Customer Reviews

Casey Kasem's Rock n' Roll Goldmine - The Soul Years [VHS]

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Sadly, DVD's of classic Soul performances in their prime years (1950s to the mid 70s) are very scarce. Ed Sullivan's DVD on the subject,a few documentaries on the major players with incomplete performances, and this are about the only domestic non-bootlegs that are currently available.

That said, it consists of lip-synched (although in the case of Otis, Aretha, and Sam & Dave it's hard to tell) performances of some of the major players from the 1960s. While it ain't exactly Shindig! or stuff done live at the Apollo, it's still a lot of fun. Little Stevie Wonder does an interesting performance of "Fingertips" for some really cute inner-city cheerleaders circa 1963 (watching this clip as a child made me want to play the harmonica in the first place). James Brown does some slick moves in "I Feel Good" while Sam and dave do a rocking sanctified church performance of "Hold On, I'm Coming." Ike and Tina do an interesting version of "River Deep,Mountain High" which combines their version with the Supremes/4Tops remake. Check out Aretha getting the "Holy Ghost" (hardcore Soul and Gospel fans will know what I mean) during "Respect." Overlall, it'll make you shake a tail feather.

I had so looked forward to receiving this as I was 16 when all this stuff was happening and dearly love all this music. This DVD is atrocious. Grainy black and white images of mostly lip synched performances, but the worst part is the sound. Terrible, like badly compressed AM radio sound. I have a good stereo rig and was not expecting audiophile quality, just hoping it would be close to CD quality. It is not. We could not even sit through the whole disc without skipping ahead hoping at least a couple songs would be worthwhile. They weren't. Don't be fooled by the 5.1 surround, it is just surround of the same terrible sound as the stereo channels. I cannot believe they released this, it is pure rip off.