In Session CD/DVD

[marnold]

They recently (re)released Albert King and SRV's "In Session," this time with a DVD of the whole proceedings. I snapped it up at the local BB. It is cool to watch the two of them together. There's clearly a mutual admiration society/father-son vibe between the two of them. I've never seen anything with Albert King so that was pretty sweet. I'm a fan of both men, so it's a no-brainer for me.

Having said that, I found it very difficult to sit through the whole DVD. It is about half again longer than the CD. Basically I found myself saying, "SO . . . MUCH . . . NOODLING!" Each song is about 10 minutes long. One track at a time it's awesome. From end to end . . . wow. The good thing is that I can watch it one track at a time. I also wish someone would have just tuned poor Albert's guitar for him. He really struggled with his tuning for too much of the DVD.

If you like Albert King or SRV at all, it's a must-own. The CD/DVD combo isn't even $20, so it's not expensive. It's not like there's going to be any more video of these two again. Just watch it in moderation.

[sumitomo]

Well you know where I'm going after work and I don't drink.Thanks Marnold.Sumi:D

[t_ross33]

It was on PBS here the other night... pretty great if you take into consideration the point in Stevie's career it was filmed - he was still pretty much unknown to all but the most ardent music buffs and blues fans. Apparently Albert King had to be talked into doing the session because he hadn't heard of this upstart kid, either. That being said, the expression on Albert's face throughout is priceless as Stevie wins him over.

It's been said that Albert, above all others, heavily influenced SRV's playing which I found really interesting. You can hear the influence, but the technique is quite different with Albert playing lefty strung upside-down. I can only imagine what it would have been like to be Stevie trying to figure out Albert's bends by listening to and playing along with a record. Even Albert's downstroke and upstroke sound "backwards". Obviously Stevie figured it out at some point :dude

[marnold]

If you listen to what Albert says and read the liner notes, he knew who Stevie was but he just knew him as lil' Stevie from Austin. The "Ray Vaughan" part was unknown to him before that. Apparently as soon as he saw him he knew exactly who it was.

[ZMAN]

I saw the original broadcast back in 1983 on CHCH TV. I was already a huge Albert King fan and didn't know who SRV was. My initial thoughts were that this kid is just copying Alberts riffs. I also picked up the DVD. I had been looking for it for years. The show "In Session" ran for about 4 months on a weekly basis with some fantastic talent of the day. It was really cool for a small local station. They are still in busines but only as an all news channel with movies in the evening.
I think it it priceless. You get to see both those great talents relaxed and even making mistakes. Pretty cool.