Last year I covered a best of CD encompassing the legendary career of JJ Cale, this year I had the opportunity to see what it was like to watch him perform in a live jam session setting. I must say listening to him live and in the studio are two very different things. ?In Session at the Paradise Studios? is a superlative session with Leon Russell and a host of other talented artists having a good time with JJ. While having an absolute ball they make some fantastic music together. Russell and Cale compliment each quite nicely throughout this performance. I guess I never realized just how much I would enjoy Cale?s music and appreciate his guitar playing, until I saw and heard him perform in something other than a studio session. There are some enlightening cut away shots with JJ as well. He explains how he customized his own guitar taking a hollow body and closing it up and adding various pickups for a certain sound. He illustrates this by showing you the back of the guitar exposed, so he can explain what he did. The guitar looks like an old beat up junk but it sounds great in JJ?s hands. The quality of this DVD is excellent in both sound and picture thanks to the remastering process the original film went through. There is no skimping on content either, you get 21 feature tracks, all fabulous, plus 5 audio bonus tracks to groove to at the end. So all together this package offers 26 tracks of JJ Cale in his essence playing blues-rock like nobody else can. This man has attained legendary status, particularly amongst his peers, regardless of his reclusive lifestyle out of the spotlight. I give him credit for having the hindsight to design his life that way. Even though he has not attained lofty heights as a superstar selling a billion units of an album in his career, he has received critical acclaim for his work on a worldwide level and many artists have paid tribute to his artistry by emulating him and covering his songs. Tracks like ?Cocaine? (Covered by E. Clapton) and ?After Midnight? (Covered by Derek and the Dominoes w/E. Clapton) are a few of the more recognizable Cale originals. I above all enjoyed ?After Midnight,? ?Crazy Mama? and ?Same Ole Blues.? It was heart warming to see JJ smiling and interacting with Leon and the band, and that aspect made it an up close and personal performance for me. This is a very rare performance that we all can now appreciate and enjoy. I will treasure this DVD until I am unable to see and hear no doubt, or it wears out so I cannot watch it, whatever comes first. ?"Keith "MuzikMan" Hannaleck May 5, 2003