A trio to remember from 1986

It was a piano summit for the ages when Fats Domino, Jerry Lee Lewis and Ray Charles performed together for the first and only time, at a New Orleans Club in 1986. The document of that show,

Fats and Friends,

is just out on DVD, and its highlight is a sampling of new releases featuring great Americana artists.

The 17-song program, recorded before a live audience at the Storyville club, starts out with the three legends performing individual sets. Then, they take the stage together, fronting a group led by Letterman bandleader Paul Shaffer and Rolling Stone Ron Wood, to rip through "The Lewis Boogie," "Low Down Dog," "Jambalaya," and "Swanee River Rock." The bonus material, including a new interview with Shaffer, is negligible. But the red-hot show itself makes this DVD a must-have.

Lewis gets the spotlight again on Last Man Standing, Live, a DVD companion to his superb 2006 duets album, Last Man Standing. Filmed last fall, the set gives equal weight to the Killer's rock-and-roll and country sides. It features performances by some of the artists who appeared on the album (including Wood, Buddy Guy, John Fogerty, Willie Nelson and Kid Rock) and some who didn't (Tom Jones, Norah Jones, Chris Issak).

At 71, Lewis looks a little bloated, and he's not as manic as in the archival clips interspersed throughout. Musically, however, he is as potent, and devilish, as ever. "Do I like what? Just check my track record, baby; it speaks for itself," he says in the intro to "Chantilly Lace." Too bad the minimal extras include only one bonus performance.

Lewis, of course, made his name at Sun Records in Memphis, and singer-songwriter John Prine was in a Sun/Memphis mind when he appeared on the PBS concert series Soundstage in 1980. (No wonder: He had recently cut the Sun-influenced Pink Cadillac album in Memphis.) Live on Soundstage 1980 is a slice of prime Prine. He serves up some of his great folk-rock narratives, like "Angel From Montgomery" and "Hello in There," but he and his band also rock hard through "Automobile," "Saigon," and the Sun classics "Ubangi Stomp" and "Red Hot," the latter with the song's original singer, Billy Lee Riley. The music is interspersed with clips of the long-haired troubadour tooling around his hometown of Maywood, Ill., in a 1951 Ford, pointing out scenes that inspired some of his songs, and also performing two of them on the back porch of his childhood home. No extras.

Back in the late '50s and early '60s, bluegrass greats Flatt & Scruggs had a regional TV show that was very popular in the South. For the first time, four episodes of the show have been released on two separately sold DVDs as Best of the Flatt & Scruggs TV Show, Vol. 1 and Vol 2. These 30-minute black-and-white programs come complete with the original ads for Martha White baking products. There are moments of cornball humor, but the focus is squarely on the music, as singer-guitarist Lester Flatt and banjo player Earl Scruggs are joined by their band, the Foggy Mountain Boys, who run through original and traditional tunes, including a weekly sacred number. It's an illuminating, and entertaining, window into another place and time. And seeing these pickers in this environment gives you a new appreciation for their virtuosity, especially Scruggs: Watch, at one point, as he changes the tuning on his banjo while playing it. Mother Maybelle Carter guests on the August 1961 episode on Vol. 2. No extras.