In 2004, A&M/Universal Music treated Neville Brothers fans to a 5-song "Best of the Neville Brothers" music video collection (in its 20th Century Masters DVD series.) Not being a fan of music television, I have no idea how many of these videos were ever actually in rotation on either MTV or VH-1. I am guessing that this DVD was the first time MANY Neville fans ever saw these concept videos.

Believe it or not, three of the five videos had been released on home video in Japan 13 years earlier! In 1991, Videoarts Japan issued the "Neville Brothers: The Video Collection" (a 6-song video collection) on both VHS and LaserDisc. I bought the LaserDisc in the early 90s and have only seen one other copy for sale since then so I suspect that the disc might be pretty rare. (I bought my VHS copy several years later and have not seen any other copies of that for sale since then, so it too must be fairly rare.)

Both collections include "Bird on a Wire," "Fearless" and "Sister Rosa" (although, on the Japanese collection, "Sister Rosa" is preceded by footage of Martin Luther King, Jr., speaking about Rosa Parks.)

TheU.S. DVD also includes "Fly like An Eagle" (which is available exclusively on that disc) and "Yellow Moon" (which was taken from the Cinemax Sessions "Neville Brothers and Friends: Tell It Like It Is" video.)

In addition to the Martin Luther King, Jr. speech preceding the "Sister Rosa" video, the Japanese video collection also includes "River of Life," "With God On Our Side" and the "Sister Rosa 7" Edit Remix" done by Public Enemy.

Since there are exclusive videos on each collection, both are essential for the completist (although finding copies of the Japanese collection might be virtually impossible.)

Maybe someday, someone will compile and release a more complete collection of Neville Brothers concept videos. Until then, we'll just have to settle for what is in circulation now.

In the weeks to follow, other Neville videos (including movies in which one of the Nevilles has an acting role) will be added to the Nevilletracks site.

Please stay tuned…