Bonnie Raitt - Sprague Hall, Yale University, New Haven, CT, 12-2-1972

In deciding what music to post at this blog, I've generally been prioritizing my stray tracks collections, because I figure those usually are unique. But I have lots of unreleased full concerts, and I plan on posting a lot more of those once my stray tracks albums start to run out. I figure there are tons of ways one can get full concerts from the Internet these days.

In some cases though, I'm able to offer something that's different from the usual concert recordings that float through cyberspace. The Kinks 1974 concert I just posted is one example, where I found some extra songs and made some sonic adjustments. This is another example, where my version of the concert is different.

First off, I should mention that this is one of the best Bonnie Raitt bootlegs of all time. It may well be my personal favorite. Both sets on one night were recorded as a soundboard, because it all was played live over the radio. So it stands out in terms of length and sound quality. Also, for the first couple of years of Raitt's career, she played her concerts acoustically (usually just herself and a bassist, though this concert also has a piano player join in), so it's neat to hear the songs done quite differently than the full band album arrangements. On top of that, she played lots of songs that never made any of her albums. (I'm including those on my stray tracks collections, including using a few songs from this very show.)

To make a long story short, if you like Bonnie Raitt's music, especially from her early years when she was more folky and bluesy and less poppy and commercial, you should listen to this.

Now, as to what I've changed, this is another case of "less is more." I've removed all the songs from the second set that were played in this first set. I generally dislike having two versions of the same song on one album, but that's especially true here where the songs only occasionally have solos to distinguish them. Additionally, all through the concert, Raitt was bedeviled by her guitar getting out of tune, so she had to tune it up at length after nearly every song. At once point, she was so exasperated that she asked out loud why her guitar was getting out of tune so quickly, and at another point she apologized to the crowd for all the time wasted with the tuning.

But you don't have to waste time listening to Raitt endlessly tuning her guitar between songs. I lopped off about twenty minutes of that in total. But I still kept all of the between song banter, of which there is a lot. If she was talking while tuning, I generally kept that, so you do get some tuning, but not much. Also, she sometimes spoke quietly between songs. I adjusted the volume so you can better hear those bits. I suspect she had a cold (she mentioned it was cold and snowy outside), because she coughed between songs some too. I removed most of the coughing.

I was able to make some other changes too. For instance, the version of "Bluebird" in the first set was bad due to the recording being wavery, so I simply used the version from the second set instead. I think it makes for a much better listen. There were still other fixes, but I think you get the gist. The bottom line is, I've cut out the fat and made some changes so you can focus on the songs and the entertaining between song banter. I think that if this concert was readied to be an official release (and it should be!), the producers would make the same kinds of edits that I did.

By the way, one curious aspect to this recording is that Raitt pretty much appears in one stereo channel, and all the other musicians (the bassist, piano player, and Maria Muldaur singing back-up vocals on the last three songs) are on the other stereo channel. It's extreme separation. I didn't make any changes (except to tweak the stereo balance for a couple of songs), but I thought I'd mention it.

After all the changes mentioned above, the concert is an hour and 46 minutes long. The unedited version is two and a half hours long.

01 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
02 Love Me like a Man (Bonnie Raitt)
03 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
04 That Song about the Midway (Bonnie Raitt)
05 Going Down to Louisiana - Rollin' and Tumblin' (Bonnie Raitt)
06 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
07 You Got to Know How (Bonnie Raitt)
08 Nothing Seems to Matter (Bonnie Raitt)
09 Big Road (Bonnie Raitt)
10 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
11 Write Me a Few of Your Lines - Kokomo Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
12 Special Delivery Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
13 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
14 Too Long at the Fair (Bonnie Raitt)
15 Women Be Wise (Bonnie Raitt)
16 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
17 Love Has No Pride (Bonnie Raitt)
18 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
19 Walk On By (Bonnie Raitt)
20 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
21 Blender Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
22 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
23 Can't Find My Way Home (Bonnie Raitt)
24 Any Day Woman (Bonnie Raitt)
25 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
26 Under the Falling Sky (Bonnie Raitt)
27 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
28 I Ain't Blue (Bonnie Raitt)
29 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
30 Bluebird (Bonnie Raitt)
31 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
32 Walking Blues (Bonnie Raitt)
33 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
34 Since I Fell for You (Bonnie Raitt)
35 Do Right Woman, Do Right Man (Bonnie Raitt with Maria Muldaur)
36 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
37 Baby What You Want Me to Do (Bonnie Raitt with Maria Muldaur)
38 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
39 I Know (Bonnie Raitt with Maria Muldaur)

https://www.imagenetz.de/k3n33

The cover art photo is from 1973, from Los Angeles in the summer of 1973.