Troubadours: Rise of the Singer-Songwriter [CD+DVD]

This DVD is very interesting and I loved the interviews with so many great singer/songwriters. And it was wonderful to see Carole King talk about her craft and her career. My only beef is that I assumed (and you know what that means) the songs on the CD were recordings from sessions at The Troubadour. They aren't. They are just normal tracks taken off albums of the singers. So if you already have James Taylor and Bonnie Raitt and Linda Ronstadt in your collection, you've probably got these very songs already.

This 90-minute American Masters special originally aired on PBS. It takes viewers back to the early 70s, a joyful and creative period in American music, especially in Los Angeles. There a group of young singer-songwriters was establishing a new genre whose gentleness and intimacy contrasted sharply with the untamed ferocity of rock. They blended folk and rock played on acoustic guitars and pianos, and the personal stories they told touched the hearts of my generation and of all the generations since.

Ground zero was The Troubadour, a small club on Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood. It was run by an influential, mercurial, and often dictatorial manager and producer, the late Doug Weston. Our guides to the scene are the men and women who wrote and sang the much-loved tunes of the era. We hear first and foremost from from James Taylor and Carole King, who are the best of friends and the focal point of the film.

Taylor and King are joined by Jackson Browne, Kris Kristofferson, Elton John, Bonnie Raitt, Joni Mitchell, David Crosby of Crosby Stills and Nash, Roger McGuinn of the Byrds, J. D. Souther of the Eagles, and others, both in interviews and in performance. Recalling their experiences at The Troubadour and other clubs is clearly a pleasure for them, and they express great affection for the period and for one another. Growing up together, they formed intense bonds that endure to this day.

The film covers not only the wonderful music but also the groundbreaking comedy of the time: Steve Martin and Cheech and Chong hold forth at length about what went on in the clubs. Producers like Peter Asher and Lou Adler weigh in, as do songwriters like Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil and critics like Robert Hilburn of the L.A. Times and Robert Christgau of Rolling Stone. They discuss the volatile personalities, occasionally shady business dealings, and frequent drug use that threatened the community they helped to build.

The bonus CD is a nice touch: a 10-track compilation of some of the most important original recordings of the era. It should pique your interest in complete albums by the artists I've already mentioned as well as Linda Ronstadt, Tom Waits, Randy Newman, and Warren Zevon. And if you'd like to preview the film, you can watch it in its entirety at the PBS American Masters website, together with outtakes and additional material.

After catching part of the documentary on PBS, I had to own the DVD. The CD is NOT the James Taylor/Carole King Troubadour recording but a CD of oldies. You can download the JT/CK concert - and it's a great download. It was tremendously interesting hearing the stories from those who were there as all of it was happening. I thought that I knew a lot of it, but I was totally enlightened. A must for those who still have a foggy memory of those days.