World Tour 1966: The Home Movies Through the Camera of Bob Dylan's Drummer - Bob Dylan

Upon its release, this 90-minute documentary of sorts sparked immediate outcry among some fans, who felt deceived by a DVD prominently mentioning "World Tour 1966" in the title, on top of a groovy cover picture of Bob Dylan from his 1966 world tour. For this does not contain any actual sound footage of Dylan's concerts on that legendary jaunt, on which he was backed by the Hawks, who soon (with the exception of drummer Mickey Jones) became the Band. Instead, it's largely a collection of silent home movie film clips -- most of them indeed from that tour, and some (and certainly not all) including Dylan in the frame -- taken by Jones, who also provides a lot of onscreen and voice-over narration. Once you get past the realization that this isn't really a Bob Dylan concert DVD, however, this really isn't that bad, even if its appeal might be limited to Dylanophiles. It's more notable, frankly, for Jones' narration than the film clips (in color), which are as basic in both content and technique as you might expect from a tour drummer making home movies. For Jones is a pretty good, affable storyteller, and he has a lot to say without (usually) getting boring.In detail, he recounts his entry into the rock world with Trini Lopez (a segment including some brief silent snippets of the Beatles playing in Paris in January 1964, where Lopez shared the bill while using Jones as drummer) and Johnny Rivers; his subsequent recruitment into Dylan's concert backing band (interestingly, he says he was first under the impression that Dylan wanted him as a drummer for recording sessions); and the highs, lows, and hijinks of the tour itself. Jones gets some of the chronology mixed up (at one point he says he was with Dylan for two years, which seems to be more than doubling the length of his stint), but he has a fair amount of reasonably interesting stories about why Dylan decided to separate his sets into acoustic and electric ones; the musicians' bemused and at times hurt reaction to the booing on the electric sets; how Dylan would make a point of looking over at him before starting "Ballad of a Thin Man" (which of course prominently refers to a "Mr. Jones" in the lyrics); why Dylan decided to hang an American flag over the stage for a French show; Dylan's plan to tour in Russia (?!) before getting sidelined by the famous motorcycle accident; and other trivia of interest to serious Dylan fanatics.The image quality of the home movies is good considering their age and that they were never intended to be shown publicly. While the scenes from those clips are not too interesting in and of themselves (though they do include some on-stage footage, sometimes shot not by Jones but by others with the entourage), they make a suitable backdrop for the drummers' tales. The movies do include a lot of incidental horsing around and travelogue/tourist bits that, along with Jones' descriptions of these less vital aspects of the journey, will likely be the parts that viewers will find most exasperating and least necessary. The DVD also uses some still tour photos to complement Jones' dialogue, which is sometimes prompted by a rather wooden offscreen interviewer. Incidentally, the Dylan songs heard in the background during some of the DVD are not actual Bob Dylan recordings (let alone recordings from Dylan's 1966 world tour), but facsimiles of Dylan songs by the Bob Dylan tribute band Highway 61 Revisited. ~ Richie Unterberger, All Music Guide