The blues is a national Rorschach test. And when the medium for presenting it is as visual as film and video, the opportunities for interpreting the inkblots to death are enormous. With the availability of DVDs on this subject so limited, there was reason for a certain trepdation about this year’s onslaught.

So I want, first, to bring to special attention to a couple of less-publicized new offerings which do that least likely thing of all. They offer up the blues as its makers have made it, without heavy-handed intervention, tendencies to turn blues into a museum curio, or self-aggrandizing pronouncements about how they’re preserving a dying form “for us” before it’s too late.

The best of these is a remarkable two individual volume collection, The American Folk Blues Festival 1962 – 1966 (Hip-O). Culled from performances of the biggest and best names in blues as they toured Europe in those key revival years, often from forgotten, quality black-and-white German TV shows taped in the studio as the acts came through, this set has the likes of Roosevelt Sykes, Memphis Slim and Sonny Boy Williamson II, even as the MCs! The performers are visibly thrilled and feeling liberated to be treated with this respect, and to be performing in such a professional, downright classy context.

And what a lineup of performers it is – Muddy Waters takes on “Got My Mojo Working” in a slow, ghostly version very different from the well-known Newport show, with Sonny Boy (Rice Miller) on harmonica, Willie Dixon on bass, and Otis Spann on keyboards. Just the chance to watch Spann at work makes this worthwhile for me. (There’s really not much “folk” about this, despite the tour’s title at the time.)

Such hot ‘60s blues guitar hands as Magic Sam (as much a big sound innovator and direct predecessor to Hendrix as Buddy Guy), Otis Rush, Matt Guitar Murphy and Hubert Sumlin are joined by electric blues founder T-Bone Walker and master Lonnie Johnson. On harp, there’s Big Walter and Junior Wells; on piano are Spann, Sykes, prime-time Memphis Slim and Sunnyland Slim. Among the blues shouting women, we get Sippie Wallace, Victoria Spivey, and Big Mama Thornton. To these riches add such classic acoustic performers as Fred McDowell (with his extraordinary presence) and Lightnin’ Hopkins.

And one last thing: there are three full-throttle performances by Howlin’ Wolf, powerful enough to define rock (“Shake For Me”), and quietly smoking (“I’ll Be Back Someday”. Just standing up full-size and nodding in rhythm, the man is scary. The studio performances are on sets that for once aren’t cheesy – juke joints and clam bars and front porches populated by what looks like whole southern towns brought over for the occasion. And note, twang fans: Earl Hooker provides a rendition of Ernest Tubb’s “Walking The Floor Over You”! A third volume is slated for next spring.