Monday, March 18, 2024

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 5: The Grateful Dead

The fifth and final set from the first day of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was performed by the Grateful Dead. But don't worry, there are two other days to the festival after this.

Actually, it would be more accurate to say this took place on November 26th instead of the 25th, because the band started playing after midnight... well after midnight! The festivals started at 7 P.M. each "day" of the festival, so it was probably dark by the time the first acts got on stage. But then there were delays common to such festivals. Apparently, by the time the Grateful Dead took the stage, it was about four in the morning!

The Dead played one of their typical sets, going for about two hours. However, it seems to me that they were inspired by the Jamaica festival setting to play more of their upbeat songs than usual, including some that came close to having a reggae sound.

One interesting note is that the song "Throwing Stones" played here hadn't been released on album yet, and in fact wouldn't be released until five years later, on the band's 1987 studio album "In the Dark." They had just started playing it in concert a couple of months earlier.

This album is an hour and 55 minutes long.

65 talk (Grateful Dead)
66 Sugaree (Grateful Dead)
67 New Minglewood Blues (Grateful Dead)
68 Loser (Grateful Dead)
69 Man Smart, Woman Smarter (Grateful Dead)
70 Althea (Grateful Dead)
71 Let It Grow (Grateful Dead)
72 talk (Grateful Dead)
73 Samson and Delilah (Grateful Dead)
74 Scarlet Begonias (Grateful Dead)
75 Fire on the Mountain (Grateful Dead)
76 Drums [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
77 Space [Instrumental] (Grateful Dead)
78 Throwing Stones (Grateful Dead)
79 Not Fade Away (Grateful Dead)
80 Black Peter (Grateful Dead)
81 Good Lovin' (Grateful Dead)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eBSmn

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I used the Palette program to help convert it into color. From right to left, that's Phil Lesh, Bob Weir, and Jerry Garcia. The three other band members weren't in the photo.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 4: Jimmy Cliff

The fourth set on the first day of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was performed by reggae star Jimmy Cliff.

Cliff is one of my favorite reggae artists, and probably one of those with appeal outside of the reggae world. I've been meaning to post a live album from him for ages, so it's a good thing that this festival forced me to do so.

Much like the Toots and the Maytals set earlier on the same day, it's a bit frustrating to me that some really key songs weren't played, such as "Sitting in Limbo," "Wonderful World, Beautiful People," and "You Can Get It If You Really Want." But he was really keen to play his newest music. He put out the album "Special" earlier in 1982. He played no less than eight of the twelve songs from that album, plus a couple more from his 1981 album.

This album is an hour and 26 minutes long.

44 Originator (Jimmy Cliff)
45 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
46 Give the People What They Want (Jimmy Cliff)
47 Let's Turn the Tables - African Chant (Jimmy Cliff)
48 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
49 Roots Radical (Jimmy Cliff)
50 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
51 Treat the Youths Right (Jimmy Cliff)
52 Rock Children (Jimmy Cliff)
53 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
54 Music Maker (Jimmy Cliff)
55 Many Rivers to Cross (Jimmy Cliff)
56 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
57 Special (Jimmy Cliff)
58 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
59 Love Is All (Jimmy Cliff)
60 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
61 Peace Officer (Jimmy Cliff)
62 The Harder They Come (Jimmy Cliff)
63 talk (Jimmy Cliff)
64 Rub-a-Dub Partner (Jimmy Cliff)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16407800/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-25-1982Prt04JmmyClff_atse.zip.html

The cover photo of Cliff comes from this exact concert.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 3: Gladys Knight & the Pips

The third act from the first night of the 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival was Gladys Knight and the Pips.

This classic soul act has tons of hits in the late 1960s and early 1970s. But at the time of this concert, their last significant hit had been in 1975. Their most recent album, "Touch," had been released in 1981, and was run of the mill. Fortunately in my opinion, they only played a couple songs from their most recent albums ("Reach High," "Taste of Bitter Love," and "I Will Fight"), and instead concentrated on their earlier classics.

Like all the other albums I've posting from this festival, everything here is officially unreleased, but the sound quality is excellent. And I boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments to further improve the sound quality.

This album is 44 minutes long.

27 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
28 Reach High (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
29 Taste of Bitter Love (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
30 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
31 Neither One of Us [Wants to Be the First to Say Goodbye] (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
32 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
33 I Will Fight (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
34 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
35 Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
36 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
37 Every Beat of My Heart - Friendship Train (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
38 If I Were Your Woman - Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
39 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
40 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
41 The Way We Were (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
42 Band Introductions (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
43 I Heard It Through the Grapevine (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16400539/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-25-1982Prt03GldysKnghtnthePps_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact festival. However, it appears to be from a backstage interview. Also, while Gladys Knight is in the middle, only two of the three members of her backing band, the Pips, are shown with her.

Sunday, March 17, 2024

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 2: The B-52's

The second act of the first night of the Jamaica World Music Festival was the B-52's. 

I've already posted a B-52's concert from 1982, which took place at the first US Festival. This is very similar, since it took place only two months later and the band's set lists didn't change much. But I'm including it for completeness's sake.

The bootleg recording generally has excellent sound quality. However, only the second half of the first song, "Party Out of Bounds," was included.So it's very possible that they played one or more songs before that that didn't get recorded at all. If anyone knows, please let me know. I found a different version from 1982 with similar sound quality and used that to fill in the missing part. That's why that one song has "[Edit]" in its title.

As I mentioned with the previous album in this series, I've remixed all the songs from all the sets in the festival (using the UVR5 audio editing program). That was the case here too. I'm probably not going to mention that with all the subsequent albums I'll be posting from the festival, 'cos I'll just be repeating myself. But keep in mind that the sound quality of these versions should be better than all previous bootleg versions, due to my remixing.

Also, you may note that the song numbering below begins with 10 instead of 1. That's because the song count continues from the previous album in the series, since it was all one concert. However, the concert took place over three days, so the renumbering restarts with each new day. Similarly, the titles change, for instance going from Part 5 of the November 25th concert back to Part 1 of the November 26th concert, and so on.

This album is 45 minutes long.

10 Party Out of Bounds [Edit] (B-52s)
11 Give Me Back My Man (B-52s)
12 talk (B-52s)
13 Planet Claire (B-52s)
14 talk (B-52s)
15 Throw that Beat in the Garbage Can (B-52s)
16 talk (B-52s)
17 Lava (B-52s)
18 talk (B-52s)
19 Mesopotamia (B-52s)
20 6060-842 (B-52s)
21 talk (B-52s)
22 52 Girls (B-52s)
23 Dance This Mess Around (B-52s)
24 talk (B-52s)
25 Rock Lobster (B-52s)
26 Private Idaho (B-52s)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16400540/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-25-1982Prt02TB52s_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. However, it appears to be from an interview that took place backstage rather than from their actual performance on stage.

Jamaica World Music Festival, Montego Bay, Jamaica, 11-25-1982, Part 1: Toots & the Maytals

It's time for me to post another big rock festival. This is a particularly big one - 18 hours of music! The 1982 Jamaica World Music Festival is fairly unique when it comes to such festivals, due to the sheer diversity of the musical acts involved. Funk star Rick James, who played at the festival, commented during his set, "This is one of the weirdest, strangest, fuckin' combinations of groups ever!" But he also called it "One of the greatest festivals ever in the world."

I couldn't find out a whole lot about the festival, as it mostly seems to have been forgotten. But it was meant to be the first of an annual tradition. It was timed to take place near Christmas, so people from other countries, especially the United States, could come to Jamaica to attend and generally have a vacation while they were there (and hopefully spend a lot of money and help the economy). However, apparently it wasn't planned sufficiently in advance, and many people who wanted to attend were unable to, due to the fact that the plane flights were all full. As a result, attendance was below expectations. Somewhere between 20,000 and 50,000 people attended, with the numbers rising and falling over the course of three evenings of concerts. Because ticket sales were disappointing, it was written off as a failed experiment and never repeated.

But what matters for us the most is that virtually the whole festival was professionally recorded and somehow leaked to the public as bootlegs. Only a few of the acts aren't included here: Rita Marley, the Wailers, Yellowman, and Ronnie Milsap. I purposely didn't include Rita Marley and the Wailers, because in my opinion they were very poor substitutes for having Bob Marley there. Marley died of cancer the year before, and having his wife Rita and/or only his backing band doesn't cut it for me, because they didn't really have successful musical careers out of his shadow. I couldn't find the Yellowman and Ronnie Milsap sets. Furthermore, Jimmy Buffett was on the bill and was supposed to play, but he cancelled for some reason.

That still leaves 17 albums I'll be posting, one album for each of the musical acts over the three days of the festival. None of it has been officially released as far as I know, but all of it has excellent sound quality. I'd rather the names of the acts be surprises as I post them, but suffice to say there were a lot of great acts from rock, pop, soul, reggae, and even country. Due to the festival taking place in Jamaica, the home of reggae music, there was a particular large reggae representation compared to most festivals like this.

That brings me to this particular set, the first one of the first night of the concert. Toots and the Maytals are one of the greatest reggae acts of all time, in my opinion. Unfortunately, they didn't play some of their best known songs, such as "Funky Kingston," "Monkey Man," "Sweet and Dandy," and so on, and "Get Up, Stand Up" is not the Bob Marley and the Wailers classic, but an original with the same name. Still, it's a fine set just the same. (It's also possible that this isn't the complete set, I'm not sure, but the beginning of the next act's set wasn't recorded.)

On a different note, I should mention that I felt obliged to remix not only every single song in this album, but every single song from the entire festival! That's because while the bootleg recordings are all soundboards, it looks like nobody ever bothered to mix them. The main problem was that the vocals were significantly quieter than the instruments in all the songs. So even if you've had some or all of the sets from this festival, these versions I'll be posting sound better than any prior known version, in my opinion.

This album is 46 minutes long.

01 Pressure Drop (Toots & the Maytals)
02 Get Up, Stand Up (Toots & the Maytals)
03 Beautiful Woman (Toots & the Maytals)
04 Never Get Weary Yet (Toots & the Maytals)
05 Going Away (Toots & the Maytals)
06 All the Time (Toots & the Maytals)
07 You Don't Know (Toots & the Maytals)
08 Reggae Got Soul (Toots & the Maytals)
09 talk (Toots & the Maytals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16400544/VA-JmicaWrldMsicFstvlMntgoByJmica__11-25-1982Prt01TootsnthMytls_atse.zip.html

I was able to find cover photos from the festival for most of the acts, but unfortunately not for this one. One fact I know about the festival is that the concerts didn't start until 7 P.M. each night. So I found a photo of the band's lead singer Toots Hibbert in the dark, since I figure the different sets generally took place in the dark. This cover photo is from a concert in Chicago in April 1982.

As far as the text goes, I used the same font used on some of the promotional materials for the festival. I also used some of the same colors. I'm sure it's not a coincidence that those colors - green, red, and yellow - are closely associated with reggae music.

Saturday, March 16, 2024

Natalie Merchant - Cover Songs, Volume 3: 2007-2019

This is the third and last album of cover versions by Natalie Merchant, former lead singer of 10,000 Maniacs. I really enjoyed the music here, she has a very interesting and enjoying voice.

This album takes us as close to the current day as I could get. Although it ends in 2019, I didn't find any worthy covers from the next few years. (She has done some in her latest concert tour, but sound quality is an issue.) 

As Merchant's solo career went on, she got increasingly interested in older, more traditional music forms. For instance, in 2003, she released the album "The House Carpenter's Daughter," with entirely consisted of cover songs, the vast majority of them traditional, with the composer or composers unknown. Her next album, "Leave Your Sleep" in 2010, consisted entirely of poetry from the 19th and 20th centuries put to music. I should mention I haven't included any cover songs from albums such as these, just her non-album stuff.

Given all that, it's not surprising that some of her non-album covers are traditional too. Indeed, that's the case with five of the songs here. But she mixes that with a good number of better known songs from the 1960s to more current times.

Only two of the songs here are unreleased. There would have been more, but again I wanted to keep the sound quality standard high. The two happen to both be Beatles covers: "Let It Be" and "I'm Only Sleeping." They're both from concert bootlegs.

As for the rest, most are from a mix of appearances on other artists' albums, various artists compilations, and two songs from an E.P. Additionally, four of the songs (tracks 11 to 14) are from her 2017 album "Rarities (1998-2017)." They were probably recorded at unknown earlier years, but that's when they were released. I've included them because this album is generally only available as part of a ten album box set called "The Natalie Merchant Collection."

This album is 53 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 To Love Is to Bury - Cowboy Junkies
02 If I Only Had a Brain - Judy Garland & Ray Bolger (from "The Wizard of Oz")
03 Political Science - Randy Newman
04 Order 1081 - David Byrne
05 Learning the Game - Buddy Holly
06 Child of a Blind Man - Hazmat Modine
07 Joseph and Mary [The Cherry Tree Carol] - traditional
08 Let It Be - Beatles
09 The Butcher's Boy - traditional
10 Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier - traditional
11 The Village Green Preservation Society - Kinks
12 My Little Sweet Baby - traditional
13 Too Long at the Fair - Joel Zoss / Bonnie Raitt
14 Sit Down, Sister - traditional
15 I'm Only Sleeping - Beatles

Here's the usual song list:

01 To Love Is to Bury (Cowboy Junkies with Natalie Merchant)
02 If I Only Had a Brain (Natalie Merchant)
03 Political Science (Natalie Merchant)
04 Order 1081 (David Byrne & Fatboy Slim with Natalie Merchant)
05 Learning the Game (Natalie Merchant)
06 Child of a Blind Man (Hazmat Modinet with Natalie Merchant)
07 Joseph and Mary [The Cherry Tree Carol] (Natalie Merchant)
08 Let It Be (Natalie Merchant)
09 The Butcher's Boy (Kronos Quartet with Natalie Merchant)
10 Johnny Has Gone for a Soldier (Kronos Quartet with Natalie Merchant)
11 The Village Green Preservation Society (Natalie Merchant)
12 My Little Sweet Baby (Natalie Merchant)
13 Too Long at the Fair (Natalie Merchant)
14 Sit Down, Sister (Natalie Merchant)
15 I'm Only Sleeping (Natalie Merchant)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16391905/NATLIMERCHNT2007-2019CvrSngsVlum3_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from a concert at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C., on May 12, 2015.

Wednesday, March 13, 2024

Garth Brooks - Willie's Saloon, Stillwater, OK, 1986 (A MIKE SOLOF GUEST POST)

This is another Mike Solof guest post, but I have some things to say. First off, I'm surprised to be posting a Garth Brooks album here, because I'm not a fan of his music at all. But Mike was raving about this concert, and when I found out it's a solo acoustic show almost entirely of cover versions, I decided to check it out. I figured this might not have the production issues and other issues that I don't like about his music, and sure enough, that's the case. 

This is an album for even people like me who don't like Garth Brooks. If you like acoustic versions of great, classic songs, this is chock-full of good stuff. Heck, you don't even have to be a country music fan. There are only two Brooks originals, and the vast majority of the covers are folk and rock - Simon & Garfunkel, James Taylor, Billy Joel, Bob Seger, etc...

And although it's a bootleg from three years before he even put out his first album, the sound quality is surprisingly good.

It's unclear if this comes from one concert or several. What we do know is that Brooks was playing at small clubs in the town where he was going to college, and he probably was the one who made this recording, in order to show others his musical skills and possibly to give away or sell at his gigs. It basically sounds like a soundboard bootleg, although whether it is or not is kind of a moot point, since it literally sounds like the audience consisted of about a dozen people who were totally quiet during his songs. There's also almost no banter between songs. I'm guessing that was cut out in order to fit more songs on the tape.

Speaking of that audience noise, this version I'm posting here is the first time you can hear the clapping at all. It was way quieter. But I detected faint strains, so I used the MVSEP audio editing program to split the recording into cheering and everything else. Then I boosted the cheering up, waaaay up. Even now, the clapping is still pretty quiet, but at least it can be heard after each song. 

I also made a major edit to one song, "You Never Even Called Me by My Name." Near the end of the song, Brooks had a guest join him on stage and take over singing. He was introduced mid-song as a sports star at the college, so that explains why anyone thought it was a good idea to have him sing. But it turns out he was really bad, really out of tune. I asked Mike if I could edit him out, and Mike responded "KILL, KILL, KILL!" So that's how bad it was. I cut out a minute or two at the end of the song, but still patched in the very end, so hopefully you won't notice there was any editing at all.

As is his usual style, Mike has written some notes which are included in a PDF file with the download. I suggest you check that out to learn more about this unique recording in Brooks' music career. Mike comes at this from a different perspective as a big Brooks fan, and it's thanks to his enthusiasm that I listened to this and liked it enough to suggest that we post it.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original artists for each song. 

01 Tequila Sunrise - Eagles
02 Piano Man - Billy Joel
03 Much Too Young [To Feel This Damn Old] - Garth Brooks
05 Time in a Bottle - Jim Croce
06 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] - Elton John
07 Steamroller Blues - James Taylor
08 Why Do Those Dreams Never Come True - Greg Jacobs
10 House at Pooh Corner - Loggins & Messina
11 Mrs. Robinson - Simon & Garfunkel
12 Cats in the Cradle - Harry Chapin
13 Come Monday - Jimmy Buffett
14 Please Come to Boston - Dave Loggins
15 Night Moves - Bob Seger
16 Mr. Bojangles - Jerry Jeff Walker / Nitty Gritty Dirt Band
17 The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
18 Sweet Baby James - James Taylor
19 Turn the Page - Bob Seger
20 Redneck Mother - Ray Wylie Hubbard
21 Only the Good Die Young - Billy Joel
22 Guitar Town - Steve Earle
23 Taxi - Harry Chapin
25 You Never Even Called Me by My Name - Steve Goodman / David Allan Coe
26 That’s the Way Love Goes - Lefty Frizzell / Merle Haggard
27 Which One of Them - Garth Brooks

Here's the usual song list:

01 Tequila Sunrise (Garth Brooks)
02 Piano Man (Garth Brooks)
03 Much Too Young [To Feel This Damn Old] (Garth Brooks)
04 talk (Garth Brooks)
05 Time in a Bottle (Garth Brooks)
06 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Garth Brooks)
07 Steamroller Blues (Garth Brooks)
08 Why Do Those Dreams Never Come True (Garth Brooks)
09 talk (Garth Brooks)
10 House at Pooh Corner (Garth Brooks)
11 Mrs. Robinson (Garth Brooks)
12 Cats in the Cradle (Garth Brooks)
13 Come Monday (Garth Brooks)
14 Please Come to Boston (Garth Brooks)
15 Night Moves (Garth Brooks)
16 Mr. Bojangles (Garth Brooks)
17 The Boxer (Garth Brooks)
18 Sweet Baby James (Garth Brooks)
19 Turn the Page (Garth Brooks)
20 Redneck Mother (Garth Brooks)
21 Only the Good Die Young (Garth Brooks)
22 Guitar Town (Garth Brooks)
23 Taxi (Garth Brooks)
24 talk (Garth Brooks)
25 You Never Even Called Me by My Name [Edit] (Garth Brooks)
26 That’s the Way Love Goes (Garth Brooks)
27 Which One of Them (Garth Brooks)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16396272/GARTBRKS1986WllisSlonStllwtrOK__1986_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is of Brooks playing at this very club, probably in 1986. If you look closely, you can even see that his cap has the name of the club on it.

Bettye LaVette - Millennium Stage, John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, Washington, DC, 6-1-2022

Here's an unreleased concert by soul singer Bettye LaVette. 

I'm posting it for three reasons. One, she'd backed by just a piano player, so it's basically a solo acoustic concert. That's a very unusual format for her, and one I particularly like. Two, I found this as a YouTube video, and as far as I know it's never been made available as sound files until now. Finally, three, it's a professionally recorded web broadcast, so the sound quality is excellent.

At the time of this concert in 2022, LaVette's most recent album was "Blackbirds," released in 2020. She was still touring to support that, so most of the songs come from that. But about half of the songs come from earlier albums. However, maybe because it's only an hour-long concert, only one songs goes back to her 1960s singles, "My Man - He's a Lovin' Man."

In my opinion, LaVette is one of the most soulful singers still alive and kicking, and she definitely still has her "it" factor here.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 talk (Bettye LaVette)
02 Misty (Bettye LaVette)
03 Intro to The Forecast [Calls for Pain] (Bettye LaVette)
04 The Forecast [Calls for Pain] (Bettye LaVette)
05 talk (Bettye LaVette)
06 Hold No Grudge (Bettye LaVette)
07 talk (Bettye LaVette)
08 Save Your Love for Me (Bettye LaVette)
09 Isn't It a Pity (Bettye LaVette)
10 talk (Bettye LaVette)
11 Just Dropped In [To See What Condition My Condition Was In] (Bettye LaVette)
12 talk (Bettye LaVette)
13 Yesterday Is Here (Bettye LaVette)
14 talk (Bettye LaVette)
15 My Man - He's a Lovin' Man (Bettye LaVette)
16 talk (Bettye LaVette)
17 Love Reign O'er Me (Bettye LaVette)
18 Intro to Blackbird (Bettye LaVette)
19 Blackbird (Bettye LaVette)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16386840/BETTYLVTTE2022MllnnmStgeKnndyCntrWshngtnDC__6-1-2022_atse.zip.html

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

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

Paul McCartney - Comfort of Love - Non-Album Tracks (2002-2005)

It's been a slow process, but I continue to work my way through Paul McCartney's solo career with stray tracks compilations. We're finally firmly into the 2000s with this one, the twelfth in the series so far.

All but three of the songs have been officially released. Those three are "India," an unusual original that was only played once in concert, " Celebration (Sea Melody)," another original, and "All Things Must Pass." That last song is one of three George Harrison songs sung by McCartney in tribute, due to the fact that his fellow Beatle died in 2001. These three songs come from concert bootlegs, but all have excellent sound quality.

In 2005, McCartney released the studio album "Chaos and Creation in the Backyard," which was well received by critics. Five of the songs here are B-sides from singles released from that album, and another one is a bonus tracks. The two other George Harrison compositions, "For You Blue" and "Something," are from the "Concert for George" album in 2002. That just leaves "Whole Life," which is a collaboration with Dave Stewart of the Eurythmics, and was released on a various artists EP.

This album is 44 minutes long.

01 India (Paul McCartney)
02 For You Blue (Paul McCartney)
03 Something (Paul McCartney)
04 Celebration [Sea Melody] [Instrumental] (Paul McCartney)
05 Comfort of Love (Paul McCartney)
06 All Things Must Pass (Paul McCartney)
07 Growing Up Falling Down (Paul McCartney)
08 I Want You to Fly (Paul McCartney)
09 She Is So Beautiful (Paul McCartney)
10 Summer of '59 (Paul McCartney)
11 This Loving Game (Paul McCartney)
12 Whole Life (Paul McCartney & Dave Stewart)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375344/PAULMCCRTNY2002-2005omfrtofLve_atse.zip.html

The cover photo is from an appearance at the  Adopt-A-Minefield Gala in Century City, California, in October 2004.

Larkin Poe - Rockpalast, E-Werk, Cologne, Germany, 10-23-2023

I like posting music by Larkin Poe, because I feel they're very underrated and more people should listen to their music. But I've just checked, and it's been nearly a year since I last posted anything by them. I think that's mainly because I didn't see anything worthy of posting, especially when it comes to sound quality. But I've finally found this unreleased concert. They played a full concert for the German TV show "Rockpalast" six months ago (as I write this in March 2024), so the sound quality is excellent.

I consider Larkin Poe one of the best relatively new and young rock acts these days. But I gather it's not very easy for an act like theirs to get attention these days, with very limited opportunities for promotion via TV, movies, radio, and such. It seems that Larkin Poe has slowly been growing in popularity the hard way, mostly through self-promotion, especially lots of touring, and word of mouth. So I'm gratified to find out they've finally gotten popular enough to have an entire concert broadcast by Rockpalast, a very established German TV show that's been running since 1976. And, as you can see from the cover photo, their crowds are getting bigger and bigger. I think that's especially true in Europe.

Their most recent studio album is "Blood Harmony," released in 2022. They heavily promoted that album in this concert, playing eight of the eleven songs from it. Most everything they did were originals, with the exception of "Preachin' Blues" by Son House, "Crocodile Rock" by Elton John, and portions of the instrumentals "Jessica" by the Allman Brothers Band and "Rumble" by Link Wray.

Most of the music I've posted by them has been acoustic in nature, such as the long running "Tip O' the Hat" series of acoustic cover versions. But this is a very rocking concert with a full band, except for two acoustic numbers. I they're they're great in both modes, full-band and acoustic.

This concert is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Kick the Blues (Larkin Poe)
02 talk (Larkin Poe)
03 Summertime Sunset - Jessica (Larkin Poe)
04 talk (Larkin Poe)
05 Georgia Off My Mind (Larkin Poe)
06 Preachin' Blues (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 She's a Self Made Man (Larkin Poe)
09 Back Down South (Larkin Poe)
10 Blue Ridge Mountains (Larkin Poe)
11 talk (Larkin Poe)
12 Might as Well Be Me (Larkin Poe)
13 talk (Larkin Poe)
14 Southern Comfort (Larkin Poe)
15 Crocodile Rock (Larkin Poe)
16 Rumble - Holy Ghost Fire (Larkin Poe)
17 talk (Larkin Poe)
18 Bad Spell (Larkin Poe)
19 Wanted Woman - AC-DC (Larkin Poe)
20 Bolt Cutters and the Family Name (Larkin Poe)
21 Deep Stays Down (Larkin Poe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16379125/LARKNPO2023bRckplstEWrkClgnGrmny__10-23-2023_atse.zip.html

The cover is a screenshot I took of a video from this exact concert. I chose a frame that could give an indication of how big their crowds have grown.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 7: The Allman Brothers Band

Here's the seventh and last part of the closing of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971, featuring the Allman Brothers Band. I was a bit reluctant to post this, because it's the only portion of the concert that has been officially released. But I ultimately decided to post it for completeness's sake. 

The version of "One Way Out" here is actually the version that appeared on the band's "Eat a Peach" album in 1972. (Other live songs on that come from earlier concerts.) Then, when the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach" was released in 2008, the entire show was included as a bonus disc. The whole show was also included on the 2014 box set "The 1971 Fillmore East Recordings."

The farewell concerts to the Fillmore East actually took place over three days, but only the final night was broadcast live on the radio, so that's the only night where we have excellent recordings. Promoter Bill Graham, who controlled the Fillmore East, considered the Allman Brothers Band his favorite musical act. So he had them as the final act for all three nights.

Unfortunately, while this set by the band was certainly excellent, it sounds like the band's set from the night before was even better, and much longer. It's considered a kind of lost holy grail for fans of the band, but no recording of it has ever emerged. According to different accounts, the band played for anything between four to seven hours!

Band member Dickey Betts later said of the concert on June 26th (the night before this one), "That was a special show. We played until daylight that morning. I remember it was dark in there, and when they opened the door, the sun about knocked us down. We didn't realize we had played until seven, eight o'clock in the morning. Bill Graham just let us rattle, and nobody said, 'We gotta cut the time.' It was just a really free kind of thing."

Band member Butch Trucks added, "We played for roughly seven straight hours with everything we had. We played a three-hour set and then came back out. The feeling from the audience, not necessarily the volume, but the feeling was just so overwhelming that I just started crying. Then we got into a jam … that lasted for four straight hours. Non-stop. And when we finished, there was no applause whatsoever. The place was deathly quiet. Someone got up and opened the doors, the sun came pouring in, and you could see this whole audience with a big shit-eating grin on their face, nobody moving until finally they got up and started quietly leaving the place. I remember Duane [Allman] walking in front of me, dragging his guitar while I was just sitting there completely burned, and he said, ‘Damn, it’s just like leaving church.'"

Trucks added, "The next night, Bill [Graham] came running over, grabbed me around the neck so hard it hurt, and said, 'Thank you, thank you, thank you, for that show. It made all the years of crap I had to put up with worth it.' And I'll never forget what he said next: 'If I had my way, when you finished this morning, I would be sealed up in my bubble and gone off to wherever I’m going.'" 

So yeah, too bad we don't have THAT recording. But this one certainly is nothing to be ashamed of. Consider that the band liked it enough to include the whole thing on the deluxe version of "Eat a Peach," when there were other 1971 soundboard recordings they could have put there instead (with some of them eventually being released later). But I read the band was tired from the night before, and they felt the audience was tired too, so they chose to keep their set short and sweet, by their relative standards.

It's also worth noting that Graham gave the band an unusually prolonged and heartfelt introduction. That included the comment, "In all my life, I've never heard the kind of music that this group plays. The finest contemporary music. We're going to round it off with the best of them all – the Allman Brothers." 

Band member Gregg Allman later commented, "That was special. I'd heard a rumor before that Bill had said of all the bands he'd ever worked with, we were his favorites, but I hadn't believed it. So when I heard him say that with my own two ears, I was elated."

This album is an hour and 16 minutes long.

63 talk by Bill Graham (Allman Brothers Band)
64 Statesboro Blues (Allman Brothers Band)
65 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
66 Don't Keep Me Wonderin' (Allman Brothers Band)
67 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
68 Done Somebody Wrong (Allman Brothers Band)
69 One Way Out (Allman Brothers Band)
70 In Memory of Elizabeth Reed [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
71 Midnight Rider (Allman Brothers Band)
72 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
73 Hot 'Lanta [Instrumental] (Allman Brothers Band)
74 Whipping Post (Allman Brothers Band)
75 talk (Allman Brothers Band)
76 You Don't Love Me (Allman Brothers Band) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376045/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197107AllmnBrthrsBnd.zip.html

The cover photo of the band's slide guitarist Duane Allman comes from this exact concert. This one, along with the photo I used for the Albert King set, were the only two good ones I could find that were actually in color. So that's why I used a photo that only shows Duane, because this was what was available.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 6: Country Joe McDonald

This sixth album of the closing of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971 is a very short one. But I figure since all the other sets are their own albums, this one should be its own album too. This features singer-songwriter Country Joe McDonald.

McDonald had been the leader of the rock band Country Joe and the Fish from 1965 until the band's break-up in 1970. He then pursued a solo career in more of a singer-songwriter mode.

He performed this concert solo, just vocals and guitar. He'd just released his most recent album, "Hold On It's Coming" a couple of months prior to this concert. But the only song he played from it was the title song.

This album is 16 minutes long. This just might be the shortest album I've posted at this blog so far.

As short as this album is, it was even shorter before I started editing it. I cut out a couple of minutes of guitar tuning. It seems he took a extra long time because he broke a string.

56 talk by Bill Graham (Country Joe McDonald)
57 Kiss My Ass (Country Joe McDonald)
58 Entertainment Is My Business (Country Joe McDonald)
59 I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Country Joe McDonald)
60 talk (Country Joe McDonald)
61 Rockin' All Around the World (Country Joe McDonald)
62 Hold On It's Coming (Country Joe McDonald)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376038/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197106CntryJoMcDnld.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. However, the photo was black and white. I colorized with the help of the Palette program.

Monday, March 11, 2024

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 5: The Beach Boys

This, the fifth album from the closing of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971, is an extra special one. That's because although this has existed as a bootleg ever since the live broadcast on the radio, the recording has had serious flaws. But I believe I have mostly fixed them through the magic of audio editing. So one can hear how they really sounded for the very first time.

Before I describe the sound edits I made, I want to tell a story about some backstage intrigue relating to this concert.

First off, note that Chip Rachlin and Michael Klenfner were employees of Graham helping to run the Fillmore East. They also happened to be huge Beach Boys fans. Jack Rieley was the Beach Boys' manager. Also, note that the Beach Boys were considered very uncool at the time, since their earlier hits about cars and surfing were out of sync with rock music culture by 1971. Rachlin and Klenfner managed to convince Graham to let the Beach Boys play at Carnegie Hall in February 1971. That went very well, and helped restore the band's reputation a bit. They also had a guest spot during a Grateful Dead concert at the Fillmore East in April 1971. That helped their reputation some more. Bob Dylan watched that show from backstage, and was heard to exclaim, "They're fuckin' good, man!"

So, with all that in mind, when it came to this concert, according to Rachlin, "Jack Rieley nearly got [the Beach Boys] thrown off by insisting that they close the show, even though you had J. Geils there and you had the Allman Brothers there. The Beach Boys were lucky to be on the show and we had to work very hard to convince Bill (Graham) to put them on the show and then for Jack to take the idiotic position that they had to close the show. Klenfner showed his disgust with Jack in the lobby of the Fillmore, with the glittering lights and all the beautifully lit Fillmore posters. Klenfner threw Jack into a glass case and said he would kill him if he didn't change his mind… He told him 'If we go to Bill with this request he'll throw you out of the theater, so don't hurt the band by being such a jerk!' We won that one."

Butch Trucks of the Allman Brothers Band, who closed the show, has a somewhat different account, where their demand did reach Graham. "Everyone wanted in on that gig. The Beach Boys showed up and unloaded all their stuff and said they'd have to play last, and Bill Graham said, 'Well, just pack up your shit. I have my closing band.' So the Beach Boys had to swallow their pride."

I'm guessing Rieley's demand did make it to Graham, but then Klenfner confronted Rieley and got him to back off. That makes sense and reconciles the two accounts.

Anyway, I think it's possible that someone sabotaged the recording of the Beach Boys for this conflict due to that behind the scenes dispute. This is just a guess, based on the fact that all the other acts sounded great on the live broadcast of the show, but the levels were seriously off for the vocals in the Beach Boys set. It seemed one microphone was fine, but other microphones were turned way, way down, to the point that the other vocals from the other microphones were almost inaudible at times. And of course multiple part harmonies were essential to the Beach Boys sound. This problem wasn't fixed for the entire duration of their set. So the bootleg of their set has been almost unlistenable, in my opinion. What was on there sounded perfectly fine, like a pristine soundboard, but large portions of the vocals were completely missing, including the lead vocals on some songs. At times, it almost sounded like a karaoke version of the band.

Luckily, nowadays, audio editing technology has progressed to the point that much of this problem could be fixed. I spent a lot of time and effort repairing this recording. The first thing I did was split all the songs into vocals and instruments. Then I boosted the vocals where that could help. In many cases, the vocals were there, just buried way down in the mix. Sometimes, I had to carefully fix the volume levels line by line, because they were highly variable. 

But in other cases, the vocals were so low that they were essentially gone. So I had to take more drastic measures. I isolated vocals from other Beach Boys concerts around this time, and I patched those in to replace the missing vocals. It was tricky because I had to match the pitch and speed, but I believe it worked nearly all the time. You be the judge. The songs where I did a lot of this are marked with "[Edit]" in their titles. For the others, just boosting up the existing vocals managed to fix things.

I could have done even more, there are still some missing vocals here and there, but I think that overall, the recording has been drastically changed for the better.

In my opinion, the band was still in a very creative mode. and they sounded very good here. Their next album, "Surf's Up," released in August 1971, would be one of their very best, in my opinion. However, they mostly stuck to their older hits, with only one song, "It's about Time," from their most recent album, and another one, "Student Demonstration Time," from their upcoming album "Surf's Up." (By the way, note that "Student Demonstration Time" is really just the 1950s classic "Riot in Cell Block No. 9" with different lyrics. The band messed up in this performance, singing the chorus to the original version, for almost every chorus.) One nice surprise was that the band also did an excellent cover of "Your Song" by Elton John, which had only been released a year earlier. The Beach Boys have never officially released any version of this song.

This album is 41 minutes long.

38 talk by Bill Graham (Beach Boys)
39 Heroes and Villains (Beach Boys)
40 Do It Again (Beach Boys)
41 Cotton Fields (Beach Boys)
42 Help Me, Rhonda (Beach Boys)
43 talk (Beach Boys)
44 Wouldn't It Be Nice [Edit] (Beach Boys)
45 talk (Beach Boys)
46 Your Song (Beach Boys)
47 talk (Beach Boys)
48 Student Demonstration Time [Riot in Cell Block No. 9] (Beach Boys)
49 talk (Beach Boys)
50 Good Vibrations [Edit] (Beach Boys)
51 talk (Beach Boys)
52 California Girls [Edit] (Beach Boys)
53 talk (Beach Boys)
54 I Get Around [Edit] (Beach Boys)
55 It's about Time [Edit] (Beach Boys)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376040/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197105BchBys.zip.html

The cover photo comes from this exact concert. However, the original was in black and white. I used the Palette program to convert it to color, then I used Photoshop to fix it up some more. Also, I added the blobs in the background, taken from a different photo of a light show. That roughly matches with images of the light show I saw in other photos from this concert. 

Finally, I'm pretty sure that, from right to left, that's Al Jardine, Carl Wilson, and Mike Love. The other band members weren't included in the photo. Also, drummer Dennis Wilson wasn't at the concert since he had badly injured his hand in an accident a couple of weeks earlier. He was temporarily replaced by a drummer named Mike Kowalski.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 4: Mountain

The final night of the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971 continues with the fourth act, Mountain.

Mountain was a hard rock group that lasted from 1969 to 1972. (There would be later reunions.) Its main star was singer and lead guitarist Leslie West. But the band was heavily inspired by Eric Clapton's band Cream. The two bands were linked by Felix Papparaldi, who produced most of Cream's albums and co-wrote some of their songs, including "Strange Brew." He played bass in Mountain, as well as producing and doing some songwriting and singing. The band had their biggest hit in 1969 with "Mississippi Queen."

You can read more about the band at their Wikipedia page, here:

Mountain (band) - Wikipedia

Mountain would release a live album in 1972, "The Road Goes Ever On," which drew from concerts between 1969 and 1972. But surprisingly, there were only four songs on that album, and none of them are the same as any of the songs here. This is arguably a better live document of the band in their prime, especially due to the presence of "Mississippi Queen."

As with most of the other sets from this concert, everything here is unreleased. But the sound quality is great due to the fact that it was professionally recorded and broadcast live. The lead vocals were low in the mix, but I fixed that with the UVR5 audio editing program.

This album is 51 minutes long.

29 talk by Bill Graham (Mountain)
30 Never in My Life (Mountain)
31 talk (Mountain)
32 Theme from an Imaginary Western (Mountain)
33 Roll Over Beethoven (Mountain)
34 Dreams of Milk and Honey - Swan Theme (Mountain)
35 Silver Paper (Mountain)
36 talk (Mountain)
37 Mississippi Queen (Mountain)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376042/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197104Mntin.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert. That is Felix Pappalardi on bass on the left and Leslie West on guitar on the right. This photo was originally in black and white, but I used the Palette program to colorize it.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 3: Edgar Winter's White Trash

The final concert at the Fillmore East in New York City in 1971 continues. The third act to appear was Edgar Winter's White Trash.

Edgar Winter is the younger brother of Johnny Winter. Both were born with albinism. Johnny Winter became famous in the late 1960s for his blues guitar playing. Edgar, who sings and plays keyboards and saxophone, started out in his brother's band, and the two of them often appeared on the others' albums. In 1970, Edgar released his first solo album, "Entrance." Then he formed the group "Edgar Winter's White Trash." They released a studio album in 1971, also called "Edgar Winter's White Trash," then a live album in 1972, "Roadwork." 

Then the band name changed again, to the Edgar Winter Group. Under this name, the band found huge success with the singles "Frankenstein" (which hit Number One in the U.S.) and "Free Ride." Also, the lead guitarist for all these projects was Rick Derringer. He put out a solo album in 1973 while staying in Winter's band, and had a big hit with the song "Rock and Roll Hoochie Koo."

Most of that success was still to come, however. At the time of this concert, Winter had yet to have a single or album reach the Top 100 in the U.S. charts. But his band was increasingly well regarded for their live performances.

This concert has a lot in common with the live "Roadwork" album from a year later. In particular, both feature long versions of "Tobacco Road" and "Turn On Your Love Light." But "Roadwork" is a double album, so it's almost twice as long as this. However, the other two songs here are not on that album.

Like most of the other sets from this concert, the lead vocals were rather low in the mix. So I used the UVR5 audio editing program to boost them relative to the instruments. By the way, the lead vocals are shared between Edgar Winter and a member of his band, Jerry LaCroix.

This album is 38 minutes long.

24 talk by Bill Graham (Edgar Winter's White Trash)
25 Where Would I Be (Edgar Winter's White Trash)
26 Let’s Get It On (Edgar Winter's White Trash)
27 Tobacco Road (Edgar Winter's White Trash)
28 Turn On Your Love Light (Edgar Winter's White Trash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376039/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197103EdgrWntrWhtTrsh.zip.html

 The cover photo is from this exact concert. That's Edgar Winter on the left and Rick Derringer on the right with the guitar.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 2: The J. Geils Band

I just posted Part 1 of this album series of sets from the final concert at the Fillmore East in 1971. Please read my write-up there for an explanation about what this concert was all about. There were seven music acts in this concert, and I'm presenting them in their order of appearance. The second act is the J. Geils Band.

Nowadays, the J. Geils Band are best known for their huge 1982 pop rock hits "Centerfold" and "Freeze-Frame." But at the time of this concert, their music was more heavily influenced by blues and R&B. They had a reputation for being hard-working, lively concert performers, generally better on stage than on their albums.

The band did release one live album from around this time period. "Full House" is a live album that was both recorded and released in 1972. So there's a lot of similarity between the song selections on that album and in this concert. But there are some differences, and this concert is longer. 

Like most of this overall concert, this performance is unreleased. But the sound quality is excellent because it was professionally recorded and broadcast live on the radio.

This album is 42 minutes long.

Note that the track numbering starts at 8 instead of 1 because the numbering continues where it left off with the previous act. That way you can easily play all the songs from the whole concert if you so desire.

08 talk by Bill Graham (J. Geils Band)
09 Sno-Cone [Instrumental] (J. Geils Band)
10 Wait (J. Geils Band)
11 talk (J. Geils Band)
12 First I Look at the Purse (J. Geils Band)
13 talk (J. Geils Band)
14 Whammer Jammer [Instrumental] (J. Geils Band)
15 talk (J. Geils Band)
16 Homework (J. Geils Band)
17 talk (J. Geils Band)
18 Pack Fair and Square (J. Geils Band)
19 talk (J. Geils Band)
20 Cruisin' for a Love (J. Geils Band)
21 talk (J. Geils Band)
22 Serves You Right to Suffer (J. Geils Band)
23 Hard Drivin' Man (J. Geils Band)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376044/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197102JGilsBnd.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert. However, the only photo I could find was a rather blurry  and black and white one. I used the Palette program to convert it to color. I then added the colorful blobs in the background from another picture, because the photos I found of this concert had a light show with that kind of imagery. (You can see it on the Part 1 Albert King set, for instance.) I couldn't do anything about the blur, but at least you hopefully get the general idea.

Thank You and Farewell - The Closing of the Fillmore East, Fillmore East, New York City, 6-27-1971, Part 1: Albert King

I've made it a point to try to post entire rock festivals, as these often seem to be overlooked and neglected. Here's another one. This is the concert from the final night of the legendary Fillmore East venue in New York City. I'll explain more in a bit about what it was and why it closed when it did. But suffice to say the venue went out with a bang. This final concert featured seven big name acts performing for a total of about five hours. So I've made seven albums, one for each act. This first one is blues guitarist Albert King.

All but one of the sets currently remain officially unreleased. However, the entire last night was broadcast live on the radio, so bootlegs exist with excellent sound.

The Fillmore East is closely tied to its owner, promoter Bill Graham, who was arguably the most important promoter in rock history. He was particularly instrumental in the development of the San Francisco psychedelic sound in the late 1960s. Bands like the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Airplane didn't have many good places to play at first. But Graham opened the Fillmore Auditorium in late 1965, and that became a haven for many new and upcoming bands. At first, this venue was just known as the Fillmore (named after the street it was on), but its name changed to the Fillmore West in 1968 when Graham moved it to a larger building about a mile away, around the same time he opened a similar venue in New York City, which he called the Fillmore East.

Both the Fillmore West and Fillmore East were among the most important and prestigious concert venues in the late 1960s and early 1970s. They held between 2,500 and 3,000 people, which was big enough for most of the famous rock acts of the time, but not so big to become a stadium type show, with inevitably poorer sound quality and less of a connection between the musicians and the fans. The Fillmore East in particular was well known for good acoustics, so dozens of live albums were recorded there. You can see a list at the Wikipedia article on the venue, here:

Fillmore East - Wikipedia

Unfortunately, these two venues didn't last that long. In 1971, Graham decided to close both of them. Part of it seems to be that Graham seemed to be personally burned out after hosting concerts on both the East and West coasts nearly every night for three years. But also, the economics were changing. As rock music got increasingly popular and mainstream, the acts that had found success playing at both Fillmores were increasing graduating to playing in arenas and stadiums that could hold 10,000 or more spectators. Graham couldn't pay the acts nearly the same amount when his venues were much smaller. He could have continued with lesser known acts, but he decided to quit the business instead.

Dickey Betts of the Allman Brothers Band later had this to say about the closing of the venue. "The Fillmore East was everybody’s favorite gig to play. It was the Carnegie Hall of rock and roll. Bill Graham made a very great presentation of rock and roll, with the light shows and the curtains and the presentation of the bands and the set changes. But the Fillmore East wasn't big enough to pay any of the bands what they made other places. I think the general feeling among anyone who played there was even though we could be playing somewhere else for three times the money, we'd rather come to the Fillmore East and play because it’s such a great place to play."

As it so happens, Graham didn't stay retired for long. Within a year, he was back to promoting rock concerts, although he wasn't as closely tied to particular venues as he'd been with the Fillmores. He arguably remained the most important concert promoter until he died in a helicopter crash in 1991. The original Fillmore in San Francisco reopened in 1994, and remains a popular venue until today.

Anyway, the closing of the Fillmore West on July 4, 1971, is well documented. There were five nights of closing concerts. This resulted in a documentary film called "Fillmore" and a triple album called "Fillmore: The Last Days," released in 1972. But there was no such similar film or album for the closing of the Fillmore East, which took place just a week earlier. 

Luckily though, we have the bootleg recordings. I'm calling this album series "Thank You and Farewell," because the marquee sign in front of the Fillmore East had "thank you and farewell" written on it after the venue closed. You can see that included in the artwork at the top of the cover art for each album.

After all that, there's not a lot to say about the actual music here. In my opinion, Albert King was at his peak in the late 1960s and early 1970s. There's one classic live album from this time, "Live Wire/ Blues Power," released in 1968. But other than that, there isn't much live music from this time period, although he did release many live albums later in his career. So this is a very welcome addition, in my opinion, although it is a rather short set.

Oh, by the way, apparently, King was the very first artist to play the venue when it opened up. So that could be why he was involved in the last show.

This album is 29 minutes long.

01 talk by Bill Graham (Albert King)
02 Knock on Wood [Instrumental] (Albert King)
03 Got to Be Some Changes (Albert King)
04 Nothing but the Blues (Albert King)
05 Crosscut Saw (Albert King)
06 Personal Manager (Albert King)
07 Bye Bye Blues (Albert King)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16376043/VA-ThnkYounFrwll197101AlbrtKng.zip.html

The cover art consists of two parts. The top part is taken from a photo of the marquee sign for the venue. The "thank you and farewell" message was written on three different lines, but I used Photoshop to combine them to one line in order to save space. I also colorized the black and white photo I found, basing the colors off a color photo I found of the same sign. 

The photo of Albert King is from this exact concert, I'm happy to say.

Dead Links Gone

It used to be that I had more download links with Imagenetz than with Upload.ee. Imagenetz links are supposed to last forever, but in fact they keep dying in mass batches, probably due to not getting enough downloads. So I'm gradually replacing the Imagenetz links with Upload.ee ones. A few days ago, another big bunch of Imagenetz links died, probably about 150 in all. I've just finished replacing them with Upload.ee links, so all the download links should be working again.

There are about 2,600 albums to download in total as I write this in March 2024. After this latest round of link fixes, 1,900 of the links are with Upload.ee, and 700 are still with Imagenetz. I guess the Imagenetz ones are going to keep dying from time to time, but hopefully that'll slow down to very little as just really popular downloads tend to remain there. But I want to keep at least some links there in any case, because Upload.ee only allows download files up to 200 MB. That equals about an hour and a half of music, so the really long albums all use Imagenetz links.

Anyway, thanks for your patience, and please keep letting me know when links die so I can fix them. Upload.ee has annoying spam issues, but at least their links almost never die. (It takes 120 days - four mouths - of no downloads at all for a link to die, which almost never happens.)

And by the way, I could still use some help from someone who would be willing to host a few download links at one's blog or website, due to copyright issues.

Sunday, March 10, 2024

Ron Sexsmith - Reasons to Believe, Volume 4: 2006-2009

Here's another album of Ron Sexsmith's non-album tracks, with the vast majority of them covers. I hope you're enjoying this series, because there are a bunch more volumes to come.

All but one song here has been officially released. That one song is the last one, "Ring Them Bells," which comes from a concert bootleg.

Four songs are extras for his 2008 album "Exit Strategy of the Soul." Tracks 6 and 7 are bonus tracks available only on the Japanese release (and boy were they hard to get!), while tracks 8 and 9 are more conventional bonus tracks. The other songs are a typical mix of appearances on other artists' albums, various artists collections, and movie soundtracks.

I think the song "Fall at Your Feet" deserves special mention. This was done for a live album by a flamenco guitar virtuoso named Jesse Cook. With Sexsmith on vocals and Cook on guitar, I dare say they actually outdid the excellent Crowded House original. 

Note that I'd be stretching things to call this a covers album, because six of the songs were written by Sexsmith, more than on any of the previous volumes in this series.

Once again, thanks to Pete the Greek for his help putting these albums together.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

Here's a list of the original artists for each song:

01 Love Henry - traditional
02 Dumptruck - Ron Sexsmith
03 Philadelphia - Neil Young
04 Moonlight Becomes You - Bing Crosby
05 Fall at Your Feet - Crowded House
06 Here Comes My Baby - Cat Stevens
07 Rain on the Roof - Ron Sexsmith
08 Seems to Me - Ron Sexsmith
09 Too Good to Be True - Ron Sexsmith
10 Devoted to You - Everly Brothers
11 Something to Hold On To [At Christmas] - Ron Sexsmith
12 Simple Grace - Chris Warren
13 Whatever It Takes - Ron Sexsmith
14 Ring Them Bells - Bob Dylan

Here's the usual song list:

01 Love Henry (Ron Sexsmith with Don Kerr)
02 Dumptruck (Ron Sexsmith)
03 Philadelphia (Ron Sexsmith)
04 Moonlight Becomes You (Ron Sexsmith)
05 Fall at Your Feet (Jesse Cook & Ron Sexsmith)
06 Here Comes My Baby (Ron Sexsmith)
07 Rain on the Roof (Ron Sexsmith)
08 Seems to Me (Ron Sexsmith)
09 Too Good to Be True (Ron Sexsmith)
10 Devoted to You (Melanie Doane with Ron Sexsmith)
11 Something to Hold On To [At Christmas] (Ron Sexsmith)
12 Simple Grace (Chris Warren & Ron Sexsmith)
13 Whatever It Takes (Michael Buble with Ron Sexsmith)
14 Ring Them Bells (Ron Sexsmith) 

https://www.upload.ee/files/16375332/RONSXSMTH2006-2009ResnstoBliveVlum4_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from the Sundance Film Festival in 2007.

Squeeze - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: In Concert, Regal Theatre, Hitchins, Britain, 10-30-1982

The British band Squeeze performed for the BBC a lot in the early 1980s. I've already posted BBC concerts they did from 1980 and 1981, and here's one from 1982. In my opinion, each concert got better than the last, due to the band having even more classic songs to play.

This unreleased concert already sounded pretty good, but I tweaked it a little to make it sound even better. The main change I did was boost the lead vocals relative to the instruments, since they were rather low.

One song needed a big edit, the last one, "Tempted." The song faded out halfway through. I'm guessing that the BBC had allotted a certain amount of time for the band to perform, and when that time went over, they ended the broadcast. So I found a different version of the song performed in the same year and patched it in to finish it off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in the title.

It seems to me that the band was trying their best to make use of a limited time slot, because they wasted very little time between songs. There are only a few comments here and there. And they often went right into the next song before giving the audience a decent amount of time to clap. It makes for a fast-paced show, though a short one.

The band broke up by the end of 1982, but they reunited in 1985. That's when the next album in this series will take place.

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Cool for Cats (Squeeze)
02 talk by Dave Hepworth (Squeeze)
03 I've Returned (Squeeze)
04 Another Nail in My Heart (Squeeze)
05 talk (Squeeze)
06 Annie Get Your Gun (Squeeze)
07 Someone Else’s Heart (Squeeze)
08 Points of View (Squeeze)
09 Piccadilly (Squeeze)
10 talk (Squeeze)
11 Pulling Mussels [From the Shell] (Squeeze)
12 Labelled with Love (Squeeze)
13 Up the Junction (Squeeze)
14 I Can’t Hold On (Squeeze)
15 In Quintessence (Squeeze)
16 Is That Love (Squeeze)
17 Tempted [Edit] (Squeeze)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16373244/SQUZE1982BBSssonsVlum4InCncrtRgalThtreHtchnsBrtin__10-30-1982_atse.zip.html

The cover photo shows the band performing on the U.S. TV show "American Bandstand" in August 1982.