King, Carole-In Concert (1994)

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General		Extras
Category	Music	None
Rating
Year Of Production	1994
Running Time	84:47
RSDL / Flipper	No/No	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Menu
Region Coding	2,4	Directed By	Larry Jordan
Studio Distributor	Warner Vision	Starring	Carole King Rudy Guess Teddy Andreadis John Humphrey Jerry Angel Danny Pelfrey Brie Howard Darling Linda Lawley Sherry Goffin Bill Mason
Case	Amaray-Transparent
RPI	$39.95	Music	Carole King

    Carole King has a musical career that spans nearly 50 years, beginning with her knocking on music publishing/recording executive doors as a 16 year old high school student to a songwriter to a very successful singer and even Broadway actress. Her album Tapestry sold millions of copies when it was released in the 70s - during an era in which there was a sharp downturn in the recording industry. In the late 70s and 80s, she became one of the first performers in rock to concentrate on writing songs about the environment and personal, spiritual concerns that would later be explored by New Age followers. She also branched out to scoring films and writing songs for film & TV, such as 1986's Murphy's Romance.

    Carole King In Concert is a Connecticut Public Television production recorded live in the Bushnell Memorial Hall, Hartford, Connecticut. The venue looks really posh, with lavish interiors reminiscent of a European opera house, and Carole looks quite vibrant, exuberant and youthful. I wish I had legs like hers. She is accompanied by no less than a six piece band and two backup singers (including one who bears more than a passing resemblance to Madonna).

    I quite enjoyed this concert and, judging by the audience reaction, so did the audience on that night. There are a fair amount of screaming guitar solos and rippling keyboard sounds during this concert. The keyboard player, Teddy Andreadis, (who also sings towards the end of Old Song Medley) looks like he's got a puppy love (actually, make that teddy bear love) crush on Carole! Hold Out For Love and Locomotion features the Voices of Jubilation choir and Slash on the guitar. The only thing that disappointed me in this concert is that Carole is obviously past her singing prime and occasionally does not quite hit all the notes at the right pitch.

Video

    The aspect ratio for this transfer is obviously full frame (1.33:1) and is not 16x9 enhanced.

    Basically, the film source is broadcast video quality and is reasonably sharp and detailed, with good colour saturation. The only gripe I have is that low level detail can sometimes be a little below perfect (but normal for a video source) - this is more than compensated by extremely deep black levels (again, typical for a video source).

    The camera footage of the concert is blocked by the head of a person standing in front of the lens at 50:25.

    I cannot detect any film-to-video artefacts - not even any ringing or haloing - apart from very minor aliasing every once in a blue moon. Full marks for an excellent and superb transfer!

    The feature is accompanied by several foreign language subtitle tracks, but these are only engaged for on-stage conversations, not for song lyrics. I did not engage any of the subtitle tracks.

Video Ratings Summary

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

Audio

    The Dolby Digital track is quite pleasant and appears to be derived from a stereo source that has been remixed into 5.1 surround. The centre and surround speakers are mostly used for ambience. There is no really deep bass in the mix, so I think the subwoofer would not have been kept busy.

    The Dolby Stereo track is mastered at a lower level. As is typical for most Dolby 2.0 tracks, it lacks the crispness and soundstage of a PCM audio track which I would have much preferred.

Audio Ratings Summary

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

Menu

• various stills including Discography, Biography, and a list of her Top 40 hits

• Nothing of consequence (foreign language subtitle tracks)

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall