TEH REVELATOR COLLECTION - [DVD]

The companion DVD to the Grammy-nominated Time (the Revelator). Previsou unreleased, includes all three videos from the album and nine live performances from the Revelator tour. Featuring the unreleased original song "Wichita" and four rare previously unreleased recordings of songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Bill Monroe and Townes Van Zandt. Directed by Mark Seliger. B&W, running time 59 minutes.Rarely have an artist and a visual approach been as well matched as they are in this hour-long package of videos and concert performances featuring singer-songwriter Gillian Welch and her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Welch's rootsy, all-acoustic music is pure, plain, and simple, old-sounding if not especially old-fashioned; fittingly, both the three videos and nine live songs here ("Revelator" is seen and heard in both formats), all from 2001, are in black and white and similarly free of props, effects, or any other kind of artifice. Most of the material is her own, with covers of songs by Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Townes Van Zandt, and bluegrass legend Bill Monroe rounding out the program. Not the liveliest or most uplifting music around, perhaps, but Welch fans will, well, revel in this tasteful presentation of her work. --Sam Graham