Labi Siffre - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1972-1976

Here's another BBC album by singer-songwriter Labi Siffre. Like the first one, it's a collection of BBC studio sessions.

I've mentioned multiple times that I have a musical friend who has been sending me some music from the BBC radio show "Top of the Pops" that hasn't been easily available to the general public. This is another case of that. Every single song here is from that radio show. Volume 1 in this series was also entirely made up of songs from that show. But while the contents of that one made it into an obscure "grey market" bootleg, most of this I don't think has even been available by bootleg until now. 

Generally speaking, the "Top of the Pops" show switched from mostly unique, live performances to just playing the record versions around 1972 or 1973. But sometimes there were still live performances after that. I double checked, and that was the case with a few of Siffre's songs, as tracks 9 and 10 are from 1975, and track 11 is from 1976.

Some of the songs here were not released by Siffre in any form - nice covers of the classic songs "Let It Be," "Simple Man," and "Fire and Rain." 

In my opinion, Siffre is really underrated. I have several theories for this. One, he was openly gay back in the 1970s, as well as being Black and politically outspoken, and I'm sure that created difficulties for him. Two, it seems he didn't tour much, especially after the early 1970s. Three, his music career basically came to a stop for a long time, because he didn't release any albums between 1975 and 1988. He did have a surprise late hit in 1987 with "(Something Inside) So Strong," but he went back into a low profile not much after that. But at least we still have musical recordings like this.

His last "Top of the Pops" performance was from 1976. However, I still have one more volume to post, consisting of a 1975 BBC concert.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 Let It Be (Labi Siffre)
02 Simple Man (Labi Siffre)
03 Watch Me (Labi Siffre)
04 Gimme Some More (Labi Siffre)
05 Love, Oh Love, Oh Love (Labi Siffre)
06 My Song (Labi Siffre)
07 If You Have Your Faith (Labi Siffre)
08 Entertainment Value (Labi Siffre)
09 Another You (Labi Siffre)
10 Fire and Rain (Labi Siffre)
11 Starride to Nowhere (Labi Siffre)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/RHMzAUWh

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/VorpVbXBxatTYvH/file

I don't know anything about the cover photo. But it looks to be from the early 1970s. 

Earth, Wind and Fire - BBC In Concert, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 3-7-1998

I recently came across a BBC concert by Earth, Wind and Fire. If I had an earlier BBC concert I would post it, but it seems this was the only one the band ever did for the BBC.

This concert is from 1998, well past their prime years, but key members like Maurice White (lead singer and main songwriter) and Philip Bailey (the other lead singer) were still in the band. I'm not sure of White's role here though. Around 1996, White started showing signs of Parkinson's Disease, and only sometimes performed in concerts with the band. Perhaps someone more familiar with his voice can say whether he's singing here or not. White remained involved with the band until he passed away in 2016 at the age of 74.

The band issued a new album in 1997. But you wouldn't know it from this concert. Pretty much all the songs are hits from the band's best selling years in the 1970s and early 1980s. (By the way, if anyone knows the title of the track 6 instrumental, please let me know so I can add in that info.)   

The music here is unreleased (although some grey market releases of this have emerged). The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 57 minutes long. It seems it was tightly edited by the BBC to fit just under one hour, to make an hour-long radio show time slot. There's virtually no banter or wasted time between songs. 

01 September (Earth, Wind & Fire)
02 Shining Star (Earth, Wind & Fire)
03 Can't Hide Love (Earth, Wind & Fire)
04 Sun Goddess (Earth, Wind & Fire)
05 In the Stone (Earth, Wind & Fire)
06 Instrumental (Earth, Wind & Fire)
07 talk (Earth, Wind & Fire)
08 That's the Way of the World (Earth, Wind & Fire)
09 I'll Write a Song for You (Earth, Wind & Fire)
10 After the Love Has Gone (Earth, Wind & Fire)
11 Sing a Song (Earth, Wind & Fire)
12 Getaway (Earth, Wind & Fire)
13 Boogie Wonderland (Earth, Wind & Fire)
14 Fantasy (Earth, Wind & Fire)
15 Let's Groove (Earth, Wind & Fire)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BJovCvYf

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/k4E1wdoCTbVHIWL/edit

The cover photo is from a concert in Berlin some time in 1998. 

Various Artists- MusiCares Tribute to Neil Young, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-29-2010

So far, I've posted three MusiCares tribute concerts. I recently got a request to post this one honoring Neil Young sooner rather than later, so here it is. I still have five more to post after this, so look for those eventually as well.

Tons of talented stars showed up to sing their favorite Neil Young songs. There's a lot of great music here. Unfortunately, there's also some that's missing. This comes from a DVD of the event. Generally speaking, only a small crowd of the rich and famous attend these MusiCares concerts, so bootlegs of them are very rare. We know from media accounts that three songs were performed that weren't included on the DVD. Those are:

"Long May You Run" by Stephen Stills & Sheryl Crow 
"Comes a Time" by Emmylou Harris, Patty Griffin & Lucinda Williams
"A Man Needs a Maid" by Red Hot Chili Peppers

If anyone has any of those so I can add them, please let me know. I found a video of the Red Hot Chili Peppers song recorded on a cell phone and posted on YouTube, but the sound quality is terrible. I'm guessing a lot of the banter between songs was cut out as well. Actor Jack Black was the emcee, but he's not really heard at all in the recording.

Typically, the person honored in these tributes performs a couple of songs at the end of the concert. But while Neil Young was there, and gave a short speech, it seems he didn't perform any songs. 

Here's a good account of the concert by someone who attended:

https://tinnitist.com/2023/08/11/back-stories-neil-youngs-musicares-tribute-jan-29-2010/

And Rolling Stone Magazine published a bunch of photos from it, here:

https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-lists/musicares-person-of-the-year-tribute-to-neil-young-210831/red-hot-chili-peppers-2-19005/

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Down by the River (John Mellencamp & T-Bone Burnett)
02 Mr. Soul (Ozomatli)
03 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Jackson Browne)
04 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Lady Antebellum)
05 Tell Me Why (Norah Jones)
06 Broken Arrow (Wilco)
07 Harvest Moon (Josh Groban)
08 Revolution Blues (Everest)
09 Cinnamon Girl (Dierks Bentley & Booker T. Jones)
10 Ohio (Ben Harper)
11 Rockin' in the Free World (Keith Urban, John Fogerty & Booker T. Jones)
12 The Losing End [When You're On] (Elvis Costello)
13 Lotta Love (Jason Mraz & Shawn Colvin)
14 The Needle and the Damage Done (Dave Matthews)
15 Heart of Gold (James Taylor)
16 Helpless (Elton John, Leon Russell, Neko Case & Sheryl Crow)
17 Human Highway (Crosby, Stills & Nash)
18 talk (Neil Young)
19 Rockin' in the Free World [Reprise] (Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BNxSXgS9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UhnFSv0eArgOnvZ/file

The cover is from this exact concert. From left to right: Dave Matthews, Jason Mraz, Emmylou Harris, Elvis Costello, Shawn Colvin, and James Taylor.

Kate & Anna McGarrigle with Linda Ronstadt & Maria Muldaur - In Concert, Red Creek Cabaret, Rochester, NY, 6-12-1984

I stumbled across this the other day, and thought it interesting enough to post it straight away. I've been wanting to post something from Kate and Anna McGarrigle for some time. The fact that this prominently features Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur made it extra appealing to me.

This comes from a TV special called "Kate and Anna McGarrigle in Concert." (I shortened it to just "In Concert" for the title because extra long titles can cause problems sometimes.) It was held in a small club in the out of the way town of Rochester, New York, for some reason. I took this from a video, converted it to audio, and broke it into mp3s. If you look at the video, only a couple hundred of people filled the club.

Most of the songs just featured Kate and Anna McGarrigle and their band. But on some songs, Linda Ronstadt and/or Maria Muldaur joined in. Sometimes they sang lead, and sometimes backing vocals. You can get the gist of what they did on each song by looking at the song list.  

Kate and Anna McGarrigle were a talented singing and songwriting duo, as well as sisters. (Kate died in 2010 at the age of 63, but Anna is still alive as I write this in 2025.) They never had any hit albums or singles per se, but they were consistently critically acclaimed. Other musical acts liked covering their songs. That's probably why Linda Ronstadt and Maria Muldaur were here, as a kind of thank you since both of them put songs written by McGarrigle on their albums. (And in a better world, "Love Over and Over" should have been a hit - I love that song. I'm glad to see it was included here.)

Kate & Anna McGarrigle - Wikipedia 

01 As Fast as My Little Feet Can Carry Me (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
02 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
03 Complainte pour Ste. Catherine (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
04 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
05 NaCl [Sodium Chloride] (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
06 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
07 The Work Song (Maria Muldaur with Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
08 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
09 Heart like a Wheel (Linda Ronstadt with Kate & Anna McGarrigle & Maria Muldaur)
10 Travellin' On for Jesus (Kate & Anna McGarrigle with Linda Ronstadt & Maria Muldaur)
11 Dig My Grave (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
12 talk (Maria Muldaur)
13 The Lying Song (Maria Muldaur)
14 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
15 [Talk to Me Of] Mendocino (Linda Ronstadt with Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
16 Go Leave (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
17 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
18 Tu Vas M'Accompagner [You'll Accomp'ny Me] (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
19 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
20 Going Out Looking (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
21 Love Over and Over (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
22 talk (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
23 You Tell Me that I'm Falling Down (Linda Ronstadt, Maria Muldaur, Kate & Anna McGarrigle)
24 Parlez-nous a Boire (Kate & Anna McGarrigle)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9gQY7WJq

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/d30oooswLOBZKpu/file

I have a difficult time coming up with the cover. The video footage from this concert is very low-res and blurry. So any picture with multiple people in it looked pretty bad. I decided to take screenshots of the heads of Kate McGarrigle and Linda Ronstadt when they were reasonably close to each other. Then I used Photoshop to move them closer still. I also used the Krea AI program to flesh out some more detail. 

Fleetwood Mac - Cue Club, Gothenburg, Sweden, 11-2-1969

I've delved very deeply into early Fleetwood Mac, posting 36 albums of their music from 1967 to 1971, so I don't know how I missed this one until now. This is peak Peter Green-era, with fantastic sound quality.

(A couple of years ago, I actually put one song "Gothenberg Improv" (which is just a guess at a title) from this exact concert on the album "Live and Rare, Volume 2," and yet I missed the whole concert somehow. Maybe I got that from some compilation and failed to find the rest of it, until a few days ago.)

This is a complete concert that either is a soundboard or was broadcast on Swedish radio at the time. Either way, the sound quality is as good as it gets for the era. Better still, the band was firing on all cylinders. Peter Green, the band's main singer, songwriter, and lead guitarist at the time, was at the height of his creative powers. (He would have increasing troubles in early 1970 and leave the band in the middle of that year.) At the time, the band had another lead guitarist, Danny Kirwan, and their guitar interplay was peaking here as well.

The band had released the hit album "Then Play On" a couple of months earlier, as well as the hit song "Oh Well, Part 1." But this concert also includes the hit song "The Green Manalishi (With the Two-Prong Crown)," which wouldn't be released until May 1970. It's possible this was the first time it was performed in concert. (Setlist.fm lists the first performance later in November, but it sometimes is incomplete.)

There was only one problem with this concert, and that has to do with the last song, "The Green Manalishi." The entire first three minutes were missing. The recording began right as the vocals part of the song ended, and a long instrumental jam began. I used another version (from the Warehouse in New Orleans in January 1970) for those three minutes. The last minute or so was missing as well. I used the same source to fix that also. So that's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

This album is an hour and 21 minutes long. 

01 Rattlesnake Shake (Fleetwood Mac)
02 Underway [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
03 World in Harmony [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
04 Red Hot Mama (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Got to Move (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Gothenburg Improv [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
07 Coming Your Way (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Stranger Blues (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Albatross [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
11 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
12 The Green Manalishi [With the Two-Prong Crown] [Edit] (Fleetwood Mac) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jqYAECRo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NXXZ9uK3jSWqeVZ/file

The cover photo of Peter Green is from an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" BBC TV show (not to be confused with the radio show of the same name) at Lime Grove Studios, in London, on October 23, 1969. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Labi Siffre - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 11-18-1972

Here's another BBC album by singer-songwriter Labi Siffre. This is a short concert from 1972. It's solo acoustic in format.

I mentioned in my write-up for "Volume 1" that Siffre is an unusually talented guitar player for singer-songwriters of that era. That really comes through here, with it just being him and his acoustic guitar. He has a lot of nice classical and/or jazzy touches. It's too bad though that he didn't play either of his British hits that had been released by the time of this concert, "It Must Be Love" and "Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying."

This concert was pretty short, at only 26 minutes. So I looked around to see if there were any other live performances from this time. I only found one that wasn't lip-synced, from an appearance on the BBC TV show "The Harry Secombe Show" in December 1972. So that one song, "My Song," is added on at the end as kind of a quasi-bonus track. That song was later heavily sampled for the Kanye West song "I Wonder," including some of Siffre's vocals. 

Note that there appears to have been another BBC concert by Siffre in 1971. Unfortunately, I can't find all of it. His official YouTube account has been posting songs from it, very slowly. Over the past two years, they've posted six songs, with the latest one just from a couple of days ago. I hope they'll keep going until they've posted the whole thing. Although it's frustrating that all the banter and/or applause has been edited out. If and when I get all of that, I'll probably post that, and renumber the BBC albums that come after, like this one. If anyone does have all of that one, please let me know.

Everything here is officially unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 30 minutes long. 

01 talk (Labi Siffre)
02 Fool Me a Good Night (Labi Siffre)
03 Feeling I Got (Labi Siffre)
04 talk (Labi Siffre)
05 Love Song for Someone (Labi Siffre)
06 talk (Labi Siffre)
07 Down (Labi Siffre)
08 talk (Labi Siffre)
09 Children of Children (Labi Siffre)
10 talk (Labi Siffre)
11 Hotel Room Song (Labi Siffre)
12 talk (Labi Siffre)
13 Odds and Ends (Labi Siffre)
14 My Song (Labi Siffre)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bGLvQMpi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/dOIQikxDckPsy13/file

The cover photo shows Siffre on the "Harry Secombe Show" in December 1972. It was taken during the performance of the last song here.

ZZ Top - Toledo Speedway, Toledo, OH, 8-17-1980

It's sad to me that rock and roll is slowly declining in popularity. But at least we still have the old stuff, and ZZ Top could really rock. Here's an excellent concert from 1980.

Recently, I wanted to hear some live ZZ Top from the 1970s, since I'd never heard any of their concerts from early in the career. I quickly realized why there's this gap in my music collection: all the bootlegs from that time period have poor sound quality. The first year with good sound is 1980. There's an official album from that year, plus a couple of stellar soundboard boots. Then, again, many years go by with very few live recordings with worthy sound quality. Strange.

Thankfully, there's this one. It's pretty similar to the "Rockpalast" concert from 1980 that's been released. However, it's about fifteen minutes longer, and there are some different songs. One nice treat is the inclusion of their cover of "Barefootin'," which they never officially released and apparently only performed a few times in 1980.

The source of this recording is a great soundboard. However, there was one problem in that it was almost too good, because very little of the audience noise was captured. Each song ended with an almost eerie silence. But modern technology allows me to fix this. I ran all the songs through MVSEP, separating the crowd noise from everything else. Then I drastically boosted the crowd noise at the beginnings and ends of songs. Now, it sounds like normal crowd reactions.

There were a couple more audio problems, one that I could fix and another that I couldn't. The first minute or so of the first song was missing. I patched in the missing portion from another soundboard recorded at Pine Knob, Michigan, in 1980. The problem that I couldn't fix is that one of the channels was missing for about the first twenty minutes. So the recording is in mono for that portion of the concert. 

This recording first publicly emerged in March 2025. So let's hope more bootlegs of this quality show up, especially from earlier in the band's career. (Apparently the band itself is sitting on many great recordings, but they haven't released any of them yet.)

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long.

01 I Thank You [Edit] (ZZ Top)
02 Waitin' for the Bus (ZZ Top)
03 Jesus just Left Chicago (ZZ Top)
04 talk (ZZ Top)
05 Francine (ZZ Top)
06 I'm Bad, I'm Nationwide (ZZ Top)
07 Manic Mechanic (ZZ Top)
08 Lowdown in the Street (ZZ Top)
09 Heard It on the X (ZZ Top)
10 A Fool for Your Stockings (ZZ Top)
11 Nasty Dogs and Funky Kings (ZZ Top)
12 Barefootin' (ZZ Top)
13 Cheap Sunglasses (ZZ Top)
14 talk (ZZ Top)
15 Arrested for Driving while Blind (ZZ Top)
16 Beer Drinkers and Hell Raisers (ZZ Top)
17 La Grange - Sloppy Drunk - Bar-B-Q (ZZ Top)
18 Dust My Broom (ZZ Top)
19 Tush (ZZ Top)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BR3T55dy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/lT2GKQnAp01aHyC/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Aragon Ballroom, in Chicago, Illinois, on March 14, 1980.

Toots & the Maytals - Paul's Mall, Boston, MA, 10-22-1975

In my opinion, reggae music peaked in the 1970s, especially the first half of that decade. It's very uncommon to find bootlegs from reggae musical acts that far back, but I've found one here from one of my favorites, Toots and the Maytals.

If I had to pick an ideal time for a live album from this band, it would be right around 1975. If you look at the crowd-sourced ratings of their albums at the rateyourmusic.com website, their two highest rated albums are "Funky Kingston" in 1973 and "In the Dark" in 1974. So they were firing on all cylinders at this time.

One interesting thing about this band is that while they were a Jamaican reggae band, they were more influenced by soul music than most. Lead singer Toots Hibbert in particular idolized Otis Redding, creating a kind of reggae-soul hybrid. One can see that here with a cover of Redding's "I've Got Dreams to Remember."

This concert is pretty short, at 47 minutes. But virtually every song is a classic. The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. This must have been a soundboard or radio broadcast. The only snag is that there's virtually no audience noise. 

01 Monkey Man (Toots & the Maytals)
02 Time Tough (Toots & the Maytals)
03 In the Dark (Toots & the Maytals)
04 Funky Kingston (Toots & the Maytals)
05 Pressure Drop (Toots & the Maytals)
06 I've Got Dreams to Remember (Toots & the Maytals)
07 Do You Reggae (Toots & the Maytals)
08 Take Me Home, Country Roads (Toots & the Maytals)
09 54-46 Was My Number (Toots & the Maytals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CaN69aiS

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/primn3ctpYNlasj/file

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Toots Hibbert in a concert at Hyde Park, in London, on August 31, 1974.

Covered: Teddy Randazzo & Bobby Weinstein: 1960-2024

Here's another album in my "Covered" series. This time, the focus is on the songwriting team of Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein. Chances are you haven't heard of them. But I'd also bet that you're very familiar with some of their songs, such as "Goin' Out of My Head," "It's Gonna Take a Miracle," "Pretty Blue Eyes," and "Hurt So Bad."

Randazzo was born in New York City in 1935, and Weinstein was born there four years later. (I've noticed an unusual number of talented songwriters from this era were born in New York City, with many of them being Jewish. In this case, Randazzo was ethnically Italian and Weinstein was Jewish.) Both of them got involved with rock and roll bands. Randazzo had more success, being a member of the Three Chuckles. They had a Top Twenty hit in 1954, and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show several times. In 1957, they began writing songs together. Their first big success was "Pretty Blue Eyes," which was a Top Ten hit for Steve Lawrence in 1960.

Randazzo had the good looks of a potential star, and kept a solo career going for several more years, but didn't have any big hits. However, he and Weinstein found more and more success as songwriters. Their biggest success of all was probably "Goin' Out of My Head." Little Anthony and the Imperials first had a Top Ten hit with it in 1964. But it's endured strongly, with over 400 cover versions, some of them hits as well. It's now in the top 50 of the most recorded and best selling songs of all time. Randazzo and Weinstein wrote many more songs for Little Anthony and the Imperials, even arranging and producing entire albums for them. Another big hit for that band was "Hurt So Bad," which was written by Randazzo, Weinstein, and Bobby Hart of the Boyce and Hart songwriting team. (I've already posted a "Covered" album for them, which includes a Linda Ronstadt version of that song.)

Most of the hits by Randazzo and Weinstein were in the 1960s. "It's Gonna Take a Miracle" was first a hit for the Royalettes in 1965. However, I've included a 1982 version by Deniece Williams because that was a bigger hit, reaching the Top Ten. It seems the songwriting partnership faded in the 1970s. Randazzo continued writing some hits in that decade, particularly for the soul groups the Manhattans and the Stylistics. However, I've only included one, "A Million to One" by the Manhattans in 1971.

Randazzo moved to Hawaii and had some limited success as a producer and songwriter there. He died in 2003 at the age of 68. Weinstein became a music executive, eventually becoming the president of the National Academy of Popular Music. He died in 2022 at the age of 82.  

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Randazzo:

Teddy Randazzo - Wikipedia 

And here's the entry for Weinstein:

Bobby Weinstein - Wikipedia 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Pretty Blue Eyes (Steve Lawrence)
02 Let the Sunshine In (Dee Dee Sharp)
03 Goin' Out of My Head (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
04 I'm on the Outside [Looking In] (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
05 Can't Stop Running Away (Ian & the Zodiacs)
06 Hurt So Bad (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
07 Trick or Treat (Teddy Randazzo & All 6)
08 Don't Tie Me Down (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
09 Buttercup Days (Kane Triplets)
10 Sweet Cream Ladies, Forward March (Box Tops)
11 I'm Hypnotized (Little Anthony & the Imperials)
12 Yesterday Has Gone (Cupid's Inspiration)
13 Rain in My Heart (Frank Sinatra)
14 A Million to One (Manhattans)
15 It's Gonna Take a Miracle (Deniece Williams)
16 Where's the Love (Vivian Buczek)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/AeftLAgu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/EM9pT1qmY7eaGeM/edit

Photos of Teddy Randazzo and Bobby Weinstein are extremely rare. Luckily, I found one of them hugging each other. It's from when they were older. That's Randazzo on the left and Weinstein on the right.

The Steve Miller Band - Live at the Record Plant, Record Plant, Sausalito, CA, 7-1-1973

Here's a concert by the Steve Miller Band in 1973, for the "Live at the Record Plant" radio show. 

One of my projects lately has been trying to post more concerts from this radio show. If you listen to this, hopefully you'll understand why. The sound quality is truly excellent, easily good enough for an official release. And there is no audience noise, which makes it even easier to hear everything being played. The performance is top notch too.

At the time of this concert, Steve Miller and his band had only been moderately successful. He had released seven studio albums. But there had been no hits, and none of the albums had reached Gold status (meaning sales of over half a million in the U.S.). 

That all would change just a couple of months later. In October 1973, he would release the album "The Joker." The title song from that album would go all the way to Number One in the U.S., turning Miller into a big star. Not only that, but it would eventually sell over six million copies, making it the biggest hit of his career. Its success would cause the album it came from to go Platinum, meaning sales of over a million copies.

In this concert, he did play "The Joker." But it's quite different from the hit version. It's a simple little acoustic version, lasting just two minutes, and many of the lyrics are different. He also played "Fly like an Eagle." That wouldn't be released until 1976, on the album of the same name. But when it was released it would be another massive hit, reaching Number Two in the U.S. singles chart.

By the way, I'm not sure about the title of track number six. On the bootleg I took this from, it was called "The Sky Is Crying." But while this is a slow blues in a similar style, the lyrics are totally different. My guess is "The Sun Is Going to Shine in Your Back Door Someday." There's other songs with very similar titles (usually "my back door" instead of "your"), but those seem to be quite different as well, so I'm a bit stumped. If anyone knows the correct title, please let us know. 

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Fly like an Eagle - My Dark Hour (Steve Miller Band)
02 Just like a Woman (Steve Miller Band)
03 talk (Steve Miller Band)
04 Mary Lou (Steve Miller Band)
05 talk (Steve Miller Band)
06 The Sun Is Going to Shine in Your Back Door Someday (Steve Miller Band)
07 Living in the U.S.A. (Steve Miller Band)
08 Shu Ba Da Du Ma Ma Ma (Steve Miller Band)
09 Look Over Yonders Wall (Steve Miller Band)
10 talk (Steve Miller Band)
11 Gangster of Love (Steve Miller Band)
12 Space Cowboy (Steve Miller Band)
13 Kow Kow Calqulator (Steve Miller Band)
14 The Joker (Steve Miller Band)
15 Seasons (Steve Miller Band)
16 Going to the Country (Steve Miller Band)
17 talk (Steve Miller Band)
18 Jackson-Kent Blues (Steve Miller Band)
19 talk (Steve Miller Band)
20 Rock Me Baby (Steve Miller Band) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/e5gvXw8e

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/NFXnHfWURbVcatw/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the Winterland in San Francisco, in 1974. 

Various Artists - Music for Montserrat, Royal Albert Hall, London, Britain, 9-15-1997

Here's a really interesting benefit concert from 1997. Just look at the list of big stars involved: Carl Perkins, Midge Ure, Phil Collins, Jimmy Buffett, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, Sting, Elton John, and Paul McCartney. Most of them performed two or three songs together, and all the big names got together with McCartney to sing some of his songs for the finale. All that, and the sound quality is excellent.

Montserrat is a small island in the Caribbean Sea, and it's still a colony of Britain. In 1979, George Martin, best known as the producer for nearly all the Beatles records, financed the building of a recording studio there. From 1979 to 1989, about 70 albums were recorded there, because musicians enjoyed recording in a beautiful, exotic locale. Many of them were by very big stars, such as "Synchronicity" by the Police and "Brothers in Arms" by Dire Straits.   

Unfortunately, in 1989, the Category Four hurricane Hugo hit Montserrat. It destroyed 90 percent of all buildings on the island, including Martin's recording studio. The studio wasn't rebuilt. Then, in 1995, the main volcano on the island, Soufriere Hills volcano, erupted. The island was basically completely devastated again. Martin then led the effort to stage this benefit concert. All the musicians involved recorded albums on Montserrat. Ultimately, about a million and half British pounds were raised. Later, limited edition lithographs signed by McCartney and Martin raised another million and a half pounds. This money went to help people reconstruct their homes, as well as the building of a new cultural center for the island. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry about this concert, if you want to know more: 

Music for Montserrat - Wikipedia  

For this concert, Martin decided that less was more. He even mentioned in his banter during the concert that he turned down many musical acts who wanted to take part. The focus was just on the biggest stars. One exception was Arrow. He only had one minor hit in 1982, in Britain, "Hot Hot Hot." But he is Montserratian, so it made sense he would be involved. Also, "Hot Hot Hot" went on to be a bigger hit by Buster Poindexter in 1987. 

This concert has been released on DVD, but not in any audio format. So I started with the DVD, converting it to audio format then breaking it into mp3s. "Hot Hot Hot," plus "Volcano" by Jimmy Buffett and "Dancing with Tears in My Eyes" by Midge Ure, were not on the DVD. But luckily I found out they were performed by reading the Wikipedia entry about the concert. Then I found YouTube videos of them. Those had very good sound quality, because they were broadcast on TV. 

In addition to adding some missing songs, I cut some things. Mostly, I cut some interviews that were interspersed between the songs in the DVD. Martin plus some of the big stars like McCartney and Sting were interviewed. It's interesting stuff, but it wasn't part of the concert, so it got the axe. If you want to see that, check out the DVD.

Probably the highlight of the concert was McCartney's set at the end. As he said in the interview which I cut out, he had met the other stars in this concert many times over the years. However, he rarely actually played music with any of them. For instance, he said the last time he played with Clapton was when Clapton guested on "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" on the White Album by the Beatles in 1968. But McCartney practiced with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Elton John, and really collaborated with tracks 42 to 46 at the end here.

One final note. This was the last major public appearance for Carl Perkins. He was in fine health at the time of this concert. But he died after a series of strokes in January 1998, at the age of 65. 

This album is two hours and 15 minutes long.

01 talk (George Martin)
02 talk (Carl Perkins)
03 Blue Suede Shoes (Carl Perkins)
04 talk (emcee)
05 talk (Midge Ure)
06 Dancing with Tears in My Eyes (Midge Ure)
07 Vienna (Midge Ure)
08 talk (George Martin)
09 talk (Phil Collins)
10 In the Air Tonight (Phil Collins)
11 Take Me Home (Phil Collins with Ray Cooper)
12 talk (Arrow)
13 Hot Hot Hot (Arrow)
14 talk (Jimmy Buffett)
15 Volcano (Jimmy Buffett)
16 talk (Phil Collins)
17 talk (Mark Knopfler)
18 Going Home [Theme from Local Hero] [Instrumental] (Mark Knopfler)
19 talk (Mark Knopfler)
20 Brothers in Arms (Mark Knopfler with Guy Fletcher)
21 talk (Mark Knopfler)
22 Money for Nothing (Mark Knopfler with Sting, Phil Collins, Eric Clapton & Ray Cooper)
23 talk (Phil Collins)
24 Message in a Bottle (Sting)
25 Fields of Gold (Sting)
26 Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic (Sting)
27 talk (George Martin)
28 talk (Elton John)
29 Your Song (Elton John)
30 talk (Elton John)
31 Live like Horses (Elton John)
32 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
33 talk (Carl Perkins)
34 Broken Hearted (Eric Clapton)
35 Layla (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler)
36 talk (Eric Clapton)
37 Same Old Blues (Eric Clapton with Mark Knopfler & Phil Collins)
38 talk (George Martin)
39 talk (Paul McCartney)
40 Yesterday (Paul McCartney)
41 talk (Paul McCartney)
42 Golden Slumbers (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
43 Carry That Weight - The End (Paul McCartney with Phil Collins, Mark Knopfler & Eric Clapton)
44 talk (George Martin)
45 Hey Jude (Paul McCartney, Elton John & Everybody)
46 Kansas City - Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey (Paul McCartney & Everybody)
47 talk (Paul McCartney & George Martin) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WN5He6az 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/rtae3vnAgivMIJf/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. From left to right: Carl Perkins, Mark Knopfler, Eric Clapton, and Paul McCartney. Sting is right behind Perkins, but all you can really see of him is his hand on the neck of a bass guitar. In the original photo, the neck of Sting's bass guitar went right over Knopfler's face. In my opinion, it kind of ruined the photo. But there were several photos no doubt taken minutes apart from each other from the same spot. I found one where Knopfler's face was fully visible and the bass guitar neck was lower, and I patched in just that part of the image, using Photoshop. I also used the Krea AI program to flesh out some of the detail.

Fleetwood Mac - Long Beach, Los Angeles County, CA, 5-15-1972

I'm psyched to be posting this album, because it's a big sonic upgrade over versions of this music that has been publicly available until now. Also, it shines a light on a little known era of Fleetwood Mac. At the time of this concert, lead guitarist Peter Green was gone, but the other lead guitarist from the band's early years, Danny Kirwan, was still there. But the band was increasingly dominated by the singer-songwriters Christine McVie and Bob Welch.

Before I say any more about this album, note that today I posted upgrades to about 20 other Fleetwood Mac albums. I mainly changed two things. For the band's first seven BBC albums, I've found better sources for many songs, due to the anonymous person who has been sending me pristine BBC "Top of the Pops" radio shows. That updated maybe up to 25 percent of the songs on those seven early BBC albums. For all the other songs on those albums, I also double checked the balance between the vocals and the instruments, and boosted the vocals where need be. That was probably about half of the songs. I also found two songs I'd previously missed, on Volumes 5 and 7. So you might want to redownload those seven BBC albums.

Secondly, while I was at it, I realized a lot of the band's album covers didn't look that good, so I redid all the ones I thought needed work, with the use of the Krea AI program. That's why I've upgraded the links to about 20 albums, not just the seven early BBC ones.

Anyway, getting back to this album, Bob Welch joined Fleetwood Mac in April 1971, replacing Jeremy Spencer. For two albums, "Future Games" in 1971 and "Bare Trees" in 1972, the band was mainly led by Welch, Christine McVie, and Danny Kirwan, who all sang and wrote songs. But during the band's 1972 tour to promote "Bare Trees," troubles began growing with Kirwan. Band member Mick Fleetwood later recalled,  "On that long tour in 1972 Danny became quite volatile ... He just got more and more intense. He wouldn't talk to anyone. He was going inside himself, which we put down to an emotional problem that we had no idea about. We thought he was just being awkward. I had no idea he was struggling at that level. ... Danny had been a nervous and sensitive lad from the start. He was never really suited to the rigours of the business. Touring is hard and the routine wears us all down ... Our manager kept us touring non-stop and we were being stretched to our limits ... and the pressure was obviously taking its toll."

Things would come to a head at a concert in August 1972. Right before going on stage, Kirwan flipped out, flying into a violent rage, smashing his head and fists against a wall, smashing his guitar to pieces, and trashing the dressing room. The other band members had a meeting afterwards, and fired him.

There are tons of concert bootlegs from the band in earlier and later eras, but very little from this era. (I've posted two, from the Swing Auditorium in San Bernadino, California, in 1971, and from The Paramount in Seattle in 1972. But that, plus this one, is basically it, at least when it comes to decent sound quality. I haven't posted this one until now, though, because it's a mere audience bootleg, with one major sonic flaw: the vocals were too low. I've noticed low vocals are a very common problem when it comes to bootlegs, but in this case they were way, way low, almost inaudible at times.

A year or two ago, I tried using the UVR5 audio editing program to pull the vocals apart from the instrumentation so I could boost the volume on just the vocals, but the results were disappointing. UVR5 does a good job most of the time, but the vocals were too low to get enough of them to boost them well. So I gave up. But since then, technology keeps improving. The latest version of the MVSEP program separates vocals and instruments much better. So I tried that, and the results were excellent this time.

I have to say... this concert sounds really good! True, it only comes from an audience bootleg source. But it was a very well recorded one for the era. Then, after fixing the vocals to instruments mix level, it sounds as good or better than most soundboard bootlegs from this era. I further improved things by running all the songs through MVSEP again, this time removing most of the crowd noise during songs while keeping the cheering at the ends of songs.

If you're a fan of the band in this time period, I highly recommend you give this a listen. The sound quality really is a big improvement, and the singing and playing is great. Kirwan was still playing at a high level with the band, probably for the last time that's been recorded and preserved. 

This album is an hour and five minutes long.

01 Tell Me All the Things You Do (Fleetwood Mac)
02 Get like You Used to Be (Fleetwood Mac)
03 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
04 Sunny Side of Heaven [Instrumental] (Fleetwood Mac)
05 Future Games (Fleetwood Mac)
06 Homeward Bound (Fleetwood Mac)
07 The Ghost (Fleetwood Mac)
08 Black Magic Woman (Fleetwood Mac)
09 talk (Fleetwood Mac)
10 Oh Well, Part 1 (Fleetwood Mac)
11 Shake Your Moneymaker (Fleetwood Mac)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gFZizegR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Mmc1p72egoI6elD/file

The cover image is from an appearance on the "Midnight Special" TV show in 1973. I couldn't find any good images of the two band leaders at the time, Christine McVie and Bob Welch, in the frame at the same time. So I took a screenshot of McVie and another one of Welch and put them together in Photoshop.

Sam Phillips - Creators at Carnegie, NPR, Zankel Hall, New York City, 10-19-2004

Sam Phillips doesn't get nearly as much attention as she should. I really like her stuff. So when I found this FM sourced bootleg a few days ago, it went to the top of my pile of albums to post. It's a concert broadcast on NPR radio in 2004.

In the 1990s, she had a poppy, Beatlesque style that should have made her a big star. Then, in 2001, she came out with the album "Fan Dance," in a more intimate, acoustic style. It was still great stuff, getting lots of critical praise, but she basically turned her back on her earlier style at that point. In 2004, the album "A Boot and a Shoe" came out, again in her new style. She was on tour to promote that album when this concert happened. She only played one song from her 1990s era, "Animals on Wheels." So this mostly consists of songs from her 2001 and 2004 albums.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. There were some cases where the sound of cheering at the end of one song didn't match the sounds at the beginning of the next song. So I did a little bit of editing to make those transitions sound good. 

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 talk (Sam Phillips)
02 Foolin' Myself (Sam Phillips)
03 How to Quit (Sam Phillips)
04 I Wanted to Be Alone (Sam Phillips)
05 talk (Sam Phillips)
06 Fan Dance (Sam Phillips)
07 Animals on Wheels (Sam Phillips)
08 talk (Sam Phillips)
09 When You're Down (Sam Phillips)
10 Edge of the World (Sam Phillips)
11 I Dreamed I Stopped Dreaming (Sam Phillips)
12 Taking Pictures (Sam Phillips)
13 talk (Sam Phillips)
14 If I Could Write (Sam Phillips)
15 Infiltration (Sam Phillips)
16 talk (Sam Phillips)
17 Reflecting Light (Sam Phillips)
18 Say What You Mean (Sam Phillips)
19 One Day Late (Sam Phillips)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/V8qPXMAx

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/u3VhaeDYLHJg4eZ/file

The cover photo is from a concert in the Carolina Theatre, in Durham, North Carolina, on September 19, 2004. 

Labi Siffre - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1970-1972

When it comes to posting music at this blog, I have a lot of irons in the fire these days, different projects I'm working on. Probably the biggest and oldest one so far is posting BBC recordings. But more specifically, I particularly want to post the BBC recordings that seem to be currently unavailable to the public. I can do that sometimes thanks to an anonymous musical friend who has lots of extremely rare recordings of the "Top of the Pops" BBC radio show. That's the main source for this album, featuring British singer-songwriter Labi Siffre.

For many years, the only thing I knew about Siffre was his version of the song "It Must Be Love." This song he wrote was a hit for him in 1971, almost reaching the Top Ten in Britain. But I was much more familiar with the cover version by Madness, which made it all the way to Number Four in Britain in 1981, and made the Top Forty in the U.S. as well. But there's a lot more to him than just that one song. For instance, he had an even bigger hit much later, "(Something Inside) So Strong," which made it to Number Four in Britain in 1987, and he had two other hits in that country. Also, one 1975 song he did, "I Got The...", was sampled by Eminem's hit single "My Name Is," becoming an essential part of that song. But more than that, he put out many solid albums in the 1970s. He also had a secret weapon of being a much better guitar player than most other singer-songwriters from that time.

If you want to know more about him, here's his Wikipedia entry:

Labi Siffre - Wikipedia 

Here also is a review of his 1972 album, written decades later, that actually serves as a much better summary of his entire career than the Wikipedia entry:

Labi Siffre: Crying Laughing Loving Lying Album Review | Pitchfork

The music on this album comes entirely from "Top of the Pops" studio sessions. I believe that everything here has been very rare to the public until now, and it's all thanks to that anonymous friend I mentioned above. (I did recently notice there's one "grey market" release of these performances, but I couldn't find it so that wasn't my source.) Siffre put out his first album in 1970, and started appearing on the Top of the Pops radio show before the end of that year. 

As you can see from the song list below, 12 out of the 15 songs here were edited, with "[Edit]" in their titles. That's due to BBC DJ Brian Matthew, who annoyingly talked over the beginnings and ends to many songs, as he usually did back then. I got rid of that talking while keeping the music, thanks to the UVR5 audio editing program.

One nice thing about BBC studio sessions back in that era was that sometimes the musical acts would perform songs they didn't put on their albums. That's the case here. The songs "If Only You Were Mine," "You've Got a Friend," and "In the Morning" appear to be exclusive to these BBC sessions.

This album is a 42 minutes long. 

01 Make My Day (Labi Siffre)
02 Too Late [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
03 Rocking Chair [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
04 Thank Your Lucky Star [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
05 I Love You [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
06 A Feeling I Got [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
07 When You Find You Need a Friend [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
08 A Little More Line [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
09 If Only You Were Mine [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
10 Oh Me, Oh My, Mr. City Goodbye [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
11 It Must Be Love [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
12 You've Got a Friend (Labi Siffre)
13 'Cos You're You (Labi Siffre)
14 Crying, Laughing, Loving, Lying [Edit] (Labi Siffre)
15 In the Morning [Edit] (Labi Siffre)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pUXPxm2Y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/8ohepi4RC6RcvcO/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on the "Top of the Pops" BBC TV show (not to be confused with the radio show of the same name) some time in 1972.

The Incredible String Band - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Paris Theatre, London, Britain, 3-18-1971

Some months back, I posted a poll asking which musical acts would you like to see more BBC albums from. That project has taken a back seat for me in recent weeks, because I keep finding interesting stuff that I want to post first. But I'm going to keep going back to that poll until I finish. It may take me years, since there are many hundreds of albums involved, but I'll get there. Here's another one from one of the top voter getters in the poll, the Incredible String Band. This one is a full BBC concert from 1971.

I've mentioned that I'm not that keen on the music of this band, and I'm posting these albums due to the poll results. But maybe they're growing on me a bit, because I liked this one more than the previous three volumes. Perhaps it's helped by the live concert vibe, and the explanations about the songs.

This concert has been officially released in part, but not in full. Most of it was released on "Across The Airwaves" as well as "BBC Radio One Live In Concert," but a few songs were missing, as well as some of the banter. I found a full version via bootleg. The sound quality is excellent. 

The album is an hour long.

01 talk by John Peel (Incredible String Band)
02 Bright Morning Stars (Incredible String Band)
03 talk (Incredible String Band)
04 Worlds They Rise and Fall (Incredible String Band)
05 talk (Incredible String Band)
06 Sunday Is My Wedding Day-Drops of Whiskey-Grumbling Old Men-Eyes like Leaves [Instrumental] (Incredible String Band)
07 talk (Incredible String Band)
08 Spirit Beautiful (Incredible String Band)
09 talk (Incredible String Band)
10 Willow Pattern (Incredible String Band)
11 talk (Incredible String Band)
12 Cosmic Boy (Incredible String Band)
13 talk (Incredible String Band)
14 Turquoise Blue (Incredible String Band)
15 talk (Incredible String Band)
16 Whistle Tune [Instrumental] (Incredible String Band)
17 talk (Incredible String Band)
18 Darling Belle (Incredible String Band)
19 talk by John Peel (Incredible String Band)
20 Adam and Eve (Incredible String Band)
21 talk (Incredible String Band)
22 You've Been a Friend to Me (Incredible String Band)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/juydxUuh

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/p870NIJiQm6E6HU/file

The cover photo is from a concert at the album Fillmore East, in New York City, circa 1969.

Various Artists - MusiCares Tribute to Carole King, Los Angeles Convention Center, Los Angeles, CA, 1-24-2014

I recently started posting MusiCares tribute concerts. Here's another one. This one honors singer-songwriter Carole King, from 2014.

I've celebrated King's music on this blog quite a bit already. For instance, she and her songwriting partner Gerry Goffin are the subject of six albums in the "Covered" series. If there's an award for songwriting, she probably has gotten it, since she's written more hit songs than just about anybody on the planet. Oh, and her 1971 album "Tapestry" has sold over 15 million copies, making it one of the best selling albums of all time, as well as appearing in the Number 25 spot in Rolling Stone Magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. Not to shabby. 

This follows the usual format of such benefit concerts. Lost of guest stars performed their versions of King's songs. Then King gave an acceptance speech. Then she played a few songs at the end of the concert. She had a particularly close relationship with James Taylor, going back to the early 1970s, so it's not too surprising that Taylor dueted with her on most of those final songs.

The music here has not been released in audio format. However, it has come out on a DVD. That's how we have a recording, since these MusiCares concerts generally haven't been bootlegged at all. I converted the DVD to audio format, then broke the music into mp3s. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long.

01 talk (emcee)
02 Hi De Ho [That Old Sweet Roll] (LeAnn Rimes & Steven Tyler)
03 So Far Away (Pink with Paul Mirkovich)
04 I Feel the Earth Move (Train)
05 talk (Lady Gaga)
06 You've Got a Friend (Lady Gaga)
07 talk (Gloria Estefan)
08 It's Too Late (Gloria Estefan)
09 talk (will.i.am)
10 Love Makes the World - Where Is the Love (will.i.am & Leah McFall)
11 Beautiful (Sara Bareilles, Zac Brown, Jason Mraz & Raining Jane)
12 Way Over Yonder (Merry Clayton, Lisa Fischer, Judith Hill & Darlene Love)
13 talk (Joy)
14 Where You Lead (Jesse & Joy)
15 Crying in the Rain (Miguel & Kacey Musgraves)
16 talk (Alicia Keys)
17 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Alicia Keys)
18 Been to Canaan (Jennifer Nettles)
19 I'm into Something Good (Amy Grant)
20 It Might as Well Rain until September (Miranda Lambert)
21 One Fine Day (Martina McBride)
22 Up on the Roof (James Taylor)
23 talk (Neil Portnow)
24 talk (Carole King)
25 Home Again (Carole King, Moez Dawad & Ahmad A. El Haggar)
26 Sweet Seasons (Carole King & James Taylor)
27 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
28 Hey Girl (Carole King & James Taylor)
29 talk (Carole King & James Taylor)
30 Will You Love Me Tomorrow (Carole King & James Taylor)
31 talk (Carole King)
32 Jazzman (Carole King & Tom Scott)
33 I Feel the Earth Move (Carole King & Everyone) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/LE6zAFv4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Qi10lCVRGcuAGWH/file

The album cover image is from this exact concert. From left to right: James Taylor, Zac Brown, Carole King, Sara Bareilles, and Jennifer Nettles. (I'm not counting the bald headed man behind King. I don't know who he is.)

Willie Nelson - PBS Soundstage, Park West, Chicago, IL, 9-28-2009

Yesterday, I noticed that out of the dozens of "PBS Soundstage" episodes I have yet to post, three of them are of musical acts that performed at the Farm Aid 40 concert a couple of days ago. So yesterday I posted a Soundstage episode with Bob Dylan in it, and today I'm posting episodes of Wynonna Judd and Willie Nelson. Here's the Willie one, from 2009.

In 2009, Nelson was 76 years old. That sounds pretty old for a singer, but age seems to have little meaning for him. He's currently 92 years old as I write this in 2025, and he's still going strong. Maybe all that pot he famously smokes helps his health, who knows. 

Anyway, he put on a fine performance here, with a lot of interesting song selections instead of just the big hits. Heck, he didn't even play his signature song, "On the Road Again."

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 Whiskey River (Willie Nelson)
02 talk (Willie Nelson)
03 Man with the Blues (Willie Nelson)
04 talk (Willie Nelson)
05 You Done Me Wrong (Willie Nelson)
06 talk (Willie Nelson)
07 Cry, Cry, Darlin' (Willie Nelson)
08 talk (Willie Nelson)
09 Dark as a Dungeon (Willie Nelson)
10 talk (Willie Nelson)
11 Your Poison Love (Willie Nelson)
12 talk (Willie Nelson)
13 Satan, Your Kingdom Must Come Down (Willie Nelson)
14 talk (Willie Nelson)
15 Freight Train Boogie (Willie Nelson)
16 talk (Willie Nelson)
17 Drinking Champagne, Feelin' No Pain (Willie Nelson)
18 talk (Willie Nelson)
19 Dream of Me (Willie Nelson)
20 talk (Willie Nelson)
21 You Asked Me To (Willie Nelson)
22 talk (Willie Nelson)
23 Trouble in Mind (Willie Nelson)
24 Whiskey River [Reprise] (Willie Nelson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iDPHBBXs

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/pkwLR2f4JehW6D6/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. 

Wynonna Judd - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 5-12-1993

Here's Wynonna Judd appearing on the "PBS Soundstage" TV show in 1993.

(Note that this was the one year the show was called "Center Stage," but I'm calling it "Soundstage" for consistency with all the other years of the show.)

Wynonna Judd rose to fame in the 1980s as part of the Judds with her mother Naomi Judd. But the duo ended in 1991 when Naomi retired due to health issues (specifically, chronic hepatitis C). Wynonna then started a very successful solo career. She released the album "Wynonna" in 1992, which sold millions of copies, and then "Tell Me Why" in 1993, which also sold over a million. This concert took place one day after the release of that album. Not surprisingly, most of the songs here are from those two albums.

Here's her Wikipedia page:

Wynonna Judd - Wikipedia 

I edited out some parts of the show. This was one of those episodes where interview segments were sometimes inserted between songs. I cut all those out. Two of the songs have "[Edit]" in their titles because some of the interviews overlapped some of the music. I got rid of the talking with the help of the UVR5 audio editing program.

All the music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 53 minutes long. 

01 Tell Me Why (Wynonna Judd)
02 talk (Wynonna Judd)
03 Girls with Guitars (Wynonna Judd)
04 I Saw the Light (Wynonna Judd)
05 My Strongest Weakness (Wynonna Judd)
06 Let's Make a Baby King (Wynonna Judd)
07 Only Love (Wynonna Judd)
08 Why Not Me (Wynonna Judd)
09 That Was Yesterday [Edit] (Wynonna Judd)
10 A Little Bit of Love [Goes a Long, Long Way] (Wynonna Judd)
11 She Is His Only Need (Wynonna Judd)
12 Is It Over Yet [Edit] (Wynonna Judd)
13 No One Else on Earth (Wynonna Judd) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ztZ9KEev

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/BypjRuk9eVwb6ta/file

The cover is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. 

Various Artists - The Carlsberg Concert - Songs and Visions, Wembley Stadium, London, Britain, 8-16-1997

This is a really fascinating concert, with a format I've never seen before. I highly recommend it. Basically, the idea was to get ten famous musicians to perform one classic song a year, in reverse order, going back to the start of rock and roll in 1955. The stars: Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige, Rod Stewart, and Eikichi Yazawa.

Occasionally, the "one song per year" format that meant having the star sing their own hits. For instance, Rod Stewart sang "Maggie May," Robert Palmer sang "Addicted to Love," and k.d. lang sang "Constant Craving." But more often, they sang songs they probably have never sang in public before or since. For example, Seal sang "Stairway to Heaven," Rod Stewart sang "In the Midnight Hour," Bon Jon Bovi sang "Sympathy for the Devil," and k.d. lang sang "I Will Survive!" 

Even more intriguingly, the stars sometimes sang unexpected duets. For instance, Seal and Steve Winwood teamed up to sing U2's "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," and Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer sang a duet version of "(I Can't Get No) Satisfaction." The backing band was the same for all the songs, so there was no time wasted between songs. Stewart was the emcee, making very brief comments between all the songs. If you watch a video of this concert on YouTube, you'll see that each time he introduced a song, iconic images from the year the song was a hit were shown on a huge screen behind the stage.

For better or worse, the "one song per year" rule was only loosely enforced. Sometimes, they played two songs for one year, and more often years went by with no songs at all. They sometimes fudged the years songs came out. For instance, Rod Stewart in his banter implied that "Stairway to Heaven" was released in 1973, when it came out in 1971. The first and last songs were also wildly out of order. And the rule was only even loosely enforced until 1963. At that point, the concert turned into an Elvis Presley tribute, with seven Presley hits in a row. But those are just quibbles. The bottom line is that these big stars sang nothing but classic songs for the whole concert.

In terms of the stars, the one I had never heard of, and chances are you have never heard of, is Eikichi Yazawa. He is very little known in most Western countries, but he's a big star in Japan, filling stadiums there. He has the nicknames "The Boss" and "The King of Rock" there as well. The reason he isn't better known elsewhere is that his hits songs are sung in Japanese. He only did one song in this concert on his own, "Don't Be Cruel." I watched the YouTube video of it. He danced and held the stage with lots of charisma, but unfortunately one can hear a clear Japanese accent on his singing. Still, kudos for the concert organizers in giving him this big platform.

By the way, it may seem odd at first that one of the songs chosen was "Some Guys Have All the Luck," because it wasn't as big of a hit as the other songs here. But that's Robert Palmer had a hit with it in 1982, and then Rod Stewart had a pretty differently arranged hit with it in 1984. So it made perfect sense for the two of them to sing a duet version of it here. I wouldn't be surprised if this was the only time they sang the song together.

I found two main sources for this concert. One was a high quality video file, and the other was a video downloaded from YouTube. It's a good thing I found two, because each of them had songs the other one didn't. Furthermore, "Don't Be Cruel" sung by Yazawa wasn't included on either one. But I managed to find a YouTube video of it, as mentioned above, and I included it in the proper order (since the video kept going with the next song). 

This is called "The Carlsberg Concert" because it was sponsored by the Carlsberg Beer Company. (You can see the company logo in the background in the cover image). It was conceived and directed by someone named Tony Hollingsworth. I had never heard of him before, but it turns out he came up with some really unusual and intriguing concerts. For instance, at the same time I found this one, I found another one where he paired big name American and British music stars like Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, and Jon Bon Jovi with Japanese musicians. I plan on posting that one as well, eventually. Here's his bio page. 

Tony Hollingsworth 

It seems this "one song per year" format has never been repeated in a big concert like this in the many years since. That's too bad. I had never heard about this concert until I randomly stumbled across it the other day. If you know of other "various artists" concerts that you think I should post at my blog, please let me know. It seems there are many of these, like this one, that once appeared on TV and have only existed in video format, so they've gone way under the radar when it comes to being audio bootlegs. 

The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. I did make a few fixes, such as brief volume drops, but nothing major. Oh, but one consistent problem was that all the lead vocals were low in the mix. So I boosted that for all the songs using the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is two hours and 37 minutes long.

01 Papa Was a Rolling Stone (Rod Stewart, Chaka Khan, Mary J. Blige & Steve Winwood)
02 talk (Rod Stewart)
03 Unbreak My Heart (Toni Braxton)
04 talk (Rod Stewart)
05 Kiss from a Rose (Seal & Mary J. Blige)
06 talk (Rod Stewart)
07 Keep the Faith (Jon Bon Jovi)
08 Sympathy for the Devil (Jon Bon Jovi)
09 talk (Rod Stewart)
10 Constant Craving (k.d. lang)
11 talk (Rod Stewart)
12 Nothing Compares 2 U (Rod Stewart & Mary J. Blige)
13 talk (Rod Stewart)
14 Ain't Nobody (Chaka Khan)
15 talk (Rod Stewart)
16 Bad Medicine (Jon Bon Jovi)
17 talk (Rod Stewart)
18 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For (Seal & Steve Winwood)
19 talk (Rod Stewart)
20 Addicted to Love (Robert Palmer)
21 Some Guys Have All the Luck (Robert Palmer & Rod Stewart)
22 talk (Rod Stewart)
23 Every Breath You Take (Chaka Khan & k.d. lang)
24 talk (Rod Stewart)
25 Another One Bites the Dust - Good Times (Mary J. Blige)
26 talk (Rod Stewart)
27 I Will Survive (k.d. lang)
28 talk (Rod Stewart)
29 Is This Love (Seal)
30 talk (Rod Stewart)
31 Tonight's the Night (Rod Stewart)
32 talk (Rod Stewart)
33 Stairway to Heaven (Seal)
34 talk (Rod Stewart)
35 Maggie May (Rod Stewart)
36 talk (Rod Stewart)
37 Travelin' Band (Jon Bon Jovi)
38 Proud Mary (Jon Bon Jovi)
39 talk (Rod Stewart)
40 You're All I Need to Get By (Seal & Toni Braxton)
41 talk (Rod Stewart)
42 Gimme Some Lovin' (Steve Winwood)
43 talk (Rod Stewart)
44 [You Make Me Feel Like] A Natural Woman (Mary J. Blige)
45 talk (Rod Stewart)
46 In the Midnight Hour (Rod Stewart)
47 talk (Rod Stewart)
48 Like a Rolling Stone (Seal, Jon Bon Jovi & Robert Palmer)
49 talk (Rod Stewart)
50 [I Can't Get No] Satisfaction (Chaka Khan & Robert Palmer)
51 Dancing in the Street (Steve Winwood & Chaka Khan)
52 talk (Rod Stewart)
53 All My Loving (k.d. lang & Chaka Khan)
54 talk (Rod Stewart)
55 Love Me Tender (Toni Braxton)
56 Hound Dog (Steve Winwood)
57 That's All Right, Mama (Jon Bon Jovi)
58 All Shook Up (Robert Palmer)
59 Jailhouse Rock (Rod Stewart)
60 Don't Be Cruel (Eikichi Yazawa)
61 Heartbreak Hotel (Rod Stewart, Robert Palmer, Jon Bon Jovi, Steve Winwood & Eikichi Yazawa)
62 Hey Jude (Everybody) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bD6sqiV8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/l69yltKzWGqfd88/file

The cover image shows a promotional photo taken in conjunction with this concert. The version I found was very wide but vertically narrow, so I split it into two parts, to allow me to make everyone appear larger. From left to right, top row: Eikichi Yazawa, Toni Braxton, Seal, Robert Palmer, and Jon Bon Jovi. From left to right, bottom row: Steve Winwood, k.d. lang, Chaka Khan, and Rod Stewart. Mary J. Blige seems to have missed the photo shoot. I used the Krea AI program to fill in some detail. 

Bob Dylan, Benny Goodman & Friends - The World of John Hammond, PBS Soundstage, NET Television Studios, Chicago, IL, 9-10-1975

Here's a really strange and interesting episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. Especially in the show's early years, it had some theme shows, and this was one. The title was "The World of John Hammond," and the show celebrated the role of producer John Hammond in the music industry. 

The big name here is Bob Dylan. But be warned that Dylan only performed three songs, at the end of the show. Most of the show is filled with big band swing music, with the first three songs starring singer Helen Humes, and then the next three being instrumentals led by Benny Goodman. (Note that George Benson, who was becoming a star in his own right, was the lead guitarist in this band.) Then the episode made a drastic stylistic shift, with Sonny Terry playing the blues for four songs, joined by John Hammond Jr. (son of John Hammond) for the last two. Then there was another drastic stylistic shift, with the three Bob Dylan songs at the end. 

The reason for all the musical jumping around is because John Hammond had a role in the musical careers of many musical acts in many different styles. Wikipedia's entry on his says: "Hammond became one of the most influential figures in 20th-century popular music. ... Hammond sparked or advanced numerous musical careers, including those of Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen, Benny Goodman, Harry James, Charlie Christian, Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Teddy Wilson, Big Joe Turner, Fletcher Henderson, Pete Seeger, Babatunde Olatunji, Aretha Franklin, George Benson, Freddie Green, Leonard Cohen, Arthur Russell, Jim Copp, Asha Puthli, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Mike Bloomfield, and Sonny Burke. He is also largely responsible for the revival of delta blues artist Robert Johnson's music."

He died in 1987 at the age of 76. Here's his entry, if you want to know more:

John Henry Hammond - Wikipedia

Note that this originally was two episodes. I cut out some of the material, but I don't think you're missing much. There were video tributes to Bessie Smith and Billie Holiday, but neither of those contained any live music. I also cut out a few gospel songs by Marion Williams that I didn't like.

There's a lot more I could say about this episode, but instead I'd recommend reading this Rolling Stone Magazine article about it, published shortly after it happened:

Bob Dylan, Jazz Stars Salute Label Pioneer John Hammond 

In that, it mentions that only about 100 people attended the taping of the episode, and most of them were older musical insider types who were there mainly to see Benny Goodman. By the time Dylan performed, only a couple dozen people remained. 

Even though Dylan only played three songs, this was an important event for him. John Hammond was the person who discovered him back when he was little known, and Dylan wanted to show his appreciation. It was the first time Dylan had performed on national TV since 1969. Two of the three songs he played, "Hurricane" and "Oh Sister," were unreleased at the time. In fact, this was the very first time he performed them in public. They would be released on his album "Desire" in early 1976. The version of "Hurricane" is particularly important, because this is the version with the original lyrics. One month later, record company lawyers found out about the song and worried that Dylan could be sued for libel regarding some of the things he said about real people in the song. So Dylan was forced to rewrite some of the lyrics, and then he rerecorded it. I'm guessing this performance still hasn't been officially released because those legal issues might still be a concern.

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 Ain't Nobody's Business (Helen Humes & the All Star Band)
02 Body and Soul (Helen Humes & the All Star Band)
03 Where Can I Go (Helen Humes & the All Star Band)
04 talk (Benny Goodman & the All Star Band)
05 Sweet Lorraine [Instrumental] (Benny Goodman & the All Star Band)
06 Avalon [Instrumental] (Benny Goodman & the All Star Band)
07 talk (Benny Goodman & the All Star Band)
08 Seven Come Eleven [Instrumental] (Benny Goodman & the All Star Band)
09 talk (Sonny Terry)
10 My Baby Done Changed the Lock on the Door (Sonny Terry)
11 talk (Sonny Terry)
12 A Whoopin' the Blues (Sonny Terry)
13 talk (Sonny Terry)
14 Terraplane Blues (Sonny Terry & John Hammond, Jr.)
15 talk (Sonny Terry & John Hammond, Jr.)
16 I Can't Find My Baby (Sonny Terry & John Hammond, Jr.)
17 Hurricane (Bob Dylan)
18 Oh Sister (Bob Dylan)
19 Simple Twist of Fate (Bob Dylan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/f6TY3bLE

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/kjyK7MobPdvjyFn/file

The cover photo of Bob Dylan is from this exact concert. However, the picture was rather low-res so I used the Krea AI program to fill in more detail. 

Lindisfarne - WLIR Ultrasonic Concert Series, Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hempstead, NY, 11-28-1972

Here's an appearance by the British folk rock band Lindisfarne on the WLIR Ultrasonic radio show in 1972.

While I've been big fans of similar bands like Fairport Convention and Pentangle for ages, for some reason I never got around to listening to Lindisfarne until getting this album ready to post. I've only known a couple of their big hits ("Meet Me on the Corner" and "Lady Eleanor") which are very good songs. I liked what I heard, so hopefully I'll post more of their stuff in the future.

Lindisfarne peaked early. Formed in 1968, they released the albums "Nicely Out of Tune" (1970), "Fog on the Tyne" (1971), and "Dingly Dell" (1972), which all made the Top Ten in the British album charts. "Fog on the Tyne" in particular was the best selling album in Britain that year. However, artistic differences were growing with the album "Dingly Dell," and it didn't result in any big hits. In early 1973, the band split up, with the main songwriter, Alan Hull, staying, but three of the other four members leaving to form the band Jack the Lad. Even Hull put most of his musical energies into a solo career. The band's next album, "Roll on Ruby" in 1973, didn't even make the British album charts, which was a drastic decline in commercial success. (An Alan Hull solo album also released that year did much better.) The band then broke up after one more album. The original band members did get back together in the late 1970s, and had some success, including a hit single. Many more reunions and break-ups followed, with most of the original members gradually falling away.

Given all that, the timing of this radio show is fortuitous. The band had released the third of their successful and acclaimed albums a few months earlier, but were still some months away from breaking up. Five of the songs here are from that third album, "Dingly Dell," while the rest generally come from the first two albums. However, one of the band's best known songs from this ear, "Fog on the Tyne," wasn't performed.

Here's their Wikipedia entry:

Lindisfarne (band) - Wikipedia 

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is very good. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Meet Me on the Corner (Lindisfarne)
02 talk (Lindisfarne)
03 All Fall Down (Lindisfarne)
04 Plankton's Lament (Lindisfarne)
05 Bring Down the Government (Lindisfarne)
06 talk (Lindisfarne)
07 Turn a Deaf Ear (Lindisfarne)
08 talk (Lindisfarne)
09 Lady Eleanor (Lindisfarne)
10 talk (Lindisfarne)
11 Go Back (Lindisfarne)
12 talk (Lindisfarne)
13 Newcastle Brown Ale (Lindisfarne)
14 talk (Lindisfarne)
15 Alright on the Night (Lindisfarne)
16 talk (Lindisfarne)
17 Scotch Mist [Instrumental] (Lindisfarne)
18 talk (Lindisfarne)
19 Clear White Light (Lindisfarne)
20 talk (Lindisfarne)
21 Together Forever (Lindisfarne)
22 talk (Lindisfarne)
23 No Time to Lose (Lindisfarne)
24 talk (Lindisfarne)
25 Oh No, Not Again (Lindisfarne)
26 talk (Lindisfarne)
27 We Can Swing Together (Lindisfarne)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/pHD66Eez

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jya1ObsdtkNM0V8/file

The cover photo is from an appearance on an unknown British TV show in 1972.

Farm Aid Poll

The 40th Farm Aid benefit concert was held yesterday, September 20, 2025. The entire thing, all eleven hours' worth, was released on multiple platforms, including YouTube. I already grabbed a video file of the whole shebang. Since I've made posting music festivals a focus for my blog, it's a no-brainer for me to post some of this one.

So, the question I have for you is, how much of this would you like to have in your music collection? I'm going to leave this open ended. Vote for as many musical acts as you want. Then I'll look at the vote breakdown and decide how many I'll turn into albums. I assume the big names are going to get plenty of votes, but I'm curious to see the level of interest in the lesser known ones.

Note that the sets are pretty short, at least based on song number (I actually haven't listened to any of this yet). For instance, Steve Earle played just four songs, and Bob Dylan just five. John Mellencamp and Neil Young each played seven. You can look here to see who played what:

Farm Aid 2025 Setlists | setlist.fm 

Also, here's the YouTube link, if you want to watch part or all of it:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ozJqyuELKRU 

Here's a list of the artists to vote for, in order of appearance: 

Madeline Edwards
Jesse Welles
Eric Burton
Waxahatchee
Wynonna Judd
Trampled by Turtles
Steve Earle
Nathaniel Rateliff & the Night Sweats
Lukas Nelson
Billy Strings
Kenny Chesney
Margo Price
Dave Matthews & Tim Reynolds
John Mellencamp
Bob Dylan
Neil Young & the Chrome Hearts
Willie Nelson

Various Artists - Gershwin Prize for Popular Song Honoring Garth Brooks, D.A.R. Constitution Hall, Washington, DC, 3-4-2020

Up until now, I've posted eight "Gershwin Prize for Popular Song" award concerts. There's a bunch more out there; they're just currently very hard to find. Happily, yesterday, a person anonymously sent me this one, so now I can post the ninth. I still call on people to help me post the other ones I've missed. If you have them, please share! Anyway, this one is from 2020, a couple of weeks before the world shut down due to the Covid pandemic, and honors Garth Brooks.

This one is pretty different from the other Gershwin Prize concerts I've found so far. The first half proceeded more or less usually, though it was unique that Brooks himself started the concert by playing a song. But then, instead of playing a couple of songs at the end, or even a few, Brooks basically played a mini-concert. He played no fewer than 15 songs at the end! Admittedly, many of these were short versions, usually only a minute or two, often acoustic cover versions. But still, about half of this tribute concert was performed by Brooks. By comparison, when Joni Mitchell would accept her Gershwin Prize three years later, she would sing only two songs.

The music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 45 minutes long. 

01 Ain't Goin' Down ['Til the Sun Comes Up] [Edit] (Garth Brooks with Keith Urban)
02 talk (Jay Leno)
03 Rodeo (Chris Stapleton)
04 talk (Chris Stapleton)
05 Shameless (Chris Stapleton)
06 talk (Keb Mo)
07 The River (Keb Mo)
08 talk (Jay Leno)
09 talk (Keith Urban)
10 We Shall Be Free (Keith Urban)
11 talk (Lee Brice)
12 More than a Memory (Lee Brice)
13 talk (Ricky Scaggs)
14 Callin' Baton Rouge (Ricky Scaggs & the Oak Ridge Boys)
15 talk (Margaret George)
16 For the Last Time (Trisha Yearwood)
17 talk (Trisha Yearwood)
18 The Change (Trisha Yearwood)
19 talk (David Rubenstein)
20 talk (Carla Hayden)
21 talk (Garth Brooks)
22 Vincent (Garth Brooks)
23 Operator [That's Not the Way It Feels] (Garth Brooks)
24 talk (Garth Brooks)
25 Unanswered Prayers (Garth Brooks)
26 talk (Garth Brooks)
27 Sing Me Back Home (Garth Brooks)
28 talk (Garth Brooks)
29 Make You Feel My Love (Garth Brooks)
30 talk (Garth Brooks)
31 [Sittin' On] The Dock of the Bay (Garth Brooks)
32 Ain't No Sunshine (Garth Brooks)
33 talk (Garth Brooks)
34 Wild World (Garth Brooks)
35 talk (Garth Brooks)
36 Night Moves (Garth Brooks)
37 talk (Garth Brooks)
38 That Summer (Garth Brooks)
39 talk (Garth Brooks)
40 The Thunder Rolls (Garth Brooks)
41 talk (Garth Brooks)
42 Piano Man (Garth Brooks)
43 American Pie (Garth Brooks)
44 talk (Garth Brooks)
45 Friends in Low Places (Garth Brooks)
46 talk (Garth Brooks)
47 The Dance [Edit] (Garth Brooks)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6BuegDKz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/VAr9F5qWXeMBnC7/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.