55)

    Another interesting interview but this time Muddy gets asked lots of dumb questions and tries to respond without being rude, although the interviewer does get his back up at one point.

    This disc is available globally in exactly the same format.

    The video quality is very good.

    The audio quality is excellent.

    This is a great production all round, and includes some very worthwhile extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall