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Do IT this week: Layering

Rock hall’s DVD collection watches the stars sparkle

POSTED: 08:26 a.m. EDT, Oct 18, 2009

A new DVD set showcasing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is sprawling, intermittently incoherent, puzzling and yet endlessly fascinating.

It's as if you were at one of those famous rock hall jam sessions, where a dozen different guitarists are onstage, all trying to play at the same time, but in the middle of it Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton rips out a solo that makes you glad you are there.

Across the nine discs and two decades of performances and speeches in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live, you can find Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen (both of whom appear throughout the collection) on I Saw Her Standing There; Neil Young playing My City Was Gone with the Pretenders (one of three Pretenders performances); a potent Volunteers from Jefferson Airplane; Tina Turner tearing up River Deep Mountain High. Joel talks about the Righteous Brothers, Little Richard sings Dock of the Bay, Elton John praises Elvis Costello.

The set will be on sale only through http://www.RockHallDVDs.com and http://www.TimeLife.com, with a list price of $119.96, as of Tuesday. A package including the first three discs in the set will be offered for retail sale Nov. 3.

I have had parts of the nine-disc set on at my office, and people drifted over more than once to see this or that highlight — or I went over to say, ''You have to see this . . . ''

Tied to the hall of fame's 25th-anniversary celebrations, the set has been in the works for about two years, said Jeff Peisch, head of DVD production for Time Life.

''It's a project many people in the DVD business wanted to do,'' Peisch said in a telephone interview. ''But the clearance issue for something like this is daunting.''

Time Life and the rock hall split the duties, with Time Life pursuing the licensing of the songs while the rock hall got permission from the artists. Peisch said the hall's support ''absolutely'' made it easier to get artists' permission. ''The feeling in the music community about the rock hall is so good . . . there are artists in this collection that Time Life has had trouble clearing for our [CD] collections.''

The Rolling Stones, for example, have declined to be part of multi-artist collections like those done by Time Life, Peisch said. But while the Stones are not in the DVD, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are well represented.

The set's nine discs are bundled in general thematic ways, Peisch said. The first three discs — titled Light My Fire, Sweet Emotion and Start Me Up — ''are what I'd loosely call 'classic rock.' '' They include Roy Orbison, Cream, Santana, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, ZZ Top, U2, Springsteen and others.

''Disc four and five are 'legends,' '' Peisch said, with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Ben E. King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley, as well as Joel, Clapton, Springsteen and more. The sixth disc focuses on R&B, including Percy Sledge, Jerry Butler, The O'Jays, Aretha Franklin and P-Funk.

The seventh and eighth are somewhat more contemporary, including Green Day, Patti Smith, the Pretenders and Metallica. The ninth, being pitched as a bonus disc, has 53 minutes from the 1995 Cleveland concert featuring, among others, Lou Reed, John Mellencamp, Franklin, James Brown and Al Green.

The ninth disc is a good bit shorter than the others in the set (which, with extras, run about three hours apiece). But there are a few more concert performances scattered on the other discs.

And, Peisch pointed out, ''Nearly every other DVD has three hours of material. I think that's pretty good value.''

The set has ''everything . . . we were able to clear.'' Which isn't the same as everything. While declining to name names, Peisch said, ''Some artists felt their performances weren't good enough to come out on DVD.'' But putting all the items together ''was like a big chess game,'' especially with someone like Joel, who between his speeches and performances fit just about everywhere.

Still, there are times when it may confuse, such as having a brief version of an induction speech before a musical performance, then the full speech elsewhere on the disc, then the ensuing acceptance speech in full on a different disc. The idea, Peisch said, was to appeal to two audiences: the one interested mainly in the music, which didn't want full speeches (and would probably skip even the short versions), and those who wanted to dig as deep as possible into the spoken areas as well as the musical ones.

And it's sometimes the speeches where you find gold. ''Bruce Springsteen is legendary for his,'' Peisch said. ''Billy Joel's speeches are fantastic.'' He singled out Joel's talk about John Mellencamp, but you should definitely see his funny, rambling ode to the Righteous Brothers.

The speeches also provide other flourishes, Peisch said, noting that U2's The Edge read his acceptance speech from his BlackBerry. While the ceremonies have gotten more polished in recent years — and recorded in higher quality — I would find myself pausing at some of the more offhanded scenes, for their unpredictability, or just to see performers with their guards down, in the company of musical friends.

But there's always more music to be heard, more scenes to be appreciated. Peisch didn't anticipate another collection of rock hall ceremonies (unless someone decided to do it in Blu-ray). But he is off to another big project: a DVD set of Soul Train.

A new DVD set showcasing the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is sprawling, intermittently incoherent, puzzling and yet endlessly fascinating.

It's as if you were at one of those famous rock hall jam sessions, where a dozen different guitarists are onstage, all trying to play at the same time, but in the middle of it Jeff Beck or Eric Clapton rips out a solo that makes you glad you are there.

Across the nine discs and two decades of performances and speeches in Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Live, you can find Billy Joel and Bruce Springsteen (both of whom appear throughout the collection) on I Saw Her Standing There; Neil Young playing My City Was Gone with the Pretenders (one of three Pretenders performances); a potent Volunteers from Jefferson Airplane; Tina Turner tearing up River Deep Mountain High. Joel talks about the Righteous Brothers, Little Richard sings Dock of the Bay, Elton John praises Elvis Costello.

The set will be on sale only through http://www.RockHallDVDs.com and http://www.TimeLife.com, with a list price of $119.96, as of Tuesday. A package including the first three discs in the set will be offered for retail sale Nov. 3.

I have had parts of the nine-disc set on at my office, and people drifted over more than once to see this or that highlight — or I went over to say, ''You have to see this . . . ''

Tied to the hall of fame's 25th-anniversary celebrations, the set has been in the works for about two years, said Jeff Peisch, head of DVD production for Time Life.

''It's a project many people in the DVD business wanted to do,'' Peisch said in a telephone interview. ''But the clearance issue for something like this is daunting.''

Time Life and the rock hall split the duties, with Time Life pursuing the licensing of the songs while the rock hall got permission from the artists. Peisch said the hall's support ''absolutely'' made it easier to get artists' permission. ''The feeling in the music community about the rock hall is so good . . . there are artists in this collection that Time Life has had trouble clearing for our [CD] collections.''

The Rolling Stones, for example, have declined to be part of multi-artist collections like those done by Time Life, Peisch said. But while the Stones are not in the DVD, Mick Jagger and Keith Richards are well represented.

The set's nine discs are bundled in general thematic ways, Peisch said. The first three discs — titled Light My Fire, Sweet Emotion and Start Me Up — ''are what I'd loosely call 'classic rock.' '' They include Roy Orbison, Cream, Santana, Paul McCartney, James Taylor, ZZ Top, U2, Springsteen and others.

''Disc four and five are 'legends,' '' Peisch said, with Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Ben E. King, Buddy Guy, John Lee Hooker and Bo Diddley, as well as Joel, Clapton, Springsteen and more. The sixth disc focuses on R&B, including Percy Sledge, Jerry Butler, The O'Jays, Aretha Franklin and P-Funk.

The seventh and eighth are somewhat more contemporary, including Green Day, Patti Smith, the Pretenders and Metallica. The ninth, being pitched as a bonus disc, has 53 minutes from the 1995 Cleveland concert featuring, among others, Lou Reed, John Mellencamp, Franklin, James Brown and Al Green.

The ninth disc is a good bit shorter than the others in the set (which, with extras, run about three hours apiece). But there are a few more concert performances scattered on the other discs.

And, Peisch pointed out, ''Nearly every other DVD has three hours of material. I think that's pretty good value.''

The set has ''everything . . . we were able to clear.'' Which isn't the same as everything. While declining to name names, Peisch said, ''Some artists felt their performances weren't good enough to come out on DVD.'' But putting all the items together ''was like a big chess game,'' especially with someone like Joel, who between his speeches and performances fit just about everywhere.

Still, there are times when it may confuse, such as having a brief version of an induction speech before a musical performance, then the full speech elsewhere on the disc, then the ensuing acceptance speech in full on a different disc. The idea, Peisch said, was to appeal to two audiences: the one interested mainly in the music, which didn't want full speeches (and would probably skip even the short versions), and those who wanted to dig as deep as possible into the spoken areas as well as the musical ones.

And it's sometimes the speeches where you find gold. ''Bruce Springsteen is legendary for his,'' Peisch said. ''Billy Joel's speeches are fantastic.'' He singled out Joel's talk about John Mellencamp, but you should definitely see his funny, rambling ode to the Righteous Brothers.

The speeches also provide other flourishes, Peisch said, noting that U2's The Edge read his acceptance speech from his BlackBerry. While the ceremonies have gotten more polished in recent years — and recorded in higher quality — I would find myself pausing at some of the more offhanded scenes, for their unpredictability, or just to see performers with their guards down, in the company of musical friends.

But there's always more music to be heard, more scenes to be appreciated. Peisch didn't anticipate another collection of rock hall ceremonies (unless someone decided to do it in Blu-ray). But he is off to another big project: a DVD set of Soul Train.



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