Albert Lee

On December the 1st at the legendary New Morning Club in Paris Albert Lee and Hogan's Heroes played to a an ecstatic full house. Fortunately cameras were there to record the event, and this DVD is a full record of that magical evening. Here you'll find the complete show, as played on the night by Albert and the guys, and featuring some of the most dazzling guitar work you'll ever here or see. So if you're ready for a two-hour-long feast of rip-roaring rock 'n roll and cutting edge country music, as served up by the acknowledged master of the art and his great band, dig in and bon appetit! Includes loads of extras such as photo galleries and biographies.

Albert Lee occupies an odd niche in music – British by birth and upbringing, he spent the mid-'60s as a top R&B guitarist, but in the 1970s became one of the top rockabilly guitarists in the world, and no slouch in country music either. In England he's a been household name, and in Nashville and Los Angeles he's been one of the most in-demand session guitarists there is; but outside of professional music circles in America, he's one of those vaguely recognizable names, and occasionally misidentified with his similar-sounding contemporary, ex-Ten Years After guitarist Alvin Lee (with whom he did share a berth once, in Jerry Lee Lewis's band on the latter's London Sessions album) – but where Alvin was a hero of Woodstock and a flashy guitarist, in the manner of British blues extroverts Jimmy Page and Jeff Beck, Albert is much more likely to be found playing in the background, behind the Everly Brothers or alongside Eric Clapton.

Albert Lee occupies an odd niche in music – British by birth and upbringing, he spent the mid-'60s as a top R&B guitarist, but in the 1970s became one of the top rockabilly guitarists in the world, and no slouch in country music either.

Before becoming the driving force behind Led Zeppelin, guitarist Jimmy Page was a session man, hawking his talent to dozens of bands on the British beat scene, including this 1968 session for fledgling singer Keith De Groot's debut album. However, whatever talent De Groot had was swiftly eclipsed by the sheer force of his backing band, which included future Zeppelin bassist John Paul Jones, keyboard legend Nicky Hopkins and guitar hero Albert Lee, whose lightning fast licks and Fender Telecaster soon made him an icon of British rock…

Green Bullfrog were a group that only existed on paper, and scarcely officially in that medium, either, because of all the hairs that had to be split (and names unnamed) in existing contracts to get their record made. Ritchie Blackmore, Tony Ashton, Big Jim Sullivan, Albert Lee, Chas Hodges, Matthew Fisher, and Ian Paice are just some of the luminaries who showed up for the super session, which was recorded in the first half of 1970 and issued on LP in America in 1971, a year earlier than it was in Europe. With the identities of the bandmembers effectively hidden behind pseudonyms, it's not entirely surprising that the album never rose beyond cult status on either side of the Atlantic. The whole project was the brainchild of producer Derek Lawrence, who roped these former members of his stable into doing him the favor.

This double-disc reissue documents one of the more curious careers in country music. Both 1978's White Mansions and 1980's The Legend of Jesse James are Southern song cycles that were conceived by Britain's Paul Kennerley, then an unknown songwriter who somehow recruited a high-profile cast for each. A Civil War saga from the Southern perspective, White Mansions suffers from caricature and cliché but benefits from signature contributions by Waylon Jennings, Jessi Colter, and Eric Clapton. Jesse James has more focus and narrative momentum, with Levon Helm, Johnny Cash, and Emmylou Harris in lead roles. Though the albums are more noteworthy for artistic ambition than memorable material, Kennerley subsequently became a successful Nashville songwriter.