Mojo Bones may just be the world’s best collection of legendary and otherwise amazing musicians. This hour-long film has twelve different five-minute clips of musicians as diverse as BB King, Little Richard, Otis Redding, The Doors, and Jimi Hendrix. While each of these artists could conceivably have four and five DVD sets full of their live performances (if not deserving more), Mojo Bones gives viewers a little snippet of each. It is a great introduction to the live side of some of these artists, who either have passed on, are not touring, or are touring and are forcing fans to pay $500+ for tickets.
Very few collectors will have this footage, which ranges from rare (the James Brown cut) all the way to intensely difficult (Janis Joplin). Wienerworld has made the footage as sharp as they can, but remember that these artists all had a sixties and seventies heyday. The footage may be grainy, the audio may be a little hard to hear sometimes, but there is no lack of soul, passion, or impressive artistry here.
What I found to be a great addition to Mojo Bones was the inclusion of different musicians and celebrities speaking about the impact that some of these artists had on them. Afrika Bambaataa and long-time radio host Dr. Rock (Charles White) both provide their two cents.
I like Mojo Bones, and would like to see Wienerworld (and U.S. distributor MVD) do a number of these collections in the years to come. Just go and pan for gold on Craigslist and other legitimate (and not so) websites, and see what sort of live footage comes out. Have collections from fifties artists all the way to the present; if they are of even half the caliber of the artists that are present here on Mojo Bones, I would have to say that subsequent DVDs would be a success.
Mojo Bones (DVD) / 2011 MVD | Wienerworld UK / 60 Minutes / http://www.mvdb2b.com