Doo Wop at 50
|
List Price: Our Price: $26.39 You Save: $3.59 (12%) Availability: Usually ships in 24 hours Buy Used: from $15.10 (click here) Category: DVD See more DVD releases |
|---|
Canada
Movie Reviews of Doo Wop at 50
Movie Review: Doo Wop at 50
Summary: 5 Stars
I gave this DVD to a friend at Christmas. She was absolutely thrilled to receive it and LOVED watching it!!! Best gift ever!Movie Review: The real rock and roll.
Summary: 5 Stars
Excellent music from the 50's. Without Jerry Butler it would have been even better. Brings back many memories, some good.Movie Review: We all make mistakes
Summary: 3 Stars
We all make mistakes. When I first looked at this show I was bothered by too many things. The obvious age of the performers and it's affect on their voices, looks, and movements. But I recently went back to view it again and I must say.....instead of being totally put off I admit there were some bright moments that for whatever the reason I missed the first time. All I can say is that my moments may be different from your moments. That being the case no amount of pitch problems, slow dance movements, and aging can ever take away the innocense of youth. This program (depending on how forgiving your imagination is) will take you back to a simpler and more romantic time. The night I put this back on I must have skipped through over 100 stations just to finally settle on this. It was my best choice then and most likely I will find those times in the future that this show will again transport me back to my youth. For that alone it's worth it!Movie Review: Sincere, but seriously flawed.
Summary: 2 Stars
I watched this show, recently, on PBS. (Or several excerpts, anyway --in between, what seemed to be, endless pleas for financial support of the station.) The show's producer was raving about it, as though it was one of the greatest collections of '50's vocal groups ever assembled. Not quite. While some of the talent was on a high level, most of the singers were either mediocre, at best, or didn't represent what the best of the early sound really was. Part of the problem was the age of the singers. The rest of it had to do with who was included in this show.I'm coming from the standpoint of someone who's well acquainted with vintage Rhythm & Blues. (I prefer that term, over "doo wop".) I also have a love affair with the R&B records of the late '40's thru the early '60's. I believe that almost all of the best recordings came from black artists. White singers, with very few exceptions, try as hard as they might, couldn't, and still can't, match the quality of singing, or replicate the interesting, haunting aspect of the black voices. (No bigotry against whites here. Like many collectors, I'm a white fan of the music.) Some of the best examples were the Orioles, the Five Keys, the Swallows, the Ravens, the Clovers, the Dells, the Flamingos, the El Dorados, the Spaniels, the Solitaires, the Harptones, the Moonglows, the Five Royales, and Hank Ballard & the Midnighters. And that doesn't include many groups who appeared on the scene very briefly, made some exquisite recordings, and then left, after being unable to make a steady living from it. Those were the remarkable collectors' groups (e.g. the Vocaleers, the Jewels, the Mellomoods, and the Calvanes), whose recordings, in recent years, have been re-issued on CDs.
As far as the mediocre quality of the singers in the videos is concerned, here are some illustrations. Lee Andrews' voice -- which used to be one of the most beautiful sounds to hear -- is shot. He gives a valiant effort. But he can't carry a note these days. That's not the same criticism I have with Earl Lewis, of the Channels. He could never sing, anyway. Well, hardly ever. His falsetto "notes", even in the'50's, were painful to the ear. And his group was usually off-key. Try listening, for example, to their recorded version of "That's My Desire", without having serious damage inflicted on your sense of hearing. (One nice exception: "My Love Will Never Die"). On the video, they're just as bad, if not worse. Cleve Duncan of the Penguins still has a great voice. But he's only backed by two (?) singers in this show. (The same was true with the Cadillacs.) Johnny Maestro has a fairly decent voice, even today. But being backed by the overbearing Brooklyn Bridge doesn't help. (I saw him with the original Crests, back in the early '70's, at the NY Academy Of Music. Different, intimate, and richer sound altogether.) The Capris, the Platters, (not the original group), the Cleftones, and the Passions are OK in the videos. But they don't come close to what the R&B sound really was. (That was also true when those four groups first made their records. They were pop recordings, relatively speaking) Their performances on these videos are heart-felt. But they represent pale, close-to-pop imitations of the gutsier, more robust voices, and soulful records, of '50's rhythm & blues.
So who's left? Who's even worth mentioning? The Marcels do a nice job, along with the Moonglows, the Del Vikings, and the Jive Five. Also, Jerry Butler gives a great rendition of "For Your Precious Love." His back-up group isn't bad, either. Gene Chandler (backed by the same group) goes all out on "Duke Of Earl", and shows that he still has it -- although the song is done a bit too fast in the show, to call it a ballad anymore.
These two videos would be a treat for anyone who has a surface knowledge of the music, and connects with it on a nostalgic level. They can hum the tunes, and mouth the words, along with the singers on stage. It all brings back warm memories of their childhood, or teen years. The videos do serve that purpose. But for the person who's already discovered the riches of the early vocal groups from the "Golden Age Of Rhythm & Blues", or really wants to know '50's R&B, there's not much here to experience. It does reflect the fact that black music, once it achieved mainstream acceptance in the 1950's, changed into a watered-down version of the wonderful urban folk music it once was. Then white groups got into the act, the music developed into a "teenage sound", and it would never be the same again.
To a good extent, that evolution -- into "doo wop", from Rhythm & Blues, in the mid-late '50's, and on into the '60's -- is what's represented on the video. It's fun in it's own way, but doesn't go very far. (The United in Group Harmony association, in New Jersey, has consistently put on better shows, in New York and New Jersey, with a greater assortment of R&B talent from the early years.) These videos might give the viewer a mild introduction to the music. But saying it's a fantastic display of '50's groups, at their best, is a gross overstatment. If you buy these tapes, don't expect too much.