Richard Clapton and Friends - Up and Down the Glory Road

The less musically aware may not know of singer/songwriter Richard Clapton, or indeed may only vaguely recall his name from a rather clever commercial for a car sound place from the '80s (if you're car stereo's had the Richard (Clapton)…), whilst it's hoped others reading this will be well aware of the man and his vast canon of work. He's been on the Australian music scene since the early '70s, has a penchant for wearing sunnies 99% of the time and although never reaching super-hyper-mega-global fame status like many of his contemporaries, and indeed many of those he's helped out along the way such as INXS, he has been solely responsible for his fair share of genuinely classic Australian tunes - as well as probably one of the greatest ARIA Award acceptance speeches in the event's history.

This disc presents us with a varied chronicle of Clapton's history, the main feature being a two-hour live show recorded for cable station Music Max in August of this year at City Live Fox Studios in Sydney. With a full band in tow, and special guests popping up at times such as Jon Farriss (INXS) on drums, Garry Beers (also of INXS) on bass and an alarmingly slapheaded Diesel (as in Johnny!) on guitar, Richard plummets through 23 songs plucked from his vast catalogue of sixteen albums, including all his hits and a number of lesser known tracks. A few interview snippets are rather clunkily interspersed throughout this very tight performance, and Richard even chats a bit between some of the songs.

Casual observers may even be surprised at how much of this stuff is incredibly familiar - Down in the Lucky Country, Capricorn Dancer, Deep Water, Glory Road, I am an Island, Best Years of Our Lives, Goodbye Tiger - and, of course, the song that still helps him pay his mortgage Girls on the Avenue - are all radio staples from the past twenty-plus years, and many of them feature that certain non-jingoistic Australianness to them akin to that which the great Paul Kelly always seems to manage to conjure up so effortlessly.

As well as the tracks listed above, others featured are: Suit Yourself, Get Back to the Shelter. Real Love, Dark Spaces, Oceans of the Heart, Spellbound, Calling For You, Distant Thunder, The Underground, That Moon (even if some sloppy graphic artist left it off the list on the packaging - and three times at that), Ace of Hearts, Flow in Motion, and Blue Bay Blues.

To get straight to the point, visually the main 1.33:1 presentation is quite fabulous. A phenomenally sharp affair, it isn’t compromised by anything much in the way of the problems such extreme clarity can cause, save for a few very minor instances of shimmer which should worry none but the most pedantic of viewers. Being a live presentation, things such as lens flare do pop up, however this is a staple of live shows and not something this reviewer deems worthy of whining about - you look directly at a light like that if you're there and it will flare, so why should a DVD show it any differently? Colour is also great for such a show, being shot on video there's no problems with grain or speckles, and in all this is a job well done.

The main event here offers three choices. Traditionalists may opt for the standard stereo mix, and won’t be disappointed with the lovingly mixed result. Those of us who prefer things to be a bit more on the 'being there' side of the fence however will love the 5.1 and DTS mixes, both of which are nicely enveloping, pumping suitable amounts of bass through the subwoofwoof, and unlike many live mixes using the rear speakers for some aspects of the music. Perhaps it's not 100% authentic, but hey - it sounds pretty darned good to these ears! It all has that fabulous air of pubbiness about proceedings, with a nicely caught ambience and those fabulously punchy snares that many will know and love the sound of. No issues with synch were evident after the bloody great slimy fingerprint that came free with this review copy was removed...

A satisfying amount of extras accompany the two-hour main feature, all easily accessible from the musically enhanced menu.

Interviews: Nine interviews recorded at the same time as those interspersed through the live feature, totalling a rather brief five and a half minutes in duration. They're simply snippets of the surprisingly personable Richard discussing some of the stories behind certain songs, and he also drops what would be a bombshell for many - Girls on the Avenue WASN'T written about prostitutes, rather a house full of pretty girls he used to pass in Rose Bay. There you go…

Biography: Well, this is pretty slack. A rather cloying, yet still fairly thorough to a point twelve page bio is a good thing, but when it's sourced from the early '90s and is hopelessly out of date, well - make up your own minds…

Slide show: A collection of twenty full frame black and white and colour promo shots, including one from a newspaper which shimmers in such a way that it virtually looks animated. Richard even removes his shades for some of them!

Classic clips: Eleven promo videos of various forms, there are a few live clips - seemingly taken from telly appearances, plus some of the general type vids many will remember from the likes of Countdown and Nightmoves. Sadly some of the earlier ones don’t have re-dubbed sound (it isn’t hard to do!), so are icky mono affairs (notably I am an Island), however most sound alright for Dolby Stereo mixes. You can pick them one by one, or play them as a lump - however be warned, some lummox disconnected the ability to chapter skip, so once they're playing you can’t simply pop to the next song if you wish. One thing is abundantly evident from these clips; Richard likes walking around streets, be it in Sydney, Berlin or elsewhere. Most of the clips include a performance element, and the use of speed effects, be it slowing down or Benny Hill-ing, is rampant. Much like the audio, video quality differs dramatically, with some early clips being remarkably grainy - still, it is a good thing that they have been preserved here. The track listing of clips is… Solidarity, Spellbound, Calling For You, I am an Island, Best Years of Our Lives, Glory Road, Happy Valley, Ace of Hearts, Trust Somebody, Angelou and Deep Water.

It is *SO* heartening to see a DVD release such as this, from an artist who is undeniably a great and often under-lauded local talent - and we can only hope that more such releases get to punctuate the relentless stream of discs from cheesy fly by night pop fodder we seem to have been fed of late.

The main feature is top notch, and whilst the extras vary in quality they still offer fabulous value for money for fans of the enigmatic Mr Clapton, and indeed those interested in the history of great local music.

Just one question remains though, why the Jake Blues-like addiction to sunnies? You have nice eyes Richard - you don’t need to hide them all the time!