Black Oak Arkansas - First 30 Years

Customer Reviews:

Jim Dandy To the Rescue.......2006-05-21

One of the most hard rockin Southern raunch n' roll band from the 70's Black Oak Arkansas. When ever someone ask me who is BOA I say picture David Lee Roth fronting Lynyrd Skynyrd. Of course singer Jim "Dandy" Mangrum was way before David Lee Roth. JD was known for his low growl vocals, his mischievous smile and his washboard playing. W/ songs like "Hot & Nasty", "Hot Rod", "Bump & Grind" and "Back Door Man" among other BOA songs.

This DVD was put out by Rhino Home Video and consist of 89 minutes of footage from live to back stage. Although the title says The First 30 Years it really shows BOA from '73 to '75. There is some interviews but not sure what year that was recorded.
Majority is in color w/ a few clips black & white.

Starts off w/ "Diggin' For Gold" playing while footage of the band backstage. The history of the band w/ still photos. From tracks 2 to 9 is from London 1974.
I love "Mutants of The Monster" but they didn't do the intro JD speaks before going into the song. I don't know if it was edited out or he didn't do it at that show. Also BOA does a cover of "Taxman" which is a great number and the famous cover of "Jim Dandy". I say this '74 concert is one of the best on the DVD.

Then you have this documentary of BOA titled "All You Need Is Love". There is a Minister talking about the evils of BOA. Also the band shows their compound in the hills of Arkansas. They talk about this community that is surrounded by a huge wooden fence and inside is a little town from post office to a school.

Next concert on the DVD is North Carolina Motor Speedway from 1974. This is about 2 songs long w/ JD showing you around their tour bus.

A 1975 Summer Tour shows Tommy Aldridge drum solo. Tommy is an amazing drummer who played w/ many artists such as Whitesnake, Gary Moore, Pat Travers, Ozzy Osbourne, Ted Nugent and more.

Then you have 2 interviews one w/ JD the other w/ Butch Stone the Business Manager who tells about the time in '73 he drove a young political couple Bill & Hillary from Arkansas to see BOA in concert.

The last 2 songs are from 1973, Barton Coliseum which is a bit blurry.
For a true show I say the'74 London show is good footage of BOA.

I wish they had the concert form Don Kirshners Rock concert that shows JD jumping over the drummers set.
This is a pretty good collection since there isn't much footage around of BOA.

The band credits are Jim "Dandy " Mangrum, Rickie Lee Reynolds, Stanley Knight, Pat Daugherty, Harvey Jett, Jimmy Henderson, Tommy Aldridge, Wayne Evans and (the late) Ruby Starr. I didn't see Ruby Starr but if she was on film she was somewhere in the background.

Special features include a few still photos.

I am a great fan of BOA; disappointed in the DVD.......2005-08-29

Not sure what I expected, however over all i was disappointed. I have seen BOA many times in the early seventies and was disapponted that there wasnt more quality footage of the "Harvey Jett" era. I very much enjoyed the early incarnations of the band (different drummer and of course Mr. Jett); Jim Dandy was more like a backwoods shaman and less of a "gigolo". There was a real mystery/magic in the shows and witnessing the band can only be descibed as a "profound experience". The DVD seems to be hastily put together or perhaps not a lot of the film has survived. I agree the sound and film quality of the Albert Hall show is very good considering the technology at the time, it's just not the "lineup" I was expecting.
It was interesting to note how the times have changed, for instance; Jim Dandy says "Stay high because you are high" and of course the waving of the confederate flag might be considered less than appropriate.
BOA is nonetheless an American treasure, I hear the band is still making music and I will forever remember the magic the band brought to the musical landscape in those post-psychedelic days. :)

btw: Harvey Jett will not make a cent from the sell of the DVD. When he walked away from the band he gave up his share of royalties etc... due to the contractual agreements. Personally, i think that is a shame.

WE ARE SO LUCKY.......2005-07-07

Hey I knew what I was doing when I was 14 years old. I remembered I had seen Black Oak on TV...maybe it was a late night In Concert show but I remembered I liked it when I was a teen. Hadn't really heard about them for 30 years then I picked up this DVD for some reason. WOW!!! It's GREAT!!!There is a lot of footage that includes Jimmy Henderson. Jimmy stepped in when original guitarist Harvey Jett dropped out. Henderson was a virtuoso on the guitar. He plays a Les Paul through an Orange brand amplifier. Great sound on that thing. Great photography. The camera actually follows the guitarist when they do solos. The riffs are killer and catchy. The songs rock. The best are "Hey Yall" great melody, solos and dancing by Jim Dandy while he's young. "Back Door Man" funky, "Hot & Nasty" drills, "Jim Dandy to the Rescue" rocks like the first time. The band is on target and in their prime. "Jail Bait" has great sounding guitar going through a phaser or flanger along with slide guitar work by Jimmy. Some outdoor footage which is cool but not as good as the London footage. "Bump & Grind" has a world class scream from Jim Dandy that he brings up from the floor. He's a wild man!!! His voice is so unique and the material on this DVD works really well with Dandy's voice. "Hey Yall" reprises from another concert. It's good too along with "Dixie". They also rave it up after a drum solo and bring an outdoor concert to a close by slowing building to a crescendo that is truly dramatic and cosmic with a UFO sounding guitar in the end. I was so impressed with this DVD that I purchased five copies for friends. It is fun to the max! Jimmy Henderson I must say again is truly a virtuoso and really stepped up the quality of BOA. He was a contract player as I understand it. I've listened to this DVD loud almost 40 times. There are very few CDs, DVDs that I can truly get excited about but this one I sure can. The riffs kick, the changes swirl, the dynamics punch, the leads incinerate but with taste. The band is tight and in control and the sound is fantastic! What more can I say? I've listened to it at least 40 times and will probably continue to listen to it, worshipping the sound, and I bought 5 copies for friends which I don't really do to often. I usually give gift cards as gifts but this, I wanted people to hear. Jim and the band are on the money and full of confidence in 1974. Exceptionally good music while they were at their peak 1974.

Wonderful band------ Poor DVD!!!!.......2003-10-26

BLACK OAK ARKANSAS IS ONE OF THE GREATEST ROCK AND ROLL BANDS OF ALL TIME, HOWEVER THIS DVD DOES NOT DO THEM ANY JUSTICE.
THE SOUND QUALITY IS TERRIBLE AND THERE ARE NO CAPTIONS TO HELP US DISTINGUISH THE SONG LYRICS.
IF YOU'RE A FAN OF THE BAND AS I AM, YOU'LL BE BETTER OFF LISTENING TO THE CD'S INSTEAD.
ALTHOUGH WHAT CAN BE EXPECTED FROM AGED MATERIAL ANYWAY?
THE FOOTAGE IS QUITE OLD AND THEREFORE THE SOUND IS NOT THAT GREAT.
MY RECOMMENDATION IS TO PASS ON THE DVD AND SEE THEM LIVE INSTEAD!!!

surprisingly good quality for seventies film footage.......2003-05-31

I almost put this one back on the shelf. I was thinking, Okay- maybe one or two decent clips from the seventies, then on to boring interviews from aging, fat, bald/gray band members...what a pleasant surprise! The main body of this DVD is some killer footage from their 1974 show. I saw them on this tour, and had forgotten just how good they were.
I am extremely leery of film footage of rock concerts from the seventies: most of the time the stage lighting was inadequate for film cameras ( and especially those behemoth video cameras if they were videotaping instead ), the typically monaural audio track is woefully poor...and, biggest gripe of all pertaining to film, the sound and picture virtually NEVER match up! Not the case with this one. The Albert Hall footage is amazingly good quality, with picture and sound in perfect sync, although the subsequent Charlotte footage was disappointing ( by the way, anybody catch the ELP road cases during that backstage shot...Tommy Aldridge and Carl Palmer on the same stage...doesn't get any better than that! ). I had forgotten what a showman Jim Dandy was. If there's a pebble in my shoe about this footage, however, it's that too much of it was spent on JD...and not enough on Tommy Aldridge, arguably the best American rock drummer of the seventies. This guy was twenty years ahead of his time! NOBODY was playing double bass drums the way he did in the early seventies...you can believe that all the "young lions" of today ( Charlie Benante, Mike Portnoy, Lars Ulrich, etc ) cut their teeth listening to TA. The audio mix is pretty good, but of course you can't hear his bass drums the way they mix them today. Check out the end of "Mutants"...I feel sorry for any double bass drummer that had to follow BOAs set. Why did they delete "Up" from the Albert Hall footage, only to cut in from a poor sidestage angle toward the end of TAs solo ( and black and white to boot! )? Overall, though, a very good DVD of this band. Highly recommended!

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