The British R&b Sounds Of 1964

The famous Red Rocks venue plays host to The Moody Blues on this DVD that offers a standard full-frame transfer. The English soundtrack does a fine job of capturing the music. There are no supplemental materials of any consequence, making it quite difficult to recommend this disc to anyone who is not already a fan of the band. Some of the songs performed include "Nights in White Satin," "Days of Future Past," and "Tuesday Afternoon."
The Moody Blues, as they came to be known, made their debut in Birmingham in May of 1964, and quickly earned the notice and later the services of manager Tony Secunda.

Universally hailed as the reigning king of the blues, the legendary B.B. King is without a doubt the single most important electric guitarist of the last half century…

Nina Simone was a singular artist, and she went where she pleased, leaving behind a recorded legacy that is passionate, political, defiant, and delicate by turns, no matter what strain of folk, blues, jazz, or gospel she was dipping into, and she did it all with dignity, grace, and intelligence…

Them forged their hard-nosed R&B sound in Belfast, Northern Ireland, moving to England in 1964 after landing a deal with Decca Records. The band's simmering sound was dominated by boiling organ riffs, lean guitars, and the tough vocals of lead singer Van Morrison, whose recordings with Them rank among the very best performances of the British Invasion…

In a way, the Searchers are a footnote. Never entering the upper echelon of British Invasion beat groups, the band nevertheless had legs, outlasting all but the titans of the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, and the Who. The Searchers always flew just below the radar, even if they had something of a renaissance at the tail end of the '70s with a new lineup headed by lead singer – and only constant – John McNally, with his lead guitarist companion Mike Pender directing the band through two superb power pop LPs and their jangle echoing in the stable of Shelter Records, heard strongly in the early records of Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. They are best known for their earliest hits – 1963's "Sweets for My Sweet," 1964's "Needles and Pins" – which may be because they were their biggest hits but it's also because the Searchers never abandoned their pure pop template throughout their entire career, something that becomes blindingly evident over the course of the four-disc box set Hearts in Their Eyes.

"Arguably the greatest and most influential Tex-Mex group ever, the Sir Douglas Quintet epitomized Texas' reputation as a fertile roots music melting pot and established the career of Tex-Mex cult legend Doug Sahm. The Quintet mixed country, blues, jazz, R&B, Mexican conjunto/norteño music, Cajun dances, British Invasion rock & roll, garage rock, and even psychedelia into a heady stew that could only have come from Texas…"