Short description
This two-disc set brings together a CD reissue of The Best of Family compilation and a DVD of a 2002 Roger Chapman concert, the perfect tribute to the artist's long-running career. Longtime fans will know that at least a quartet of Best Of titled Family sets have been released beginning in 1974, this one however is an update of a 1994 compilation, which omits a couple of numbers -- "Children" and "Sweet Desire," but adds bonus tracks. As such sets go, this one is a winner, although not career-spanning. Best Of ignores the band's earliest releases, picking up the Family story with "The Weaver's Answer," from the group's sophomore set, the British Top Ten charting Family Entertainment. All four of the band's British hit singles are included, with every one of the band's other albums represented within. The band, of course, began life in the early '60s as the Farinas, but it was under the Family moniker that the original quartet's reputations were made. Upon their demise in 1973, Chapman formed Streetwalkers, and then in 1979 launched a solo career, accompanied by Mickey Jupp. The singer revisited both his solo and Family favorites in 2002, when he played before an enthusiastic audience at England's Newcastle Opera House. It was a great show, with highlights including a stellar take on Bob Dylan's "Blind Willie McTell" and an inspired version of "Shadow on the Wall," a number Chapman first performed with Mike Oldfield in 1983. Chapman and his band the Short List have a grand time throwing "Shadow" onto a Jamaican beach, and its new title "Shank" is a play on the reggae dance, the skank. Between the grand music on the CD and the steaming show on DVD, this Best Of more than lives up to its billing. ~ Jo-Ann Greene