Ed Sullivan's Rock'n'Roll Classics DVDs

Hi guys,

I've recently been handed four of these DVDs for review. I'm looking for some information from you Americans, as Ed Sullivan and his show were never on TV here.

The early peices (Elvis, Buddy Holly - surely his only TV appearance, Beatles) all appear to be live perforances. Some tracks on the Chart Toppers 68, 69, 70 DVD appear to be mimed - on Tommy James' Mony Mony the guitars aren't plugged in and the music fades down at the end. Were mimed tracks common, and when did they start?

I suspect that at least some of the programs on these DVDs were designed as part of a TV series, eg, there are three seperate "programs" on the Legends of Rock DVD which look like they are configured for commerical half hour TV. Has the material on these DVDs been on TV before (I mean in their compiled versions on the DVD, not the original performances).

Does Ed Sullivan really have no neck? And did he ever manage to make an introduction without mangling it?

 

When the Byrds appeared, they sang Mr. Tambourine Man live, but then mimed Turn!Turn!Turn!. I think the miming started shortly after the Beatles debut and increased rapidly after the show went color. But again looks are deceiving, such as when the Rolling Stones churned out Paint It Black, the backing track was the record, but Mick's vocal was live. The Mama's and Papa's were frequent guests, but always mimed. To bad for a band that was supposed to have such vocal prowess (Momma Cass even said "Cue the tape" during one episode). On the other hand, the Association sang a smoking live version of Along Comes Mary with harmonies intact live.

 

You should see their performance of it on the Criterion Collection Monterey Pop Festival DVD Box Set. It's on the outtakes disc. Made me wonder why it didn't make it into the finished film. They were excellent!!!

 

I don't think I've heard anything good about this DVD set, but when it was announced I was looking forward to it.

I gather its content is as mangled as Sullivan's intros of the performers.

There was a TV series that I caught a few glimpses of just a few years ago. I think it featured a variety of performances from Ed Sullivan programs - opera, comedy, jazz as well as pop. I think it was on Bravo in Canada

 

By and large, the Ed Sullivan DVD 's are merely reproductions (sans commercials) of 1/2 hour installments that were shown on the VH1 network (Video Hits 1) . VH1 is itself an offshoot of MTV (Music TeleVision).
Some performances are direct lip-synches of a record release. On other occasions, the actual artist(s)/band(s) came into the New York theatre which housed The Ed Sullivan Show at some time prior to the live audience taping, recorded a fresh vocal performance which was then utilized as a new lip-synch. And there are those occasions where actual live performances did occur.
Please note also that some performances themselves were truncated from the original Ed Sullivan Show when broadcast on VH1 and subsequently transfered to DVD. A classic case is 'Up The Ladder To The Roof' which is on the Temptations/Supremes Dvd, if that is one that you are being asked to review.
I hope that this helps you with your review..

 

I got the Rhino box set a while ago and ,after watching them, felt like I was ripped off big time. It's not a total loss. There are some great performances there.

I read on the box that there may be edits. I thought there may be a rare clip or something that didn't survive intact. I had no idea that what was on these discs were 1/2 hour syndicated shows where performances, and intros were mercilessly edited to make room for those "snazzy" new intros

The edits are so good that it's hard to tell what's been edited unless you have other sources to compare them to like the Beatles "Twist And Shout", which is missing the instrumental break.

There are repeats also. One discs repeats the same Jefferson Airplane performance (in each of the 2 "episodes" on the disc).

I'm happy with the video and sound quality and most of the clips sound live, which is good enough for me.

I haven't watched this set in a while. Discovering the problems killed my enthusiasm for this set. I should get it out again and enjoy what's there.

For $120 or more, we DESERVE a freshly compiled set of COMPLETE performances, which I assumed I was getting.

What's with Rhino and filling boxes with SINGLE layer DVDs? Providing more discs than necessary to justify the high price?

Tim

 

I remember when the syndicated version of the show(in the early 90's)showed a clip of the Beatles singing "Help!" it was about one minute and twenty seconds long(I think the entire second verse was edited out).

This is probably the only way we'll ever get those classic performances available.

Evan

 

Sullivan performances were weird like that , in that you never knew who would be totally live, have a live vocal over prerecorded backing, or totally mimed . Like, why , in roughly the same era, would Creedence mime their song, but the Band did "Up on Cripple Creek" completely live ?
I have a (bootleg) DVD of Stones appearances on the Sullivan show . It's interesting that the performances from 64-65 appear to be totally live, but by 1966 they started to use live vocals over a pre-recorded backing track

 

It's good,but it could be AMAZING!
Instead of going to those lame VH-1 versions,they should've just gone to the original shows & just compiled the bands as they originally aired.As someone who has a fairly descent collection from the originals,I can tell you a lot of those "short versions" from VH-1(not all of them,of course),were actually 2 or 3 song medleys originally.I've seen them chopped up & aired on different episodes...