I saw it. Some of it I liked, some of it I didn't care for. I don't know, if I'll watch it again.
I didn't care much for Omar Dykes. I found myself wishing he would disappear. Lou Ann Barton looked like she would have preferred to be anywhere else, but where she was. I've never been a huge Delbert McClinton fan. I thought James Cotton and Kim Wilson sounded good. It would have been nice to see more of Gary Clark Jr. He sounded okay. I thought the rhythm section was good and they should have been introduced.
The show covered Jimmy Reed's material quite nicely. I thought the short interviews were very complementary toward his contribution and impact on American music.
Overall, it was good TV, but something was missing. Like many performers of his time period, Jimmy Reed was really good at delivering the emotion of the song. This was what I found lacking on the TV show. Some of the performers sounded like they were reading the lyrics off a teleprompter, which didn't seem much like a fitting tribute to a monumental contributor to American music. Some of the performances felt forced.
Given the caliber of talent on this show, I was expecting the delivery of the material to be off the charts great. It wasn't horrible or bad. It wasn't knock your socks off great, which was what I was expecting.
However, I think I made a huge mistake watching one of the American
Folk Blues Festival DVD's immediately afterward, which reinforced that Lonnie Johnson is probably one of the most under-recognized talents in American music history.
No comments:
Post a Comment