Customer Reviews

Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues

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Not as thorough as "The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan", but much better than the flawed "Greatest Hits" CD, this installment in the "Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues"-series focuses on Stevie Ray Vaughan the bluesman rather than Stevie Ray Vaughan the blues-rocker.

Almost all of these songs are blues tunes, and since this is called "Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues", that's how it should be.
It features Stevie Ray's (generally excellent) covers of classic 50s and 60s blues tune like Hound Dog Taylor's "Give Me Back My Wig", Otis Rush's "All Your Love (I Miss Loving)", Buddy Guy's "Leave My Girl Alone", and Elmore James' legendary slow burner "The Sky is Crying".
But it's not all covers; several songs are SRV originals, and almost every one of them ranks among Stevie Ray Vaughan's best self-penned material: The slow blues "Texas Flood", "Dirty Pool" and "Ain't Gone 'N' Give Up On Love" are here, as is the swaggering boogie of "Pride and Joy", and the fiery, up-tempo "Empty Arms". I would have liked to see "I'm Cryin'" inluded as well, but that's certainly a minor complaint, and we get a cover of Hank Ballard's "Look At Little Sister", a rare "Hug You, Squeeze You", and the smouldering instrumental "Slide Thing" instead.

This is a very, very fine and varied look at Stevie Ray Vaughan at his bluesiest. It doesn't match "The Essential Stevie Ray Vaughan" as far as career overviews go, but it blows the original "Greatest Hits" album out of the water.

This is basically a collection of tracks covering Stevie Ray Vaughan's entire career during the 1980's. Starting off with some live tracks from 1980, and ending with a track from his last studio album "In Step (1989)." Some big hits are also featured, including "Pride & Joy", "Texas Flood", "Ain't Gone 'n' Give Up on Love (live)", "Mary Had a Little Lamb (live)", and "The Sky is Crying (live)." For a mere $10, this CD offers lot's of great songs, but most if not all of them have been previously released on SRV's other albums that followed his tragic death in 1990. I still think that "Voodoo Chile" & "Life Without You" should have been on this collection instead of "Give Me Back My Wig" & "Empty Arms." I strongly suggest the Greatest Hits albums released a few years before this, as well as last year's "Essential Collection."

As already noted in previous Shaq, "The King Of The World Blues Reviewer" reviews; Stevie is one of my two favorite all-time electric blues guitarists. I have many CD's, DVD'S and books, by and about Stevie. For a single CD presentation, this is by far the best of all the incantations of greatest hits by/on Stevie. This is a good mix of musical selections. This CD starts off with a unique, "cooking", slide guitar instrumental, entitled: "Slide Thing". It's so good, you find yourself wishing it was longer. It has a 5 minute 21 second version of one of Stevie's anthem's "Texas Flood". It also has (In Shaq's opinion!") THE GREATEST PERFORMANCE IN HISTORY, LIVE, OF "THE SKY IS CRYING!" 7 Minutes 20 seconds, of guitar bending, euphoria! There's also a 6 minute 35 second performance of "Ain't Gone `N' Give Up on Love" live! This is an excellently, mixed, combo of guitar bending blues, foot tapping, rock-blues ("Pride & Joy") and other blues ballad's. This is a must purchase, for any current... want to be... or ought to be... blues, and Stevie Ray Vaughan, lover!

Everything you can find on this CD somewhere else, except Mary Had A Little Lamb(which I haven't heard yet). Get the El Mocambo DVD, that is the best SRV live!!! This is good music becuase its SRV, but why distribute another CD with the same music. Its not like SRV has many albums. You can buy 5 or 6 albums and you have the whole SRV collection. Don't waste you're time with this CD if you have the original recordings or are familiar with his live material. Go get the El Mocambo DVD, it will blow you're mind.

Martin Scorsese The Blues: Stevie Ray Vaughan is a great way to start your SRV collection. This CD spans SRV's whole career including some of my favorites Pride And Joy, Texas Flood, Come On Pt.3, and Leave My Girl Alone. You can save alot of money and buy this on amazon for $10.99. I enjoyed this CD alot its a great complination of all SRV's greatest recordings of all time. So enjoy!

This CD has only one rare track, Mary Had A Little Lamb live from Philadelphia 1987. Other tracks from this excellent concert are found on the SRV box. Stevie was on fire in 1987. I saw him in Kansas City. He performed both Commit A Crime and Things I Used to do.
Favorite SRV CD's
1.Soul To Soul(first issue has the best sound,but you need the bonus tracks).
2.Couldn't Stand The Weather(same with this, you need the sound of the first issue but all later bonus tracks to.
3.SRV box.
4.The Sky Is Crying(remastered tracks from this trickle out)
5.In Step
6.The Real Deal(only place to get this live version of Leave My Girl Alone and remastered Life By The Drop).
7.Live Alive.
8.Carnagie Hall
9.Vaughan Brothers
10.Texas Flood

Favorite DVD's
1.Albert King In Session
2.Pride And Joy - Strictly for Commit A Crime. Stevie was playing this Wolf song from the early eighties and by the time of this filming he had honed it sharp. Either you get it or you don't, this is the song that decides. The rest of the DVD is not essiential except for the Change It video which has a mood I really dig and Cold Shot is funny. I would trade the MTV stuff for what they don't give us, the 45 seconds of Ain't Gone And Give Up on love that was filmed but never released in the U.S.
3.Austin City Limits - Still available still cheap. IMO best Voo Doo Chile. Leave My Girl Alone is as great a slow blues ever filmed.
4.El Macombo - This one had to grow on me. I was dissapointed no Things I Used To, no Little Wing to go along with Third Stone. But he does a great Texas Flood and it is a gold mine for Howlin' Wolf songs.
5.SRV box DVD. We finally get a quality Look At Little Sister and he breaks a string. You have to watch real close to see him wink at someone in the audience when they can't believe he changes guitars so easily. Howlin' Wolf song on this disc.
6.Montreux - Buy it for $12 and move on.
7.BB King - In Session or various other names. I would not buy this disc. Wait for someone to finally get this right. Yeah you get about 3 minutes of Stevie starting The Sky Is Crying.
8.Live In Japan - ok you can't get this. I bought this on Laserdisc 20 years ago for $54.The thing that makes this worth having is it's lenghth (84 minutes). Stevie is good but again the song selection. He spends to much time on Tin Pan Alley. He does a good Couldn't Stand The Weather and Mary............

This CD highlights what SRV does the best... BLUES! Many of these cuts are obviously live recordings and the spontaneity and passion come across in his guitar playing. Personally I think if you had to pick one SRV CD this would definitely be a contender. I never get tired of listening to this one and I am known for a pretty short attention span. I will try the other CD's recommended here but honestly I can't imagine them being any better then this.

This is a carefully selected presentation of Stevie's blues numbers. It is just a wanderfull album. Listen to Dirty Pool and you'll understand why.

I already own everything Stevie has on the market so I didn't buy this for myself, it was on a relatives gift list and she loved it. How could you not love anything that one of the greatest guitar players had a part of?

I have numerous SRV CD's, even some ancient cassettes. Very recently purchased SRV at Carnegie Hall, and quite frankly it stunk. Un-listenable. When I saw the low price ($4.95) I was skeptical. I was unfamiliar with Scorsese's efforts and his blues compilations. For the money I figured "what the heck" and bought it. It is now my favorite SRV! Not a bad cut on it! For those wanting to explore SRV for the first time, or long time fans I highly recommend this CD.