Customer Reviews

Soundies: A Musical History

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Terrible, terrible, terrible. This is a PBS special, and the Soundies are constantly interrupted by talking heads or narration, or are truncated. What could've been a great release -- uncut, restored music videos of a bygone era -- instead becomes one of the worst, most disappointing DVDs of the year. I'm returning mine for a refund.

American taverns in the 1940s usually had neon-decorated jukeboxes that played 78s. Roomier "joints" often provided entertainment from an icebox-sized machine called a Panoram. For a certain amount of coin, patrons could both listen to and watch songs performed by their favorite artists. This ingenious monster contained numerous film loops deliverable on demand to a projector and shown via mirrors and rear projection on an opaque glass screen. After WWII, the Panoram was superseded by a new device: television.

On the SOUNDIES documentary, some of the original artists are interviewed, plus there's commentary from host Michael Feinstein, Wynton Marsalis, Hugh Hefner and Leonard Maltin. As mentioned elsewhere, only song fragments are featured here.

These include:

Hot Chocolate - Duke Ellington & orch.

Blowtop Blues - Cab Calloway & orch.

Jumpin' at the Jubilee - Louis Jourdan & Tympani Five

Frim Fram Sauce - King Cole Trio

Don't Cry Baby - Les Paul Trio

Why'd I Fall For Abner? - Merle Travis & Carolina Cotton

Clink! Clink! Another Drink - Spike Jones & City Slickers

Boardwalk Boogie - Will Bradley & orch.

Man, That's Groovy - Jimmy Dorsey & orch.

Stop That Dancin' Up There - Kay Starr & Jimmy Dodd

Huckleberry Duck - The Martins

Honeysuckle Rose - Fats Waller

Take Me Back, Baby - Count Basie & band

Lullaby of Broadway - Mel Tormé & his Mel-tones

Fan Dance - Sally Rand

A Lady With Fans - Faith Bacon

There Won't Be a Shortage of Love - Peggy Mann

Just As Tho' You Were Here - Lois Collier & Glamourettes

You're a Lucky Fellow, Mr. Smith - Mitchell Ayres & orch.

Bless 'Em All - Dick Robertson w. Johnny Messner orch.

I Shut My Mouth For Uncle Sam - Frances Faye

Der Fuhrer's Face - Spike Jones & City Slickers

Jump Children - International Sweethearts of Rhythm

Lazy River - Mills Bros.

America, I Love You - Claude Thornhill & orch.

Shine - Louis Armstrong & orch.

Jungle Jig - Dorothy Dandridge & Cee Pee Johnson

Let Me Off Uptown - Gene Krupa & orch.

Got a Penny, Benny - King Cole Trio

My Lost Horizon - Doris Day w. Les Brown & band

I Learned a Lesson - Lawrence Welk & orch.

Did Anyone Call? - Cyd Charisse

Tiger Rag - Liberace

The Lamp of Memory - Yvonne De Carlo

BONUS:

The Songs of Yesterday Are Here to Stay - Michael Feinstein

plus--

I Hear You Knocking - Gene Austin

You Always Hurt the One You Love - Mills Bros.

The Music Shop - Rubinoff

Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair - Cliff Edwards

4-F Ferdinand - Harry 'The Hipster' Gibson

Amazon "spammed" my email encouraging me to buy this disc which is too bad because this disc is absolutely horrid. This DVD has talking through all the cuts....shame on Amazon.....I feel used...and stupid.....

One may not care for the dialouge and interviews, I, in fact, found them interesting. However, the music, while not DTS or Doby 5.1, is very good and the sound is very good. As a historical musical and visual document on jazz and what was called rock and roll this DVD is great.

Dr. Richard Kerr

I enjoyed this - not just a collection of "soundies" but has documentary information. If you just want collections of clips (as videos to scroll through), don't buy this. But if you want some great footage with some context, very enjoyable.

This is a documentation on music and a way a media (the music clips) sold it. Very informative and interesting to see big stars in the beginning of their careers, and there isn't a better choice than Michael Feinstein as the host. - Regarding the previous comments, if you would have checked out the product more carefully, you would have known what you were buying. Especially you people in the States know what PBS is all about, high quality enter-/intotainment, even education.