Sunday, June 28, 2020

Larkin Poe - Brooklyn Bowl, Nashville, TN, 6-27-2020

I've posted a lot of Larkin Poe music lately. What's different about this one? First off, it's brand new. It's a concert that literally took place a few hours ago. This is the first time I've posted a concert that happened on the same day, and I'm psyched about that. More importantly, I've posted acoustic music from them recently, but this is a full-band concert. It's the Lovell sisters, Megan and Rebecca, on electric guitars instead of acoustic ones, with a bassist and drummer added. It's also a complete concert, at one hour and 16 minutes.

Is this a home concert? Kind of. Technically it isn't, since it was recorded at the Brooklyn Bowl. That might sound like a grand venue such as the Hollywood Bowl, but it's actually a bowling rink. However, in another way it is, because there was absolutely no audience for this concert. It was professionally recorded and filmed by them to be broadcast over the Internet. It's odd sometimes to have a rocking song come to an end and be greeted by total silence. But on the plus side, one can hear the music even better without the usual hollering and cheering.

Just a week or two prior to this, Larkin Poe released their latest album "Self Made Man." The set list leans heavily on songs from that album. I believe all the songs are originals, except for three blues songs ("Preachin' Blues," "John the Revelator," and "Come On in My Kitchen," plus a snippet of "Blue Sky" by the Allman Brothers Band.

Lately, the coronavirus pandemic has been getting worse in the US (so please keep social distancing!). I wonder if this sort of concert - playing in an venue outside one's home but to all empty seats - will become common in the months to come. Strange times!

01 She's a Self Made Man (Larkin Poe)
02 talk (Larkin Poe)
03 Keep Diggin' (Larkin Poe)
04 Trouble in Mind (Larkin Poe)
05 talk (Larkin Poe)
06 Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 Back Down South - Blue Sky (Larkin Poe)
09 talk (Larkin Poe)
10 Preachin' Blues (Larkin Poe)
11 talk (Larkin Poe)
12 Freedom (Larkin Poe)
13 John the Revelator (Larkin Poe)
14 talk (Larkin Poe)
15 Tears of Blue to Gold (Larkin Poe)
16 talk (Larkin Poe)
17 Danger Angel (Larkin Poe)
18 When God Closes a Door (Larkin Poe)
19 talk (Larkin Poe)
20 Ex-Con (Larkin Poe)
21 talk (Larkin Poe)
22 Easy Street (Larkin Poe)
23 talk (Larkin Poe)
24 Blue Ridge Mountains (Larkin Poe)
25 talk (Larkin Poe)
26 Holy Ghost Fire (Larkin Poe)
27 Wanted Woman - AC-DC (Larkin Poe)
28 talk (Larkin Poe)
29 Come On in My Kitchen (Larkin Poe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262142/LarkinP_2020d_BrooklynBwlNashvilleTN__6-27-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is taken from a photo I found at Larkin Poe's Instagram account, taken in front of the venue.

Thursday, June 25, 2020

Manfred Mann - As Is - Non-Album Tracks (1966)

Here's the next in my series of Manfred Mann 1960s albums. This is essentially the officially released British album "As Is." I've included the entire album "as is" (ha ha), but I've added some extra songs.

This album is notable as the first one with the band's new lead vocalist Mike D'Abo, who replaced Paul Jones. Personally, I prefer the D'Abo era. Both were very good vocalists, but D'Abo also was a talented songwriter, including some songs you wouldn't expect, such as "Handbags and Gladrags," a hit for Rod Stewart, and "Build Me Up Buttercup," a hit for the Foundations.

The band had already been moving away from their rhythm and blues sound at the end of the Paul Jones era. Musical trends were changing fast in 1966, and the band fought to stay relevant. While the band wasn't "cutting edge" by any means, you can hear on this album how they continued to diversity their sound.

As far as the extra songs, the first three are from Mike D'Abo and his band just before he joined Manfred Mann. I figured these three songs are pretty good, and I didn't find any better place to put them, so I've stuck them at the start of this album. The song "(Accept My) Invitation" is particularly important because the rest of the Manfred Mann band heard D'Abo sing that in a concert, and were so impressed that they invited him to join the band. The last song is just a little short unreleased acoustic guitar instrumental, but I thought it was nice enough to include.

This album is 41 minutes long.

01 Gonna Make a Woman of You (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
02 Leave It to Me (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
03 [Accept My] Invitation (Mike D'Abo & a Band of Angels)
04 Trouble and Tea (Manfred Mann)
05 A Now and Then Thing (Manfred Mann)
06 Each Other's Company (Manfred Mann)
07 Box Office Draw (Manfred Mann)
08 Dealer, Dealer (Manfred Mann)
09 Morning After the Party (Manfred Mann)
10 Another Kind of Music (Manfred Mann)
11 As Long as I Have Loving (Manfred Mann)
12 Autumn Leaves [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
13 Superstitious Guy (Manfred Mann)
14 You're My Girl (Manfred Mann)
15 Just like a Woman (Manfred Mann)
16 Acoustic Guitar [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fkNJo

The album cover is the exact cover from the official album. However, in the bottom left, there was a list of the songs on the album. I didn't want that, because I added some songs. So I used Photoshop to erase those words.

Melissa Etheridge - Home Concert Covers, Volume 3, Los Angeles, CA, 4-23-2020 to 4-29-2020

Melissa Etheridge played over 50 home concerts every day without pause, each one roughly half an hour to an hour. That came to a sudden halt on May 13, 2020, because she found out that day that her son Beckett, age 21, died of causes related to opiod addiction. She took over a month off to grieve.

On June 20th, she reemerged with more home concerts. However, she has changed her model. Instead of posting her concerts for free on the Internet, she's starting a subscription service at etheridgetv.com. If that's her plan, I don't want to undercut it by posting material behind a pay wall for free here. That said, I still have a lot of material to post through May 2020, such as this album.

This follows the same format as the two previous Etheridge home concert covers collections I've posted here. Namely, since she's so talkative between songs, I've created two download files. One includes the talking. In this case, that's 58 minutes long. The other is just the songs. That's only 36 minutes. And if it isn't clear enough already, this is only cover versions.

There's not much else to say except I think she's a pretty interesting story teller. So if you're a fan, you should consider hearing the version with talking at least once. But if you're looking to long-term repeat listenability, you might want to focus on the music only version for that.

Oh, one final comment. Back in February, I was pleasantly surprised when all these home concerts started happening. For me, those have been one of the best silver linings to the otherwise very dark coronavirus cloud. It's been a boon for people like me who are into acoustic performances. I'm happy to report this is the 40th one I've posted, with more new ones popping up all the time. :)

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

01 Apartment No. 9 - Tammy Wynette
02 Heroes - David Bowie
03 Mandy - Barry Manilow
04 Since I Fell for You - Lenny Welch
05 After the Glitter Fades - Stevie Nicks
06 Drift Away - Dobie Gray
07 Angie - Wild Horses - Rolling Stones
08 Let's Get It On - Marvin Gaye

Here's the usual song list for the version with the talking:

01 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
02 Apartment No. 9 (Melissa Etheridge)
03 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Heroes (Melissa Etheridge)
05 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Mandy (Melissa Etheridge)
07 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
08 Since I Fell for You (Melissa Etheridge)
09 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
10 Intro to After the Glitter Fades (Melissa Etheridge)
11 After the Glitter Fades (Melissa Etheridge)
12 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
13 Drift Away (Melissa Etheridge)
14 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
15 Angie - Wild Horses (Melissa Etheridge)
16 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
17 Let's Get It On (Melissa Etheridge)

Here's the music-only song list:

01 Apartment No. 9 (Melissa Etheridge)
02 Heroes (Melissa Etheridge)
03 Mandy (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Since I Fell for You (Melissa Etheridge)
05 After the Glitter Fades (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Drift Away (Melissa Etheridge)
07 Angie - Wild Horses (Melissa Etheridge)
08 Let's Get It On (Melissa Etheridge)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289462/MelissaE_2020c_HomeConcrtCovrsVolume3LsAngelesCA__4-23-2020_to_4-29-2020_atse.zip.html

Music only version:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289436/MelissaE_2020c_HomeConcrtCovrsVolume3LsAngelesCA__4-23-2020_4-29-2020_Music_Only.zip.html

The cover art comes from an appearance she made on a radio show, while she was in the room where she does her home concert. I used that as a source instead of a screenshot from one of her home concerts, because this one had a good close up of her head, whereas her home concerts usually are zoomed out and show her entire body. I'll probably use an example of that next time around.

Pete Townshend - Life to Life - Non-Album Tracks (1985-1989)

Oops! I was convinced that I'd posted this album months ago. It's a stray tracks album, and I went on to post the rest of the albums in that series. Somehow, it came to my attention that I'd missed this one, so here we go. If you suspect I've missed other albums that are in a series, please let me know.

In the 1980s, Pete Townshend had a fairly active solo career. In 1985, he released the album "White City," which I think is one of his best. This starts with a couple of bonus tracks from that album, and continues to a B-side from his next album in 1989. In between are mostly demos and live tracks. I believe five songs are not written by him: "Save It for Later," "Night Train," "Cool Jerk," "That's Alright, Mama," and "I Put a Spell on You."

"Dig" was a minor hit from Townshend's 1989 album "The Iron Man." But that version was played by the Who, and the lead vocals were sung by Who singer Roger Daltrey. This is a rare B-side version actually sung by Townshend.

In terms of sound quality, everything here is fine. Only two songs are officially unreleased, and both of those sound as good as any official live album.

01 Save It for Later (Pete Townshend)
02 Night School (Pete Townshend)
03 Lonely Words (Pete Townshend)
04 That's All Right, Mama (Pete Townshend)
05 Life to Life (Pete Townshend)
06 Night Train (Pete Townshend)
07 I Put a Spell on You (Pete Townshend)
08 Cool Jerk [Instrumental] (Pete Townshend)
09 Real World [Can You Really Dance] (Pete Townshend)
10 How Did You Love Me Then [Version 1] (Pete Townshend)
11 Penny Drop (Pete Townshend)
12 Dig [Pete Vocal Version] (Pete Townshend)

https://www.imagenetz.de/his2b

The cover art photo is from a mid-1980s publicity photo.

Wednesday, June 24, 2020

Tom Petty Problem

It is as I feared with the Tom Petty albums. As I mentioned here before, I got two takedown notices for Tom Petty albums in the past couple of weeks. Although I only got warnings about those two specific albums, virtually all the Zippyshare download links to all his albums stopped working. So I switched over to Yandex links for a bunch of them. A short time later, all of those stopped working as well, and my Yandex account has been suspended to boot. So now, all Yandex links have stopped working, even the non-Tom Petty ones. I hope that's temporary, but only time will tell.

Because of these problems, I've removed all the Tom Petty download links. I don't want to risk the whole blog disappearing because of one artist. However, you should be aware that all my files are still available through the free file sharing program SoulseekQt, and I haven't received any warnings there. So you could still look up information on albums here and find the music there (for now, anyway).

Various Artists - Picture Show: A Tribute Celebrating John Prine, Home Concert, 6-11-2020

Singer-songwriter John Prine passed away on April 9, 2020, at the age of 73. He died of the coronavirus. It pains me to admit that I never got into his music, even though I could tell he was a very talented songwriter. The problem I've had is his voice. It just doesn't appeal to me, for whatever reason.

Given that, I've been keen to find instances of other musicians covering his songs, because he is such a top-notch songwriter. So I was very pleased to learn about a home concert on June 11, 2020, entirely dedicated to his songs, featuring lots of well-known musicians, such as Bonnie Raitt, Kacey Musgraves, Brandi Carlile, Vince Gill, Margo Price, Jason Isbell, and many more. Most of them sang just one song, but a few sang two. There's no location for the concert per se, because the various artists performed them in their own homes and then sent in video recordings.

This concert is an hour and 17 minutes long. It contains all the musical performances, but it's far from complete. That's because there was a lot of talking between songs that I cut out. There were a number of famous friends of Prine's who gave spoken tributes as well, such as Bill Murray, Billy Bob Thorton, and Stephen Colbert. While interesting, I don't think those had much repeat listen value, so I edited them out. There also were some snippets of Prine himself talking from when he was younger, but I cut those out as well, for the same reason. There were a few bits of him singing, but only snippets of songs, not complete songs, so those got the axe as well.

I still left in some talking though, when musicians spoke a little bit before playing their songs. I also left in a few cases where Prine's wife, Fiona Whelan Prine, briefly introduced some of the performers. Strangely, she did that for some and not for others, so not every musician gets an introduction.

Anyway, if you're a fan of Prine's music already, you should enjoy these excellent versions. If you're not yet, this could be a good introduction, including most of his best known songs.

As far as sound quality goes, it's variable, based on the recording conditions for each artist. Some are a bit rough. For instance, the Secret Sisters recorded outside, and one can hear birds chirping the whole time. But overall, the sound is pretty good.

01 talk (John Dickerson)
02 Hello in There (Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires)
03 Clocks and Spoons (Jason Isbell & Amanda Shires)
04 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
05 Burn One with John Prine (Kacey Musgraves)
06 talk (Kacey Musgraves)
07 Spanish Pipedream (Kacey Musgraves)
08 talk (Kacey Musgraves)
09 All the Best (Margo Price & Jeremy Ivey)
10 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
11 Caravan of Fools (Dan Auerbach, Pat McLaughlin & Dave Ferguson)
12 talk (Brandi Carlile)
13 Your Flag Decal Won’t Get You into Heaven Anymore (Brandi Carlile)
14 Mexican Home (John Dickerson)
15 Far from Me (Kenneth Blevins, David Jacques, Fats Kaplin, Jason Wilber & Sara Watkins)
16 talk (Vince Gill)
17 Some Things Never Get Old (Vince Gill)
18 talk (Jody Whelan)
19 Paradise (Jack Prine & Tommy Prine)
20 talk (Secret Sisters)
21 Souvenirs (Secret Sisters with Ricky Rogers)
22 Illegal Smile (Todd Snider)
23 In Spite of Ourselves (Kevin Bacon & Kyra Sedgwick)
24 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
25 Summer’s End (Rita Wilson)
26 talk (Sturgill Simpson)
27 Speed of the Sound of Loneliness (Sturgill Simpson)
28 talk (Eric Church)
29 She Is My Everything (Eric Church)
30 Crazy as a Loon (Kurt Vile, John Paul White, Jim James, Pat McLaughlin & Courtney Marie Andrews)
31 Unwed Fathers (Kelsey Waldon)
32 talk (Fiona Whelan Prine)
34 Angel From Montgomery (Bonnie Raitt)

https://www.imagenetz.de/aoXGA

For the album cover, I used a photo of John Prine that was included in the promotional material for this concert. For the text, I copied and pasted from more promotional material, then added the line about the home concert plus the date.

Tuesday, June 23, 2020

Norah Jones - Home Concerts 5, New York City, 5-28-2020 to 6-11-2020

At this point, I almost feel embarrassed that I'm posting so many Norah Jones albums lately, when there's so many other artists to get to. But that's just due to the coincidence that I've been fixing her previous albums I've posted due to a big fan sharing more of her music with me, and that she's been very busy playing home concerts, and I want to keep up with that. This is an example of the latter.

I'm happy to report that Jones keeps on going and going like the Energizer bunny when it comes to home concerts. She typically does one show of about four songs per week, but sometimes she does two. This album is a compilation of three different home concerts.

Unfortunately, the first one, which consists of the first four songs, wasn't miked well. The piano is louder than the vocals. I've increased the volume slightly on that one relative to the rest of album so you can hear her vocals well, but that means the piano is extra loud too. I don't see any way to fix that.

Otherwise, this is the same ol' good stuff, just like her other home concerts. This time around, virtually all the songs are ones that have appeared on her albums. But one notable exception is the song I've titled "Light Wind Blowing," which is a brand new original. In terms of content, it seems to be a commentary about the recent murder of George Floyd and the Black Lives Matter movement and protests in general, so that's interesting.

Generally speaking, I like to make these albums around 45 minutes long. This one is 47 minutes long.

01 My Heart Is Full (Norah Jones)
02 Black (Norah Jones)
03 Bessie Smith (Norah Jones)
04 Nightingale (Norah Jones)
05 Peace (Norah Jones)
06 Fleurette Africaine [African Flower] [Instrumental] (Norah Jones)
07 Light Wind Blowing (Norah Jones)
08 Don't Know Why (Norah Jones)
09 It's Gonna Be (Norah Jones)
10 Not Too Late (Norah Jones)
11 Don't Be Denied (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15634025/NorahJ_2020_HomeCncerts5__5-28-2020_to_6-11-2020_atse.zip.html

For the album cover, I could have gone with an image of her playing the piano or guitar from one of her recent home concerts. But I've done that for all her other home concert albums, and that gets a little bit repetitive. Instead, she made an appearance on the "Today" show in early May 2020, so I used a photo from that.

Monday, June 22, 2020

Pugwash - Home Concert, Dublin, Ireland, 6-20-2020 (Kinks Songs)

I just posted an album of Pugwash (a.k.a. Thomas Walsh) playing the Kinks' classic 1968 "Village Green Preservation Society" album at a home concert only a couple of days ago. He started by playing the songs from that album in order. Then he went on to play a bunch of additional Kinks songs. He did so many bonus songs that that portion of the concert was actually longer than the VGPS album. So I'm posting this as a separate album. It's 54 minutes long.

Please read the post I just made about him covering the VGPS album that explain Pugwash and the context of the home concert he's been doing. I mentioned a number of caveats about the sound quality, such as how he was winging it, doing these from memory, and sometimes making mistakes. Everything I said there applies here, including the problem of his cell phone ringing from time to time. After all, it's  the second half of the exact same home concert.

As far as the songs chosen, there doesn't seem to be any logic to them other than these happen to be the songs he loves the most and thus is able to play them from memory. Not surprisingly, the vast majority come from the Kinks' classic era of the late 1960s and early 1970s. The only exceptions to that are "Set Me Free," from even earlier in the 1960s, and "How Are You" and "Quiet Life" from the 1980s. Note that "Quiet Life" is only part of the song, since that's all he could remember. But I included it anyway since it's an interesting rarity.

All the songs here are the order he played them. The exception is the last four songs, which don't come from this concert at all. As I mentioned in the other blog post, he's been doing one home concert at week since the coronavirus pandemic began, and from time to time he played Kinks songs. The majority of those were the same songs he did in this home concert, but these four songs were not repeats, so I've included them. They have the exact same sound quality, since they were recorded in the exact same conditions.

01 Wonderboy (Pugwash)
02 Days (Pugwash)
03 Two Sisters (Pugwash)
04 Lola (Pugwash)
05 Get Back in Line (Pugwash)
06 Victoria (Pugwash)
07 Set Me Free (Pugwash)
08 Mr. Pleasant (Pugwash)
09 How Are You (Pugwash)
10 Waterloo Sunset (Pugwash)
11 Apeman (Pugwash)
12 This Time Tomorrow (Pugwash)
13 A Long Way from Home (Pugwash)
14 Quiet Life (Pugwash)
15 Harry Rag (Pugwash)
16 The Moneygoround (Pugwash)
17 Death of a Clown (Pugwash)
18 Big Black Smoke (Pugwash)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15267501/Pugwsh_2020_HomeConcrtDublinIrelnd__6-20-2020__KnksSngs__atse.zip.html

For the album I just posted, of Pugwash playing the "Village Green Preservation Society" album, I used the Kinks' cover art as the basis for the Pugwash version. For this album, I thought it would be fun to do something similar. I noticed that he played the most songs from the Kinks' 1970 album "Lola vs. Powerman and the Moneygoround, Part 1." I believe there are six songs from that album. Luckily, it turns out that album cover only had one person's head on it, of the band's main singer and songwriter Ray Davies, so it was easy for me to change that to the head of Pugwash's Thomas Walsh. Then I changed the text, using the same font color and type as the original album.

Pugwash - Home Concert, Dublin, Ireland, 6-20-2020 (Village Green Preservation Society)

I'm a big fan of Pugwash. That's essentially Thomas Walsh, since he writes and sings all the songs, and is the only current member. (From now on, I'll call Wash "Pugwash," since that's how he seems to prefer it, much like Gordon Sumner of the Police calling himself "Sting.") I've posted two albums here of the Duckworth Lewis Method, a band composed of Walsh and Neil Hannon from the Divine Comedy that exclusively sings songs about the sport of cricket. But this is the first album I've posted just of Pugwash.

Pugwash has been releasing albums since the early 2000s, which makes that band a relative babe in the woods compared to the other musicians I typically post about here. But Pugwash is heavily influenced by music from the 1960s and 70s, most especially the Beatles, the Kinks, and Jeff Lynne of ELO. So to ease listeners in to hearing his own music, I thought I'd start with him doing covers by his musical heroes.

It turns out that Pugwash knows a remarkable number of cover songs on the guitar. He probably could do hundreds by memory. It also turns out that he's been extremely musically prolific during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown. He's been putting on one home concert per week, every week since the lockdown began. And not short shows either. He typically has played between two and three and a half hours each time!

During these shows, he's systematically played all of his songs from all of his albums, as well as a similar number of cover versions from a wide variety of artists. I plan on posting a lot more of that material in the future, but I wanted to start with his Kinks covers, because he did a concert of nothing but Kinks covers just a couple of days ago. He started by playing the entire classic 1968 album "Village Green Preservation Society," which I'm presenting here. Then he did even more Kinks songs, which I will soon post a separate album for.

As with all his 2020 home concerts, all these songs just feature Pugwash on acoustic guitar. I've removed all the talking between songs, because he tends to ramble a lot, and I don't find his comments that illuminating. However, there's one story he told during this concert that I want to pass on. Although Pugwash hasn't ever hit it big with commercial success, he's made enough notice to be able to meet many of his musical heroes, including Jeff Lynne and Ray Davies, the main singer and songwriter of the Kinks. He related a story in which he did some studio recording with Davies in recent years. Afterwards, he, Davies, and some of his band members retired to a nearby pub for some drinks. After everyone had a few pints, he offered to sing the entire "Village Green Preservation Society" album, start to finish, with Davies and the band members joining along. That's exactly what happened, and apparently Davies had a lot of fun taking part in that. My only comment is, what a lucky bastard, to be able to take part in that!

Anyway, before I finish here, I want to make a couple of caveats. Although Pugwash has put on very long home concerts each week, he's done them in a spontaneous manner, usually singing whatever song that pops into his head. Sometimes he's remembered all the chords and words, and sometimes he hasn't. He's often stopped midway and started again, or sometimes just gave up. He's also forgotten some chords or mangled the lyrics. Furthermore, he's had some health problems in recent years that included him partially losing his hearing, so he's occasionally gone off key without realizing it. Furthermore, he's Irish and speaks and sings with an accent that includes him pronouncing "th" as just "t."

Finally, I find it extremely annoying that he always does these home concerts with his cell phone nearby. And that damn phone rings a LOT! As in every few songs. Why he doesn't just put the phone away for the duration of the concert is beyond me. I've tried my best to fix the cell phone ringing sounds during songs whenever I can. I fixed most of them. However, on this album, there are a few instances I couldn't fix, because they happened during vocals that weren't repeated elsewhere. Mostly this happens in the last few songs. Sorry about those.

Anyway, please take this album in the spirit of someone just having fun winging it, much like singing songs around a campfire. This isn't meant to be a professional, polished sort of thing. If you take it in that spirit, and you enjoy the Kinks, you should enjoy hearing this solo acoustic version of what I consider to be one of the greatest albums of all time.

01 The Village Green Preservation Society (Pugwash)
02 Do You Remember Walter (Pugwash)
03 Picture Book (Pugwash)
04 Johnny Thunder (Pugwash)
05 Last of the Steam Powered Trains (Pugwash)
06 Big Sky (Pugwash)
07 Sitting by the Riverside (Pugwash)
08 Animal Farm (Pugwash)
09 Village Green (Pugwash)
10 Starstruck (Pugwash)
11 Phenomenal Cat (Pugwash)
12 All of My Friends Were There (Pugwash)
13 Wicked Annabella (Pugwash)
14 Monica (Pugwash)
15 People Take Pictures of Each Other (Pugwash)

https://www.imagenetz.de/j4s6q

Does the album cover look familiar to you? I hope it does. I took the Kinks' "Village Green Preservation Society" album cover and gave it a Pugwash twist. I added Thomas Walsh's head to the circle of darkness in the middle of the cover, and tilted it red to match the overall look. I also changed the text, including replacing the "Kinks" name at the top with "Pugwash" in the exact same font style and color.

Sunday, June 21, 2020

Joe Walsh - Don Kirshner's Rock Concert, Civic Auditorium, Santa Monica, CA, 11-26-1975

I find it very odd that in Joe Walsh's long solo career, he's only released one live album, "You Can't Argue with a Sick Mind," released in 1976. And that was an unusually short one as live albums go, at only 34 minutes. So I set about to find a good bootleg concert from the 1970s, before he joined the Eagles in 1976.

It turns out I could only find one concert that has truly excellent sound quality. Unfortunately, it turned out to be exactly the same concert that was the source of his lone live album. It was an hour-long appearance on the "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" TV show. But I'm posting it here because I found some additional songs from that show that almost doubles the length and, in my opinion, makes it into a proper live album.

Specifically, the songs "Welcome to the Club, "Get Back," and "Gimme Some Lovin'" were added. The last two are covers of the famous hits by the Beatles and the Spencer Davis Group respectively. It's disappointing those two weren't included on the official album, since he never recorded them for any studio albums either.

I should also point out that Walsh had a number of prominent musicians helping out for this concert. Don Felder, who had recently joined the Eagle, was part of his band for the entire show. Two more Eagles, Glenn Frey, Don Henley, joined on vocals for the song "Help Me through the Night." Plus, Frey returned for the final song. Also, Jay Ferguson, formerly of the band Spirit, played piano for the show. (A couple of years later, he would have a big solo hit with "Thunder Island.") Dave Mason, formerly of Traffic, played organ.

For this recording, I relied entirely on a bootleg recording, and ignored the official version entirely. That way, the sound was consistent all the way through. But there was one big problem with the bootleg I used. Since it was recorded from the TV show, pretty much all the talking between songs was edited out, and many times even the audience applause after the songs were cut short by announcers talking or commercial breaks. But there was enough applause remaining that I was able to patch in some clapping from the ends of other songs so that all the songs have an appropriate audience response.

Another issue is song order. The order here is based on the bootleg, but it's totally different from the order on the official album. I'm pretty sure this is right and the official album is wrong.

01 Time Out (Joe Walsh)
02 Meadows (Joe Walsh)
03 Walk Away (Joe Walsh)
04 Mother Says (Joe Walsh)
05 Welcome to the Club (Joe Walsh)
06 Help Me through the Night (Joe Walsh & the Eagles)
07 Turn to Stone (Joe Walsh)
08 Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh)
09 talk (Joe Walsh)
10 Get Back (Joe Walsh)
11 Gimme Some Lovin' (Joe Walsh)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260434/JoeWal_1975_DnKirshnrsRockConcrtCivcAuditoriumSntaMonicaCA__11-26-1975_atse.zip.html

I couldn't find a cover art worthy photo from the exact concert in question. The one I used comes from a concert earlier in the same year held in the Netherlands.

Saturday, June 20, 2020

John Fogerty - Home Concerts, Redding, CA, 3-23-2020 to 7-24-2020

Before I get to John Fogerty, I have to mention that yesterday Bob Dylan and Neil Young both released five-star albums. Dylan's album, "Rough and Rowdy Ways," is his first album of original album in eight years. Young's album, "Homegrown," was recorded in 1975 but not released until now. If you're into the kind of music I post at this blog, at you must be to be reading this, I highly recommend you give them a listen.

Now, back to Fogerty. When the coronavirus pandemic lockdown began in mid-March 2020, it wasn't long before he started playing acoustic songs and posting them at his YouTube page, or playing them on TV shows. I'd been keeping an eye on that and slowly collecting them. But he typically only did one or two songs a week, with some of them repeats. Eventually, he had enough for a long album, presented here. Then he stopped in July 2020.

Fogerty has three children, who are in their late teens or early twenties. All of them are following in his footsteps of playing music and singing. Two of them were already playing in his concert band prior to the pandemic. During the lockdown, he did a lot of his songs with them joining in, usually on backing vocals, extra guitars, and bass. The songs included here are a mix of him playing totally solo and with his family backing band. To be honest, there isn't that much difference since it's generally an acoustic, drum-free sound. However, on some of the songs you'll notice him playing electric guitar rather than an acoustic one.

The vast majority of the songs are versions of his Creedence Clearwater Revival hits, with only three solo hit ("Centerfield," "Hot Rod Heart," and "Don't You Wish It Was True"). However, the songs are in chronological order of when he played them. Two of them are covers of famous songs: "City of New Orleans" and "Lean on Me."

The sound quality is generally excellent, but variable. Most of the songs were recorded in a studio or studio-like setting, but a few were recorded outside and weren't miked up as well. There was one song, "Lodi," that was recorded so badly that I didn't even include it as a bonus track. I'm hopeful he'll get around to doing that one again. A couple others like "Who'll Stop the Rain" are a bit rough, but still acceptable. I've also included a fair amount of talking to introduce the songs, including a long story about his experience at the famous 1969 Woodstock music festival.

UPDATE: On October 23, 2022, I updated the mp3 download file. I had hoped he would keep going and come up with enough for a second album. But he stopped. So I took the three songs I hadn't put on this already and added them to the end. I had to slightly alter the album cover to change one of the dates at the bottom.

01 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty)
02 Lookin' Out My Back Door (John Fogerty)
03 Centerfield (John Fogerty)
04 talk (John Fogerty)
05 Down on the Corner (John Fogerty)
06 talk (John Fogerty)
07 Long as I Can See the Light (John Fogerty)
08 talk (John Fogerty)
09 Proud Mary (John Fogerty)
10 Fortunate Son (John Fogerty)
11 talk (John Fogerty)
12 Who'll Stop the Rain (John Fogerty)
13 talk (John Fogerty)
14 Green River (John Fogerty)
15 talk (John Fogerty)
16 Up Around the Bend (John Fogerty)
17 Have You Ever Seen the Rain (John Fogerty)
18 talk (John Fogerty)
19 City of New Orleans (John Fogerty)
20 talk (John Fogerty)
21 Lean on Me (John Fogerty)
22 Blue Moon Nights (John Fogerty)
23 Don’t You Wish It Was True (John Fogerty)
24 Hot Rod Heart (John Fogerty)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15218801/JohnFoge_2020_HomeConcrtsRddingCA__3-23-2020_to_7-24-2020_atse.zip.html

I took the cover art photo from Fogerty's Instagram account. Instead of a photo of just him, I figured it was fitting to include his three musical children as well.

Thursday, June 18, 2020

Tracy Chapman - Gothic Theatre, Englewood, CO, 2-19-1991

With all the protests about police brutality and racial injustice in the US lately, I've found myself listening to some of my old Tracy Chapman albums. She's got a lot of songs that deal directly with those issues, such as "Across the Lines" and "Talkin' 'bout a Revolution."

I've long felt that, after her first two albums, which were well done and sold many millions, Chapman's musical career was mishandled by her and/or her record company. One puzzler is that she's never released a live album. This could have been that album.

Part of the mishandling of Chapman's career, in my opinion, is that if anyone excels in the solo acoustic format, it's her. But after her first two albums, her other albums gave virtually all her songs a full-band production that made them sound generic and all too similar to each other. This concert, by contrast, is solo acoustic. That allows her lyrics and emotions to stand out.

Four of the songs are from her album "Matters of the Heart," which would come out one year after this concert. That album suffered from the production issues mentioned above, but those songs sound much better in this format. Two more songs, "Still I Cry" and "Missile Blues," have never been released. That another mishandling - she has lots of good songs that were inexplicably never released. I've included those two exact performances on my stray tracks collection "Where the Soul Never Dies" as well. The rest of the songs come from her first two albums.

This is a soundboard bootleg, and the sound quality is fantastic. She rarely spoke between songs, but when she did, I made those separate tracks and boosted the volume. The concert is an hour and two minutes long.

As an aside, I'm surprised by the lack of Tracy Chapman bootlegs on the Internet. I've only been able to find a few, and they all come from her commercial peak of 1988 to 1991. If you have any others, please let me know. Due to the production issues I mentioned above, I'd love to hear a good solo acoustic concert from later in her career. I'm also especially looking for the song "If I...", which is an original song from her first few years that she sometimes played live.

01 talk (Tracy Chapman)
02 Across the Lines (Tracy Chapman)
03 For My Lover (Tracy Chapman)
04 Still I Cry (Tracy Chapman)
05 Baby Can I Hold You (Tracy Chapman)
06 Open Arms (Tracy Chapman)
07 You Were in Love (Tracy Chapman)
08 Crossroads (Tracy Chapman)
09 If These Are the Things (Tracy Chapman)
10 talk (Tracy Chapman)
11 Dreaming on a World (Tracy Chapman)
12 Fast Car (Tracy Chapman)
13 Short Supply (Tracy Chapman)
14 talk (Tracy Chapman)
15 Missile Blues (Tracy Chapman)
16 Mountains O' Things (Tracy Chapman)
17 All that You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15288247/TracyC_1991_GthicTheatreEnglwoodCO__2-19-1991_atse.zip.html

I searched but didn't find any good photos of Chapman on stage in 1991. However, I found a nice one of her at a Nelson Mandela tribute concert in 1990, so I used that.

Wednesday, June 17, 2020

Manfred Mann - Pretty Flamingo - Non-Album Tracks (1966)

I want to hurry through posting the rest of my Manfred Mann stray tracks albums, so here's the next one. In mid-1966, the band changed lead singers, from Paul Jones to Mike d'Abo. That marked a significant shift in the band's sound away from rhythm and blues and towards pop, though the change had already been underway. This album contains the last songs of the Paul Jones era.

The big hit here was "Pretty Flamingo." It was a number one hit in Britain and some other European countries. While it was only a top 30 hit in the US, it gradually became an established classic. (Fun fact: Jack Bruce, who would soon become famous as the bassist and lead vocalist for Cream, was a member of Manfred Mann for a few months in 1996, and played on that song and some other songs here.)

By 1966, the popularity of rhythm and blues was going down in Britain, as new musical styles took over. You can see that on this album, with a greater variety of styles than ever before for the band. Ironically, some rhythm and blues fans blame the change of lead singers for the change in styles. But in fact Paul Jones wasn't that keen on rhythm and blues even though his voice was a natural fit for it. As soon as he left the group and started a solo career, he drastically changed musical styles to middle of the road showbiz/musical genre.

I've added a couple of bonus tracks at the end that are from his solo career. Unfortunately, there is very slim pickings there, due to that change in styles. He did one song, "Sonny Boy Williamson," still in the earlier bluesy style, but that one throwback is just about the only one like that once he left the group.

01 Long Hair Unsquare Dude Called Jack (Manfred Mann)
02 You Better Be Sure (Manfred Mann)
03 Pretty Flamingo (Manfred Mann)
04 You're Standing By (Manfred Mann)
05 Machines (Manfred Mann)
06 Tennessee Waltz (Manfred Mann)
07 When Will I Be Loved (Manfred Mann)
08 Still I'm Sad [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
09 My Generation [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
10 You Gave Me Somebody to Love (Manfred Mann)
11 That's All I Ever Want from You Baby (Manfred Mann)
12 Driva Man (Manfred Mann)
13 Spirit Feel [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)
14 Sonny Boy Williamson (Paul Jones)
15 Free Me (Paul Jones)

https://www.imagenetz.de/hxWKH

There was no definitive British album called "Pretty Flamingo," and I base my albums for this band on the British albums. But there was a US album with that name, which gathered up singles and other stray tracks. I've used the cover from that one, without any changes.

Tuesday, June 16, 2020

Norah Jones - As Fast as My Feet Can Carry Me - Non-Album Tracks (2013-2014)

I noted in my last post that Larkin Poe has a new album out, and you should definitely check it out. For this post, I'm noting that Norah Jones has a new album out, as of last week, and you should definitely check it out as well. I only just got it, but so far, I'm impressed. I've knocked Norah Jones's songwriting in previous posts as being good, but fairly generic. It's unusual for a songwriter to noticeably improve after about 20 years making records, but I honestly think she's been getting better lately. It helps that many of the songs on the new album "Pick Me Up Off the Floor" have a more lively pace, making her album less like forgettable background music.

Anyway, in celebration of her new album, I'm posting this, her latest in a long series of stray tracks albums. In the last couple of weeks, I overhauled all of her stray tracks albums I'd posted here previously, adding and moving songs, and even creating a couple of new albums to make room for the new stuff. I'll repeat that if you're a fan of her music, you should redownload all of those, if you haven't done so already.

Thanks to the input of a very organized Norah Jones fan, I believe I now have virtually all of her "stray" songs. So I can post more of her stray track albums without having to fear that I'll need to make more changes. Thus, I'm able to continue onward chronologically.

All but one of the songs here have been officially released. That one song is a cover of "Ghost Town," a hit by the Specials. The sound on that one is a bit rougher than the rest, but still very acceptable. The rest of the songs come from the usual sources, such as guest appearances on other people's albums, soundtracks, tribute albums, and so on. Three of the songs with an Indian flavor are due to her singing on her sister Anoushka Shankar's album. (Their father was the famous sitar player Ravi Shankar.) Only one of the songs this time is from one of her side project bands. In this case, it's "Don't Know What It Means" by Puss N Boots.

The two bonus songs are nice, but the sound quality isn't quite good enough for them to be included on the album proper. Both are Tom Petty covers from a tribute concert to him.

This album is 40 minutes long.

01 The Sun Won't Set (Anoushka Shankar with Norah Jones)
02 Take the Money and Run (Norah Jones with the Wild Rovers)
03 Traces of You (Anoushka Shankar with Norah Jones)
04 Over the Hill (Norah Jones with Lily Tanken)
05 As Fast as My Feet Can Carry Me (Emmylou Harris & Norah Jones)
06 Ghost Town (Reigning Monarchs with Norah Jones & Jedediah Parish)
07 Walkin' (Willie Nelson & Norah Jones)
08 Unsaid (Anoushka Shankar with Norah Jones)
09 It Was the Last Thing on Your Mind (Norah Jones)
10 Don't Know What It Means (Puss N Boots featuring Norah Jones)
11 Just Noise (Norah Jones)
12 If You Want the Rainbow [You Must Have the Rain] (Norah Jones)

Stop Draggin' My Heart Around (Jakob Dylan & Norah Jones)
This Old Town (Norah Jones)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15603496/NorahJ_2013-2014_AsFstasMyFeetCnCarryMe_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a photo from the "George Fest" concert in 2014, a tribute to George Harrison.

Larkin Poe - Home Concert, Nashville, TN, 6-13-2020

A couple of days ago, Larkin Poe released their new studio album "Self Made Man." I've already heard it, and I highly recommend it. I think it's even better than their last couple, so check it out. Generally speaking, Larkin Poe has been doing a fair number of home concerts during the coronavirus lockdown, but usually behind a pay wall. However, to promote their new album, they've done another one for the general public. Not only that, but it was done for charity, with all donations going to the non-profit "Play for Change." Here is that concert, performed just one day after the release of their new album.

Given the timing of this concert and their new album, it's not surprising that many of the songs on it are from that album. Specifically, five of them are from that album, while the other four are not. Three of the other four are covers, including a nice version of the Bill Withers hit "Lean on Me," which I've never heard them do before.

All in all, the concert is 46 minutes long. I lightly edited some of the talking between songs to remove some flubs and digressions. But I'm guessing I only cut out a minute or two. Otherwise, the sound quality is excellent and there are no problems.

01 talk (Larkin Poe)
02 Holy Ghost Fire (Larkin Poe)
03 talk (Larkin Poe)
04 Keep Diggin' (Larkin Poe)
05 talk (Larkin Poe)
06 Back Down South (Larkin Poe)
07 talk (Larkin Poe)
08 Bleach Blonde Bottle Blues (Larkin Poe)
09 talk (Larkin Poe)
10 She's a Self Made Man (Larkin Poe)
11 talk (Larkin Poe)
12 Preachin' Blues (Larkin Poe)
13 talk (Larkin Poe)
14 Easy Street (Larkin Poe)
15 talk (Larkin Poe)
16 Lean on Me (Larkin Poe)
17 talk (Larkin Poe)
18 Come On in My Kitchen (Larkin Poe)
19 talk (Larkin Poe)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15262131/LarkinP_2020c_HomeConcrtNashvilleTN__6-13-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot of the concert in question.

Monday, June 15, 2020

Jewel - Live from San Quarantine - Home Concert, Telluride, CO, 3-21-2020

I like some of Jewel's (a.k.a. Jewel Kilcher's) music. She is a controversial figure for various reasons, and I'll admit that I find her songs hit or miss. But although I cherry pick through her albums, when she hits, it's excellent stuff. She's mostly been silent during the coronavirus pandemic lockdown, only playing a song or two here and there for special events. However, there is one very big exception, which is this concert.

It was a fundraiser for a charity she helped get off the ground, the Inspiring Children Foundation. The concert benefit was very successful, and raised over half a million dollars for that group. Like pretty much all the home concerts I've posted here, it's just her and an acoustic guitar.

However, in my opinion, there was something about it I didn't like. Jewel can be extremely talkative between songs. Sometimes when that happens, I cut some parts out. My guide is to consider which bits would one be likely to want to hear multiple times, and which bits not. For this concert, she often went on and on, for ten or more minutes at a time. She often sounded more like a self-help guru than anything else. Actually, I think her advice is generally good, but it bogged the music part way down. Furthermore, there were aspects about it being a fundraiser that I cut. For instance, she often took time to praise by name all the people who donated large amounts.

As a result of all the cuts I made, a two and a half hour long concert was whittled down to one and a half hours! It's safe to say that I've never cut that much talking from any other concert. But I think it was justified here. Mind you, I still kept in quite a lot, including basic info about the foundation and some of her self-help advice. If you add up the lengths of the songs, that totals 58 minutes. Whereas if you add up the lengths of all the remaining spoken parts, that's 28 minutes. That 2 to 1 ratio of music to talking is very high compared to all the other home concerts I've posted here. An entire additional hour of talking on top of that was just too much. That's my opinion, anyway. If you want to hear and/or watch the entire thing, just search for it on YouTube.

As far as the talking that I've kept in, I think it's pretty interesting. It can't be denied that Jewel has lived a very unusual and fascinating life. It sounds like material for a movie, especially how she went from being homeless to becoming famous in just a year. 

Regarding the music, she does most of her famous songs, and at least one brand new song. I believe all the songs are written or co-written by her, with the exception of the classic country song "Help Me Make It through the Night."

In terms of sound quality, it's very good, but not excellent. This was recorded in her bedroom, and recording conditions weren't ideal. In particular, she sat on a squeaky chair, and as the concert went on the squeaking got louder. She even commented and complained about it at one point. But that's only a minor irritant. Also, she didn't sing into a microphone, which would have been ideal. But her voice projects so loudly that that wasn't too much of a problem.

There was one specific snag that was more annoying, however. Prior to singing her hit song "Who Will Save Your Soul," she told a long (but entertaining) story about how Bob Dylan helped her career. Unfortunately, the Internet feed for her concert got cut off for several minutes. Some unknown amount of the Dylan story was lost, plus most of "Who Will Save Your Soul." Luckily, I think the Dylan story was over, or almost over, so I'm guessing very little was lost there. I found a good place to end it by only removing a word or two at the very end. But "Who Will Save Your Soul" pretty much was gone. So I found another version of her doing that song, also from her home, on April 11, 2020, and I pasted that in.

The reason I call this "Live from San Quarantine" is because that's what Jewel called it. She mentioned early in the concert that it's a play on the title of Johnny Cash's famous live album, "At San Quentin."

01 talk (Jewel)
02 Hands (Jewel)
03 talk (Jewel)
04 No More Tears (Jewel)
05 talk (Jewel)
06 Standing Still (Jewel)
07 talk (Jewel)
08 Grateful (Jewel)
09 talk (Jewel)
10 Intuition (Jewel)
11 talk (Jewel)
12 Dance, Sing, Laugh, Love (Jewel)
13 talk (Jewel)
14 Help Me Make It through the Night (Jewel)
15 talk (Jewel)
16 Foolish Games Intro (Jewel)
17 Foolish Games (Jewel)
18 talk (Jewel)
19 Life Uncommon (Jewel)
20 talk (Jewel)
21 I'm Sensitive (Jewel)
22 talk (Jewel)
23 My Father’s Daughter (Jewel)
24 talk (Jewel)
25 1000 Miles Away (Jewel)
26 talk (Jewel)
27 Mercy (Jewel)
28 talk (Jewel)
29 When You Loved Me (Jewel)
30 talk (Jewel)
31 Who Will Save Your Soul (Jewel)
32 talk (Jewel)
33 Chime Bells (Jewel)
34 talk (Jewel)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15847066/Jewl_2020_LivefromSnQuarantineHomeConcert__3-21-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art is a screenshot from the exact concert in question.

Lou Reed - WLIR Tuesday Night Ultrasonic Concert Series, Ultrasonic Recording Studios, Hempstead, NY, 12-26-1972

A weird thing just happened to me. I've never ever had a dream involving this blog in any way, but I had one last night. I don't remember much about it, but I know it involved me posting a Lou Reed concert from 1972. Actually, that was pretty much it. It was a very boring dream! But hey, I figure if my dream was telling me that, I'd better follow though. As it so happens, I know of only one Reed bootleg concert from 1972 that has excellent sound quality, so my dream must have been referring to that one. ;) Here it is.

After Reed left the Velvet Underground in mid-1970, he didn't do any recording or touring for over a year. In fact, for a time there, he worked as a typist in his father's accounting firm! But he put out an album in early 1972, simply called "Lou Reed," and another one in late 1972, "Transformer," and resumed touring around the middle of the year. All the other bootlegs of him from 1972 that I've heard sound fairly poor to awful. (If you know of any really good ones, please let me know.) But this one stands out because it was recorded for the radio. I've posted concerts by Dr. John, Jonathan Edwards, and Fleetwood Mac as part of this same radio show.

The good news is the sound quality is fantastic, due to it being professionally recorded for the radio. The bad news is the show is on the short side, probably due to that radio station giving Reed a limited amount of time. This is just shy of one hour long. Reed seems to have opted for playing his best known songs at that point in his career, so it's almost like a greatest hits. His "Transformer" album had been released the month before, and "Walk on the Wild Side" became an unlikely hit. He played four songs from that album, two songs from his first solo album, and five songs from his Velvet Underground days.

The only thing I did with this recording was break his talking between songs onto their own tracks. This was a bit tough because he usually started talking while the applause from the previous song was going full blast. I suppose he did that also due to him feeling rushed because of the time limitation for the radio show.

If you're a fan of the Velvet Underground, you should love this. The band was tight and rocking. Most of the songs are from his Velvet Underground days, since many of the songs on Reed's first two solo albums actually were written back then. Plus, the sound quality is far superior to virtually all known Velvet Underground live recordings.

01 talk (Lou Reed)
02 White Light-White Heat (Lou Reed)
03 talk (Lou Reed)
04 Vicious (Lou Reed)
05 I'm Waiting for the Man (Lou Reed)
06 talk (Lou Reed)
07 Walk and Talk It (Lou Reed)
08 talk (Lou Reed)
09 Sweet Jane (Lou Reed)
10 Heroin (Lou Reed)
11 talk (Lou Reed)
12 Satellite of Love (Lou Reed)
13 Walk on the Wild Side (Lou Reed)
14 I'm So Free (Lou Reed)
15 talk (Lou Reed)
16 Berlin (Lou Reed)
17 talk (Lou Reed)
18 Rock and Roll (Lou Reed)

https://www.imagenetz.de/fMn6G

I've discovered that it's really tough to find a good photo of Lou Reed from 1972. For starters, the vast majority are black and white. But also, I think he looked pretty bad on stage most of the time. He often opted to wear a heavy amount of pancaked make-up on his face, to go with the glam rock trends of that era. I don't think that look has aged well. Luckily, I found some photos of him in concert in Amsterdam in September 1972 without the heavy make-up. It's black and white, but it'll have to do. I added a little color to jazz it up.

Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes - Live Set, KUT, Studio One, Austin, TX, 2-18-1996

Willie Nelson is clearly one of the country music greats, and I'm a fan of his music. But I'm not such a big fan that I have lots of bootlegs of him. However, this one stands out. You may well like it even if you're only a casual Willie Nelson fan.

First off, note this is a full collaboration between Nelson and Kimmie Rhodes. Rhodes isn't very well known - none of her albums have ever made the charts. But she's a talented singer-songwriter who has been putting out albums since the early 1980s. Nelson has done a lot of collaborating with her, both on stage and in the studio. Most notably, he sang two duets with her on her 1996 album "West Texas Heaven," and then did a whole duets album with her, "Pictures in a Frame," in 2003.

I haven't been able to find any write-up about this particular concert. But Nelson and Rhodes made a joint appearance on KUT, a public radio station in Austin, Texas, in 1996. It seems from Nelson's comments between songs that he expected a relatively short appearance, since he asked only after a few songs if they still had time left. However, the DJ had a long block of time on the station, and allowed them to keep going and going. They ended up playing for two hours and 15 minutes!

There are several things I like about this. For one, although they played with a small band, there's little to no drumming, and the other instruments are generally acoustic, so it's kind of an "unplugged" concert. Also, you can tell they're winging it, deciding what songs to do on the spot, probably including many songs they'd never practiced before, and yet they nailed the songs time after time with almost no flubs at all. What's especially great is that Nelson and Rhodes sing nice harmonies on most of the songs, even though one can they were winging that too. Plus, Nelson's lead guitar work can be heard all over this as well.

Basically, in my opinion, it's as if these musicians got together just to have fun and sing songs together in a no-pressure situation, and that's exactly what they did, except it happened to be recorded live on the radio. What a lucky break that we get to be flies on the wall.

As far as sound quality goes, it's excellent all the way through. I hardly had to make any changes, except balancing the overall volume levels for some songs. But one thing I did have to do was fix the song titles. I found a couple different bootleg versions of this floating around the Internet, but many of the song titles were wrong on those versions. For instance, one version labeled a song "Fine Top," another one called it "Pine Tops," but the true name is "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie." In particular, most of the instrumentals were given the wrong names. But I took the time to listen to the studio versions to make sure I correctly fixed them.

Oh, by the way, apparently this radio show really was called "Live Set," because it's mentioned as such in the banter between songs. (I'd originally assumed that some bootlegged hadn't known what else to call it.)

01 I Just Drove By (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
02 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
03 Our Father's Face (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
04 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
05 Down Yonder [Instrumental] (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
06 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
07 Just One Love (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
08 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
09 Won't You Ride in My Little Red Wagon (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
10 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
11 Spirit of E9 [Instrumental] (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
12 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
13 Hard Promises to Keep (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
14 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
15 Mariachi [Instrumental] - I'm Waiting Forever (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
16 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
17 Bells of Joy (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
18 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
19 Amazing Grace (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes with Johnny Gimble)
20 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
21 Wedding Bells (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
22 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
23 There'll Be No Teardrops Tonight - Look What Thoughts Will Do (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
24 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
25 I've Been to California (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes with Johnny Gimble)
26 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
27 We Don't Run (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
28 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
29 Your Memory Don't Die in My Grave (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
30 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
31 White Freightliner Blues (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
32 I Never Cared for You (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
33 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
34 'Till I Gain Control Again (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
35 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
36 Still Water Runs the Deepest (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
37 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
38 In the Garden (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
39 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
40 Pine Top's Boogie Woogie [Instrumental] (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes with Bobby Nelson)
41 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
42 Milk Cow Blues (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes with Johnny Gimble)
43 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
44 I Guess I've Come to Live Here in Your Eyes (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
45 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
46 I'm Gonna Fly (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
47 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
48 Valentine (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
49 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
50 Matador [Instrumental] (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
51 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
52 Wild Roses (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
53 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
54 She Is Gone (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
55 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
56 Red Headed Stranger (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
57 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
58 What a Way to Live (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
59 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
60 Night Life (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)
61 talk (Willie Nelson & Kimmie Rhodes)

https://www.imagenetz.de/jCPUk

For the album cover, I wanted a photo of Nelson and Rhodes together. I could only find a couple, period. The one I chose is decent, although the colors seem a bit off. I don't know when or where it's from though.

Friday, June 12, 2020

The Indigo Girls - Most Requested Songs - Home Concert, Dahlonega, GA, 5-21-2020

I'm glad to include another artist in the 2020 home concert trend. This time, it's the Indigo Girls.

The Indigo Girls actually have done several home concerts already. However, two of them were plagued by bad sound quality issues, so I'm not going to post those. For another, they performed the entire "Rites of Passage" album. I could post that if there's interest, but I figure that's of limited appeal.

I'm most interested in this concert, because it has a nice theme. The duo polled their fans to determine the most requested songs. I believe they played them from least requested to most requested. The song selection has some surprises, with expected hits like "Closer to Fine" and "Galileo" not being at the end, and some less well known songs in there, including two cover versions ("Tangled Up in Blue" and "Romeo and Juliet").

Unfortunately, the sound quality is just good, not great. I think that's mostly due to the microphone set up and other aspects of how they recorded it. At times, one or the other voice is a bit low in the mix, probably due to one of them leaning too far from their microphone. There also was some crackling noises on some of the tracks. Happily though, I passed the relevant music files on to my musical associate MZ, and he ran them through a decrackling filter. So that's pretty much gone. But if you hear any remaining crackling that I missed, let me know and I can probably get that removed in the same way.

Mind you, the sound isn't bad at all. It's just that it could have been better, and many of the other home concerts I've posted here sound better. But it's still perfectly acceptable, or I wouldn't be posting it.

The album is an hour and 13 minutes long. Note that it originally was at least 10 minutes longer, but I removed a fair amount of the talking between songs. The show was a benefit for a local non-profit, and there was a lot of telethon-type talk, encouraging people to donate. There even were long sections where big donators were thanked by name. Furthermore, there was a prerecorded section with Georgia politician Stacey Abrams encouraging people to donate. I'm all in favor of the cause, but that sort of talking isn't the sort of thing one would want to listen to repeatedly, so I cut most of it out, including Abrams's plea.

01 talk (Indigo Girls)
02 Hammer and a Nail (Indigo Girls)
03 talk (Indigo Girls)
04 Tangled Up in Blue (Indigo Girls)
05 talk (Indigo Girls)
06 Get Out the Map (Indigo Girls)
07 talk (Indigo Girls)
08 Share the Moon (Indigo Girls)
09 talk (Indigo Girls)
10 Power of Two (Indigo Girls)
11 talk (Indigo Girls)
12 Shit Kickin' (Indigo Girls)
13 talk (Indigo Girls)
14 Least Complicated (Indigo Girls)
15 talk (Indigo Girls)
16 Secure Yourself (Indigo Girls)
17 talk (Indigo Girls)
18 Galileo (Indigo Girls)
19 talk (Indigo Girls)
20 Kid Fears (Indigo Girls)
21 talk (Indigo Girls)
22 Closer to Fine (Indigo Girls)
23 talk (Indigo Girls)
24 Romeo and Juliet (Indigo Girls)
25 talk (Indigo Girls)
26 Ghost (Indigo Girls)
27 talk (Indigo Girls)
28 The Wood Song (Indigo Girls)
29 talk (Indigo Girls)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15271277/TIngidoGs_2020_MostRequestedSongsHomeConcertDahlonegaGA__5-21-2020_atse.zip.html

The album cover is a screenshot from the concert in question. Note how Amy Ray (left) and Emily Saliers (right) are keeping six feet away from each other, since they're not in the same social distancing bubble.

Jinxed!

Is it possible to jinx yourself? I'm starting to wonder. Just yesterday, I commented in a post that this blog never had any take down notice in the two years since it started. A few hours later, I received a take down notice! Specifically, I got a DMCA complaint for this album:

Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers - Live Cover Versions, 1987-1992


As it so happens, that album is mostly unreleased live songs, with only three officially released songs. So I've removed those three. You can find more detail in my revised post notes.

Let's hope it's another two years before I get another notice like that!

Thursday, June 11, 2020

1 Million Views and 1,000 Albums!

I'm happy to announce that today this blog went over 1 million page views since it began. And recently it went over 1,000 albums posted. I'm not sure of the exact number of albums, since some posts like this one are announcements without an album attached. But it's a few dozens over 1,000, so I think it's safe to say the 1,000 number has been crossed recently.

I've posted a lot of music here in the past two years, but I'm still going strong and have no plans on stopping or even slowing down. There's lots more in my music collection that I want to share. I could post another 1,000 easily and still not be out of material. Plus, I haven't received any take-down notices or other problems like that. Knock on wood that the blog can continue without trouble.

Also, thanks for your feedback. It's the only "payment" I get for doing this. I really appreciate it. I'm surprised there haven't been many comments though about the music content of the albums. I think it would be neat if some people were to rate or review the albums they like the most. That could help others in deciding which ones to download.

One question. Out of the 1,000 or so albums I've posted here, how many do you actually download and listen to? Do you just download the occasional album every once in a blue moon? Or have you downloaded dozens, or even hundreds? Has anyone downloaded all or nearly all of them? Again, that's just something I'm curious about.

Wednesday, June 10, 2020

KT Tunstall - At Home with Olivia, Home Concert, Los Angeles, CA, 5-10-2020

A couple of weeks ago, I posted a recent KT Tunstall home concert. I did that even though I had to admit that I wasn't that familiar with her songs beyond those on her 2007 debut album. Well, I was so impressed by her concert that I've gone back and listen to more of her records, and I like what I hear. I think she's very underrated.

So I'm posting this, which is a more recent home concert. Tunstall has been unusually busy during the pandemic lockdown, but that's mostly playing a couple of songs here and there for various radio or Internet shows. There are only two instances I know of so far where she's played a significantly longer home concert. I posted the first one already, and this is the second.

I wouldn't post this except for the fact that the song list is significantly different. Not surprisingly, she played her two big hits, "Black Horse and the Cherry Tree" and "Suddenly I See," in both shows. But other than that, the only song played in both is "Heal Over." I think that's a sign of the depth of her musical discography already in her career.

All the songs in the show are originals. However, as I did with the last show, I've added a cover song to sweeten the pot for those not familiar with her material. I've put "The Boys of Summer," the 1980s Don Henley classic, at the start. It's from another recent home concert, but one where she only played a song or two for a radio show.

I found two songs from a different home concert performance she did that I thought were worth adding here, since I didn't have any better place to put them. One is an original song about staying safe during the coronavirus pandemic called "Wash Ya Hands." I think it's a fun song that deserves to be a hit, and yet gets its serious message across at the same time. The other, "The Rhythm of the Night," is a cover of a 1983 hit song by the Italian dance group Corona. It's totally transformed by Tunstall playing it in solo acoustic format.

By the way, regarding the title "At Home with Olivia," there's no person named Olivia playing on this recording. Apparently, that's the name of a cooking show that has been putting on a series of musical home concerts during the pandemic.

Thanks to the two extra songs at the beginning, and two more at the end, the album as a whole is now 58 minutes long.

01 talk (KT Tunstall)
02 Boys of Summer (KT Tunstall)
03 talk (KT Tunstall)
04 Run on Home (KT Tunstall)
05 talk (KT Tunstall)
06 Other Side of the World (KT Tunstall)
07 talk (KT Tunstall)
08 Little Red Thread (KT Tunstall)
09 talk (KT Tunstall)
10 The Girl and the Ghost (KT Tunstall)
11 talk (KT Tunstall)
12 Saving My Face (KT Tunstall)
13 talk (KT Tunstall)
14 Funnyman (KT Tunstall)
15 talk (KT Tunstall)
16 Black Horse and the Cherry Tree (KT Tunstall)
17 talk (KT Tunstall)
18 [Still A] Weirdo (KT Tunstall)
19 talk (KT Tunstall)
20 Dark Side of Me (KT Tunstall)
21 talk (KT Tunstall)
22 Heal Over (KT Tunstall)
23 talk (KT Tunstall)
24 Suddenly I See (KT Tunstall)
25 talk (KT Tunstall)
26 Wash Ya Hands (KT Tunstall)
27 The Rhythm of the Night (KT Tunstall)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15260793/KTTnstl_2020b_AtHmeOliviaHomConcrt_LsAnglesCA__5-10-2020_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is a screenshot from the concert in question.

Melissa Etheridge - Home Concert Covers, Volume 2, Los Angeles, CA, 4-15-2020 to 4-22-2020

I've got a bunch of Melissa Etheridge 2020 home concerts to post, so here we go with another one. Let's review what I did with the last album I posted. Etheridge has played over 50 home concerts since the coronavirus pandemic began, lasting roughly half an hour to an hour each. I've selected just the cover versions she's done, and the related talking before each song.

However, she can be very verbose with her comments. So I've made two versions of this album: one includes the comments and the songs (which is exactly an hour long), and the other is just the songs (which is 44 minutes long).

In terms of musical content, Etheridge is well known for for her rough, expressive voice. But in making this series, I was impressed at her talent with musical instruments as well. For some of the songs, she does looping, creating drum beats in real time, then singing and playing more instruments on top of loops of that rhythm. I've cut out the minute or two it takes her to create the loops. I'm especially impressed at her lead guitar playing. She's like a literal one-person band.

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

01 Born under a Bad Sign - Albert King / Cream
02 I Forgot to Be Your Lover - William Bell
03 Maggie May - Rod Stewart
04 Teach Your Children - Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young
05 I Will Always Love You - Dolly Parton / Whitney Houston
06 Come in from the Rain - Melissa Manchester
07 Fix You - Coldplay
08 I’ve Got Dreams to Remember - Otis Redding
09 Kiss - Prince
10 Respect Yourself - Staple Singers

Here's the usual song list for the version with the talking:

01 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
02 Born under a Bad Sign (Melissa Etheridge)
03 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
04 I Forgot to Be Your Lover (Melissa Etheridge)
05 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Maggie May (Melissa Etheridge)
07 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
08 Teach Your Children (Melissa Etheridge with Bailey Etheridge)
09 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
10 I Will Always Love You (Melissa Etheridge)
11 talk (Melissa Etheridge)
12 Come in from the Rain (Melissa Etheridge)
13 Fix You (Melissa Etheridge & Bailey Etheridge)
14 Intro to I've Got Dreams to Remember (Melissa Etheridge)
15 I’ve Got Dreams to Remember (Melissa Etheridge)
16 Kiss (Melissa Etheridge)
17 Respect Yourself (Melissa Etheridge)

Here's the music-only song list:

01 Born under a Bad Sign (Melissa Etheridge)
02 I Forgot to Be Your Lover (Melissa Etheridge)
03 Maggie May (Melissa Etheridge)
04 Teach Your Children (Melissa Etheridge with Bailey Etheridge)
05 I Will Always Love You (Melissa Etheridge)
06 Come in from the Rain (Melissa Etheridge)
07 Fix You (Melissa Etheridge & Bailey Etheridge)
08 I’ve Got Dreams to Remember (Melissa Etheridge)
09 Kiss (Melissa Etheridge)
10 Respect Yourself (Melissa Etheridge)

Music plus talking:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289355/MelissaE_2020b_HomeConcrtCovrsVolume2LsAngelesCA__4-15-2020_to_4-22-2020_atse.zip.html

Music only:

https://www.upload.ee/files/15289335/MelissaE_2020b_HomeConcrtCovrsVolume2LsAngelesCA__4-15-2020_4-22-2020_Music_Only.zip.html

For two of the songs, Melissa was joined by her daughter Bailey, who helped with vocals. I have several of these albums to post. So for this one, I thought it would be more interesting to include a screenshot from the concert of Melissa and Bailey, instead of just Melissa alone. So that's what I did. The picture quality isn't great, but c'est la vie.

Manfred Mann - If You Gotta Go, Go Now - Non-Album Tracks (1965-1966)

I've got all the Manfred Mann music for the 1960s organized and ready to go, so I can post them in relatively quick succession. Here's the next in the stray tracks series for them.

This album comes almost entirely from A-sides, B-sides, BBC performances, and EP tracks. Nothing is unreleased, so the sound quality is excellent. The songs are arranged in chronological order, at least as accurately as I could manage. But the big hit for this album was the Bob Dylan song "If You Gotta Go, Go Now," so I put that at the start, as was the usual custom in those days. (It otherwise would have gone just before "Stay Around," which was the B-side.)

For the most part, this continues the rhythm and blues approach the band was specializing in for their first few years. But one can see that they were starting to branch out with a greater variety of styles. For instance, in addition to doing the Dylan song the album is titled for, they also did the Dylan protest tune "With God on Our Side." They also show off their chops with a couple of jazzy instrumentals. And let's not forget their growing songwriting skills. A good example of that is "Tired of Trying, Bored with Lying, Scared of Dying."

The album is 40 minutes long, which is right in line with album lengths from that time period.

01 If You Gotta Go, Go Now (Manfred Mann)
02 My Little Red Book (Manfred Mann)
03 What Am I Doing Wrong (Manfred Mann)
04 Parchman Farm (Manfred Mann)
05 Stay Around (Manfred Mann)
06 The One in the Middle (Manfred Mann)
07 With God on Our Side (Manfred Mann)
08 What Am I to Do (Manfred Mann)
09 Watermelon Man (Manfred Mann)
10 It Took a Little While (Manfred Mann)
11 There's No Living without Your Loving (Manfred Mann)
12 Tired of Trying, Bored with Lying, Scared of Dying (Manfred Mann)
13 Let's Go Get Stoned (Manfred Mann)
14 Tengo Tango [Instrumental] (Manfred Mann)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15264078/ManfredM_1965-1966_IfYuGottaGoGoNw_atse.zip.html

The cover art is the cover of the "If You Gotta Go, Go Now" EP as opposed to the single cover. I though it looked better. I removed the names of the three other songs on the EP. That's why there's a blank green box towards the center.

Mary Chapin Carpenter - The Barns at Wolf Trap, Vienna, VA, 7-3-1995

I think it's strange that Mary Chapin Carpenter has never released a live album. But there were to be one, I'd be most interested in hearing one from her mid-1990s commercial peak. Unfortunately, when it comes to bootlegs, there are virtually no soundboards or radio shows from that time period. However, I did find one concert that's worthy, and that's what's presented here. It's the audio from her live DVD, called "Jubilee: Live at Wolf Trap."

The good news is this is a professionally recorded concert from the weirdly named venue "The Barns at Wolf Trap." (I gather "The Barns" is in front for clarification, because there's more than one concert arena at Wolf Trap.) But there's a big downside to using the audio from this DVD: instead of just presenting the entire concert, there usually were interludes between songs that cut to clips of her being interviewed at a different date and location. Even worse, a couple of songs actually have dialogue over the music. One of those was a duet between her and Shawn Colvin that wasn't from the concert at all. Another, "Jubilee," is a backstage performance. So I don't feel bad losing those, since neither of them actually were a part of the concert.

But there's one more song, "Stones in the Road," that's all messed up. It started with some talking over the song, then switched to a duet version of Carpenter and Joan Baez in a different location. Then, about a minute and a half in, it switched to the version played at Wolf Trap. But even then, during an instrumental solo section, there was more talking over the music. So I found a different live version, the one released on the "Party Doll" album, and used that for the first couple of minutes, then morphed it into the Wolf Trap version for the second half of the song. The arrangements were pretty much identical since the two versions were performed only a few months apart, so I don't think you'll notice the switch.

The other big problem with the DVD audio was that the editors were quick to cut away from the songs as soon as they finished. So there's virtually no talking between songs. To fix the very short audience applause, I used the few songs where there was longer applause and copied and pasted that into the brief applause for the other songs. I was careful to match the volume of the end of the clapping of one song with the start of the next one.

Now, after those edits, this should sound like a normal concert, except one in which she hardly said anything between songs. In a way that;s a bummer, but it means the concert has no wasted time whatsoever.

If you enjoy Mary Chapin Carpenter's most popular albums from the 1990s, this is the concert for you. She plays pretty much all of her hits, as well as her other most popular songs. That's so much the case that this could easily double as the track list for a greatest hits album.

The album is one hour and 15 minutes long. Oh, and note she plays the songs with a band, so it's generally a lively album.

01 Why Walk When You Can Fly (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
02 Passionate Kisses (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
03 I Feel Lucky (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 Shut Up and Kiss Me (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
05 A Keeper of Every Flame (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
06 Come On Come On (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
07 The Last Word (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
08 John Doe No. 24 (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
09 Only a Dream (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
10 I Am a Town (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
11 Can't Take Love for Granted (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
12 The Hard Way (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
13 Quittin' Time (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
14 He Thinks He'll Keep Her (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
15 Down at the Twist and Shout (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
16 Stones in the Road [Edit] (Mary Chapin Carpenter)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15282389/MaryChapC_1995_BrnsatWlfTrapViennaVA__7-3-1995_atse.zip.html

I could have used a photo from the DVD, but the quality wasn't that good. I also could have used a screenshot from a video of the DVD on YouTube, but that was a bit low resolution as well. So instead, I went with a photo from an unknown 1995 concert.