Now this is real music. Not some talentless, miming young girl who doesn’t even write her own songs. Not some brain-dead guy shouting and moaning into the microphone with a repetitive guitar riff with maximum distortion. Not some man who sits behind a desk and gets a computer to create music for him. Curtis Mayfield has more talent in his little fingernail than most of the current crop of popular ‘musicians’ out there.

Curtis Mayfield was an original member (and according to the back cover of the DVD the ‘creative force’ behind) the soul band The Impressions. In 1970, he split from the group and embarked on a solo career. Probably his most famous release was the Superfly soundtrack.

This DVD is a live recording of one of Mayfield’s performances from a pub in England called Ronnie Scott’s. It took place back in 1988, almost 15 years ago. A bit of a trend with concert DVDs is the interspersion of interviews and behind the scenes material with the actual performance. This really breaks up the mood of the act, and in my opinion this extra material would be much more welcome in its own extras section. Here is the track list:

If you are a guitar player or admirer, or a fan of soul music, you won’t be disappointed with this performance.

This is a Region 4 NTSC release unfortunately, so make certain your system can support this format before you buy this.

Everything on the disc is presented in a full frame aspect ratio (1.33:1) and is not 16x9 enhanced. Overall, the image quality is not that great. Some of the blame for this can be put on the age of the recording. The sharpness varies somewhat during the performance with the focus being softened at times.

There is a dose of irritating low level noise throughout the transfer. Colours are accurate for the most part, but at times seem a little soft due to the bar setting. There is some colour bleeding created by a neon strip on the stage. There are some MPEG artefacts that hinder the transfer, most commonly forms of posterisation.

The audio transfer is more competent than the video. The one soundtrack available is an English Dolby Digital 5.1 affair. The surrounds are used by the soundtrack, though they are not a major source of the sound.

The front three speakers seem to dominate the sound dispersal, and thus there is a lack of the surround feeling. The subwoofer was used now and again to support the lower end of the sound spectrum.

The extras included are quite nice for a concert DVD. Firstly there is an audio commentary by Kevin Le Gendre, a music historian. You should definitely listen to this if you are not versed in blues music as it contains a lot of broad information on the genre plus Mayfield himself. Next is a short featurette where Le Gendre discusses the gig. Lastly, there is a Juke Box function, which is really just a gimmick.

The disc is single sided and single layered so there is no layer change to worry about.