Product Description

In the late-sixties, after the British Invasion, music began to evolve into a heavier sound. With a blues-inspired, guitar-driven sound and trippy lyrics, this new hard rock seared its way to the top of the charts. Features full song performances of White Rabbit/Jefferson Airplane, People Are Strange/The Doors, My Generation/ The Who, Sunshine of Your Love/ Cream, Itchycoo Park/Small Faces, Magic Carpet Ride/Steppenwolf, Summertime Blues/Blue Cheer, On The Road Again/Canned Heat, Purple Haze/ Jimi Hendrix, Try/ Janis Joplin.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47686 in DVD
• Released on: 2004-04-27
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Color, Compilation, DVD, Dolby, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 47 minutes

Amazon.com
A mixed bag of live and lip-synced performances by artists both legendary and long-forgotten (to many folks, anyway) is again the order of the day in The Sixties, one of five discs in the Rock n' Roll Goldmine boxed set, hosted by the eternal Casey Kasem. Included here are a few genuine classics, like Jim Morrison and the Doors playing "People Are Strange" on Ed Sullivan's show and the Who smashing through "My Generation" on "The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour" in 1967 (an infamous incident in which the extra gunpowder Keith Moon added to his drum kit resulted in an unexpectedly loud explosion at the end of the tune). Elsewhere, we see live concert footage of Eric Clapton and Cream (jamming on "Sunshine of Your Love"), Jimi Hendrix ("Purple Haze"--the sound and picture quality are poor, but it is Hendrix, and the interviews after the song are priceless), and a post-Big Brother Janis Joplin ("Try"); and if the lip-synced bits by the Small Faces ("Itchycoo Park"), proto-heavy metallurgists Blue Cheer ("Summertime Blues"), Canned Heat ("On the Road Again"), and others are somewhat less enduring, it's still pretty cool to have them at all. What's more, what could be bad about having footage from a Beatles interview in which John, Paul, and George are joined by Jimmy Nicol, who replaced Ringo for a few days when the drummer fell ill and was unable to tour? --Sam Graham

Customer Reviews

great songs and artists but...
I just recently recieved this 60's DVD and being a big fan of that era this looked like it might be a great addition to my collection. Let me break it down song for song, it's easier this way and hopefuly this will help with your decision.

1.White Rabbit-Jefferson Airplane: They were one of the first bands I saw live way back when and it was great to see the original band. The video was fair, pychedelic, of course.
The audio was good but it was lip-synched. 5.1 surround? take that with a grain of salt. (actually 2.1 is better since the center channel has too much going on, this applies to all)

2.People are Strange-The Doors: This is one of the better selections, it was live and the video was clean. If the entire collection was like this I would give it 5 stars.

3.My Generation-The Who: This was also one of the better ones. Since it was from "The Smothers Brothers Show" it was filmed and recorded better than most. Sounds live with some overdubs.

4.Itchycoo Park-Small Faces: Black and White British tv show with good video and audio. Lip-synched. It was just good to see the group and it's such a fun classic tune.

5.Magic Carpet Ride-Steppenwolf: This was a big disappoinmnet, lousy (and stupid) video, the sound was awful. Too bad.

6.Summertime Blues-Blue Cheer: Another lousy video, blurry and black and white (by the looks of the back drop it should have been color)the audio was good; lip-synch.

7.Sunshine of Your Love-Cream: This was live and the film was okay although the shots were closeups more often than they should have been.It jumps in the middle of the song which was a drag. Audio good.

8.On the Road Again-Canned Heat: It a rarity to see this group, the video was fair, black and white and audio good; lip-synched.

9.Purple Haze-Jimi Hendrix: This was live and most likey 1967. Its always great to see the man perform although the color video was poor and the audio was just fair.

10.Try-Janis Joplin: The live audio performance was really good on this one but the color video seems out of focus, too bad because this would have been one of the best ones on the disc.

I'm sure they did the best they could with what they had to work with since poor quality film was used along with bad concepts, bad microphones, etc. If you look at it with an open mind and are from that era it's a kick to see these artists.

this is the stuff
Yep, the songs are great ones, the artists are great ones, and I'm just a bit less critical than the previous writer. Sure the production values could've been better on a few of these, but really, do you need to see Steppenwolf or Blue Cheer in a pristine transfer to appreciate their rocknroll greatness? Uhhh....I don't think so. Play this one loud and often, and enjoy it more every time! Recommended!!

If you can get it for five dollars, maybe buy it...
but don't pay fifteen. It is nice to see a psychedelic, hard rock classic oldies extravaganza like this, but these videos are questionable at best. There is far better footage of Hendrix, Joplin, the Who, Airplane (with a female lead vocalist--that's a good thing, because she sounds good), and the Doors to be found elsewhere. I was letdown with the Beatles interview, as I thought they were going to explain what they thought about the new direction this music was taking. Oh well.