A major discovery is about to be unveiled in this Year Of The Blues--nearly three hours of previously unseen performances filmed in the early 1960’s during the famed American Folk Blues Festival tours of Europe. Together with Reelin’ In The Years Productions, Experience Hendrix LLC is proud to announce the August 26th Universal Music Enterprises release of The American Folk Blues Festival 1962-1966 Volumes One and Two on DVD and a compilation of 16 audio highlights on CD compiled from the two volumes. The American Folk Blues Festival was an annual event that featured the cream of American blues musicians barnstorming their way across Western Europe every fall from 1962 through 1966.
The two DVDs feature 36 previously unseen live in-studio performances by such blues legends as Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, Sonny Boy Williamson, John Lee Hooker and Willie Dixon playing alongside other blues greats such as T-Bone Walker, Lightnin’ Hopkins, Memphis Slim, Big Mama Thornton and many others.
Recorded live in a small TV studio in Germany, these historic and unseen performances have been lost for nearly 40 years. Filmed with superb camera work and pristine sound (remastered by producer/engineer Eddie Kramer), each DVD contains 18 complete performances from the greatest blues musicians of all time. Captured during their heyday in an era of scant video documentation, these DVDs are truly one of the most unique and precious visual documents of the blues.
It is a great privilege to play a part in making these wonderful performances available to blues fans throughout the world,” states project Experience Hendrix Co-Producer John McDermott. “These were the artists who inspired Jimi Hendrix and it seemed fitting that his family company would help organize these important, historically significant releases.”
A handful of festivals have had a profound impact on the history of popular music - Woodstock, the Monterey Pop Festival and the Newport Folk Festival are obvious examples. In England, the American Folk Blues Festival had an enormous impact on such developing artists as Mick Jagger, Keith Richards, and Jimmy Page, all of who were in attendance at these memorable events learning at the feet of their idols. In addition, the tours directly helped launch the career of 18-year-old Eric Clapton’s group, The Yardbirds. The American Folk Blues Festivals featured a dazzling array of talent - the most significant group of blues artists ever assembled - and miraculously it was captured on tape. “The package also features extensive liner notes by Grammy Award winning author Rob Bowman, written commentary by Bill Wyman of The Rolling Stones and never before seen photographs from the television tapings, these releases capture the sights, sounds and feel of these definitive concerts.
Released to coincide with a multi-part series on the blues that is being produced by Martin Scorsese for PBS Television, these previously unissued live performances on these releases will prove an ideal companion to the Scorsese series.
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