Bob Corritore Blues News

January 28, 2009

• Previously Unseen American Folk Blues Festival Footage Now Available on DVD: Scott Dirks reports the following exciting news: The brand new DVD of never-before-seen video of Little Walter, Big Walter, Jimmy Reed, T-Bone Walker, Big Joe Williams, Hound Dog Taylor, Koko Taylor, Son House, Skip James, Magic Sam, Earl Hooker, Carey Bell, Curtis Jones, Clifton Chenier, and others has just been released. Legends of The American Folk Blues Festival contains the complete German TV programs of the 1967, 1968, and 1969 AFBF shows. Segments of the 1969 program were used in another DVD release a few years ago, but the 1967 and 1968 shows have never been released or seen anywhere since they were originally broadcast in the '60s - these are not included in the Reelin' In The Years DVDs of a few years ago. The '67 show features Little Walter singing "My Babe", "Mean Old World", and a playing a great untitled harp instrumental. The '68 show features Big Walter Horton playing "Juke" (!) and playing behind John Lee Hooker on several songs, plus the only known video of Jimmy Reed performing with his long-time musical partner Eddie Taylor. It also features T-Bone Walker, both leading the band, and playing some nice piano behind John Lee Hooker. Other featured artists include Big Joe Williams, T-Bone Walker, and Curtis Jones. The 1969 show is the only one that has been seen before, but only partially - a few excerpts were released a few years ago, but this is the entire program as originally broadcast. All of this is on a single DVD, which can now be ordered from the company releasing it in Germany. The one catch is that the DVD is in the European standard PAL video format, and not the US standard NTSC video format. I've been told that PAL DVDs will play in any computer's DVD drive (and can confirm that it plays in mine). And even though they're not advertised as such, many current stand-alone US standard DVD players will play PAL format DVDs - my run-of-the-mill Toshiba DVD player plays it perfectly. For more info on the DVD including sample video clips, click here; to order, click here.