Steve Morse is the extremely talented, flexible, and busy (with a capital B) guitar virtuoso, who cut his teeth in the Southern Rock bands DIXIE DREGGS and KANSAS. In his spare time, Steve founded his own solo group that he still performs in today. And oh, yeah, he also replaced Ritchie Blackmore in some little band named DEEP PURPLE. As you can imagine, Steve is one busy S.O.B., currently involved with three major rock acts today in addition to participating in guitar clinics. This guy lives, eat, and breathes guitar playing and it shows in his music. One of Steve’s biggest strengths is his flexibility. He has studied classical guitar in addition to the Southern Rock stuff and heavy metal shredding (see DEEP PURPLE), and with this combination of influences, Steve never fails to amaze anyone who appreciates Rock N Roll. In conjunction with Music Video Distributors, Steve Morse has released a massive DVD set, containing two entire concert performances, along with significant extra material. The disc, called STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGS, & ROCK N ROLL, contains an intimate performance of the master at work with his solo act. The DVD also contains an entire live DIXIE DREGS concert from 1999, which showcases the man’s fondness for the Southern Rock art form (a genre which is seriously overlooked today).

STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGS, & ROCK N ROLL contains four hours of concert footage and additional supplemental material for fans of this guitar wizard. First up is a DIXIE DREGS show taped live at Toad’s Place in 1999. Steve Morse’s back-up band for this Southern Rock machine consists of Rod Morgenstein (drums), T Levitz (keyboards), Steve LaRue (bass), and mad-man violinist Jerry Goodman, who pits his instrument head-to-head with Steve Morse’s ax. DIXIE DREGS is a musician’s dream because there are no vocals in the group—its just one complete Southern fried jam after another. The band plays both DIXIE DREGS classics and more recent material like Bloodsucking Leeches, Country House Shuffle, Assembly Line, Hereafter, Justice For All, Steve, Welcome, Busy Bodies, Kat Food, Sleeveless in Seattle, Brick Chicken, Dance of the Maya, The Bash, Cruise Control, Ionized, and Take It Off the Top. The songs are creative and the musicianship is flawless, though two hours of this may wear thin on your patience. The highlight of this DVD is unquestionably the STEVE MORSE BAND captured live in concert around 1990. In a total contrast to the country jams of DIXIE DREGS, this segment showcases the classical and acoustic prowess of Steve Morse. Several of the songs are done solo by Steve and later some other musicians show up to musically reinforce the compositions. Again, no vocals are evident in this set; its all complex fretwork that even Ritchie Blackmore himself would have a hard time keeping up with. While many rock fans may be put off by this kind of performance, let me assure you the talent and emotional resonance on display here is unparalleled. If you don’t believe just check out some of the audience members—several of them are literally crying. The set list here contains Steve Morse favorites and actual classical pieces like Northern Lights, Picture This, Jesus—Joy of Man’s Desires, Jammin Point, Counterpoint, Little Kids, Flat Baroque, Ghost Wind, Get It In Writing, Country Colors, Tumeni Notes, Sparkle Plenty, and Rough Top. For true rock fans, the pinnacle of Steve Morse’s career has to be DEEP PURPLE. The DVD contains a brief section dedicated to his association to these Classic Rock legends. However, there is only one clip from the maestro here and it is merely a guitar solo lifted from the DEEP PURPLE: TOTAL ABANDON LIVE IN AUSTRAILA DVD.

Music Video Distributors presents STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGS, & ROCK N ROLL in the full frame ratio of 1.33.1, which is common for concerts on home video. The video sources for these two shows are dissimilar. Surprisingly, the 1999 DIXIE DREGS show has a blurry and fuzzy composition, with off color hues. The venue where the DD show was filmed, Toad’s Place, is known for poor lighting and the cameramen lazily capture the onstage pacing of the musicians. It appears some M-PEG authoring errors further tarnish the lot. The 1990 Steve Morse solo performance fares better than the more recent 1999 gig!!! And yet this solo set also exhibits some softness and lack of detail. The camera angles and such for the 1990 show are better, too. The DVD authoring errors are likewise not a major issue here. Thankfully, the audio portion makes up for the weak video efforts of Music Video Distributors. Both the Dolby Digital 5.1 and 2.0 boast encompassing and precise soundfield activity. Steve Morse’s acoustic and classical strumming stands out as mesmerizing and involving. Even if you don’t really appreciate the guitar performances of Joe Satriani, Yngwie Malmsteen, or other instrumentalists of this caliber, Steve Morse will win you over and the superb sound here perfectly interprets the musical complexities on display here. Though both concerts could have been shot a lot better, at least they were correctly miked, allowing for the MVD team to bring out the sound to its clearest and fullest. My only complaint sound-wise, is that Rod Morgenstein drum sounds are too flat in the mix. Extras include Photo Galleries of DIXIE DREGS, DEEP PURPLE, and the STEVE MORSE BAND. You can view a Guitar clinic and interview with Steve Morse. There is music video by the STEVE MORSE BAND for the song, Cruise Missile. In my opinion, the highlight of the extras section is the interview with DEEP PURPLE bandmates Roger Glover and Ian Gillian. Both these Rock legends talk in detail about the circumstances that led to the departure of founding member (and egomaniac supreme) Ritchie Blackmore. Gillian & Glover tell it like it is and explain the difficulties they had in filling the shoes of their departed member. Then they get extremely enthusiastic when they discuss bringing Steve Morse aboard.

If you are seriously entertained by the guitar, then you will want to see STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGS, & ROCK N ROLL. Mr. Morse is a super-talented individual who refuses to be pigeon-holed into one style of playing. DEEP PURPLE fans will surely enjoy this look at the prolific career of their favorite guitarist. If you do not respect the emotional musical achievements by serious musicians, then skip this one and go listen your PANTERA clones or Black Metal drones. STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGS, & ROCK N ROLL suffers in one capacity and that is the video quality, which is the result of cramming too much material `onto a simple disc. After all, on the DVD format, to get quantity, you must sacrifice quality. But fans of Steve Morse and guitar virtuosos in general should be pleased with this title.

 STEVE MORSE: SEX, DREGGS, & ROCK N ROLL is available from DVDEmpire.com