Tom Dowd & the Language of Music

"The entertaining and informative documentary Tom Dowd and the Language of Music lends itself well to DVD expansion, as like many such productions it relies on talking-heads interviews for much of its content. While Dowd's achievements as an engineer and producer in the 1950s, '60s, and '70s for the likes of Aretha Franklin, Cream, Derek & the Dominos, the Allman Brothers, and Ray Charles were covered well in the original film, the DVD gives music geeks the chance to hear yet more stories of the era and the artists. This is because most of the DVD extras are additional interview scenes, not only with Dowd, but with several of the artists, record executives, producers, and engineers who also contributed memories to the original film. This gives room for some very specific commentaries that were perhaps felt too specialized, technical, or outside of Dowd's own story for the original cut, such as Dowd talking about the famous piano used on Derek & the Dominos' ""Layla,"" Dickey Betts of the Allmans on Dowd's miking techniques, and Charles discussing his own musical influences. The disc is set up so that you can play just one isolated clip or all interviews with a certain figure at once, and while the information might be too in-depth to appeal to everybody (and not all of the stories are fascinating), aficionados will appreciate its availability for posterity. The few additional extras are hardly worth noting, including just a few deleted scenes of little consequence, a photo gallery, and other crumbs."