Taj Mahal with John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, George Harrison, and Jesse Ed Davis - Palomino Club, Los Angeles, CA, 2-19-1987

This is a pretty amazing Taj Mahal concert, because just look at who his special guests were: John Fogerty, Bob Dylan, AND George Harrison! And all three of them stayed on stage for the vast majority of the concert, with Fogerty and Harrison singing several songs each. (Dylan was content just to play guitar and sing backing vocals.) I had known about this concert for a long time, but I'd never had it in my collection due to sound quality issues. But recently I revisited it, because advances in audio editing technology enabled me to make some improvements. Now, it sounds like a soundboard, even though the sound quality still is not ideal.

I found an extensive quote about this concert that George Harrison gave to Q Magazine in 1988, so I'll start with that:

"I'll tell you what happened there. I'd gone to America, and Bob [Dylan] rang me and said, you know, did I want to come out for an evening and see Taj Mahal who was playing at the Palomino? So we went there and had a few of these Mexican beers, and had a few more. And Jesse Ed Davis, who played guitar on 'Watching the River Flow,' is in the audience, and Bob says, 'Hey, why don't we all get up and play - we've had a few beers, right - and you can sing!' So we get up there and I'm in the spotlight and Bob's hanging back in the shadows and I start singing: 'What’s the matter with me? I don't have much to say...' and every time I get near the microphone, Dylan comes running up and just starts singing this rubbish in my ear, trying to throw me off. But it was really funny because when I got pushed on stage at Wembley [in London, with Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers and Dylan] and sang a bit of 'Rainy Day Women' I couldn't remember the words and just made up this stuff. And Bob came up to me afterwards, backstage, and said, 'So you got even with me!' But it was nice to recapture the feeling of what it was like on stage to make sure I could go back into that situation in the future."

Most of that is correct, but a couple of things he said were slightly off. We can tell a lot about what really happened because the video of this entire recording is available on YouTube, though the picture quality is extremely poor. It seems Jesse Ed Davis - a very talented lead guitarist who had worked with many big names since the late 1960s - was already there as part of Taj Mahal's backing band from the start of the recording. Then, after just the first song, Harrison went up on stage. It seems he went up unprompted, and there was absolutely no comment made by Mahal or anyone else about him being there. But if you watch the video, you can see Mahal give him an electric guitar and help him get in position to play by the start of the second song, "Checkin' Up on My Baby."

For a few songs, it was Taj Mahal and four members of his backing band on stage (Jesse Ed Davis, Mark Shark, Bobby Tsukamoto, and Gary Ray), plus Harrison. Then, before the start of "Matchbox," Mahal very strongly encouraged Dylan to also join them on stage, teasing him that he was going to come get him if he didn't. So Dylan went on stage, got a guitar, and started playing it.

Halfway through "Matchbox," Harrison surprised by taking over lead vocals for most of the rest of the song. Then, near the very end of the song, John Fogerty went on stage too. He was plugged in and ready to join in by the start of the next song, "Lucille." Once again though, there's no mention by Mahal or anyone else about him being there.

Up until that point, it had basically been a Taj Mahal concert. And Mahal was the sole lead singer for the next few songs. But Harrison, Dylan, and Fogerty stayed on stage for the entire rest of the concert. And from "Knock on Wood" to the end of the concert, 11 songs in all, Harrison and Fogerty stepped up and basically dominated. They sang lead on all but two of the songs from that point on.

However, if you're a Dylan fan, there's a lot less here for you. He was definitely involved playing guitar. If you watch the video, you can see he even got a couple of the songs started. And he did sing some backing vocals. But he seemed determined not to sing any lead vocals. When Harrison started singing "Watching the River Flow," it happened just as Harrison described in the above quote: Dylan basically shouted nonsense words right into Harrison's ear, playfully trying to get him to screw up! Perhaps Harrison, being a huge Dylan fan, started that song because he knew that Jesse Ed Davis played the guitar solo on Dylan's studio version, recorded in 1971. Davis got to reprise his solo in this performance.

One historic aspect of this concert was that it caused John Fogerty play a Creedence Clearwater Revival (CCR) song in public for the first time in 15 years. Many years later, he explained how it happened:

"I'd gone there to see Taj Mahal, who I love, and sat down. And at some point, I heard a rumor that George Harrison was there, that he was kind of in this cloak room. So I went in and talked to George for a little bit, and that was really fun. Then I went back and sat down. Then I heard a rumor that Bob Dylan was somewhere in the room. I didn't know until much later that actually George and Bob were really tight, they were great friends, and they had arrived together."

Fogerty watched from the audience as first Harrison and then Dylan joined Mahal on stage. "I'm usually kinda shy, but for some reason I thought, 'Man, I hope they have another guitar! Please call me up there!' I just wanted to get up there. It just looked historic and a lot of fun."

Apparently, Mahal saw Fogerty in the audience and gave him a signal to come up. After a while, the crowd wanted the famous guests to play some of their original songs. As mentioned above, Dylan's "Watching the River Flow" was played, although that seemed to be against Dylan's wishes. Then Harrison sang "Honey Don't." Although it was originally by Carl Perkins, it had been recorded by the Beatles. Plus, Harrison had helped sing "Matchbox," which also had been recorded by the Beatles. So now the pressure was on for Fogerty to do one of his songs. 

Fogerty further explained, "And then the audience started going, 'John, John! C'mon! Play "Proud Mary!" And this was during the time that I had sworn off playing my own songs from the Creedence days because of legal and emotional entanglements. I'm really being kind of, let's say, stubborn about it. But suddenly Bob Dylan turns me and he goes, 'John, if you don't play "Proud Mary," everybody's gonna think it's a Tina Turner song.' And I looked at him, and by God, I played 'Proud Mary.'" 

Clearly, he had fun. After the song finished, you can hear him say, "Eat your heart out, Tina!" 

Fogerty had just done a concert tour in 1986 for the first time since 1972. He wouldn't do another full tour until 1997. But later in 1987, he would take part in "Welcome Home," a benefit concert, and he would play more CCR songs for it. And he would keep playing them from that point on. So this Taj Mahal concert was a turning point for him, breaking his stubbornness about not wanting to give any royalties to his record company for the CCR songs. And while Dylan didn't do much singing on stage, his involvement may have been the key factor that got Fogerty singing his old songs again.

Now, let's get to sound quality. From what I understand, the owner of the Palomino Club saw something special was likely to happen, and began videotaping the concert. (He probably missed some Taj Mahal songs before the first one that shows up here.) So it has been recorded for posterity due to the video tape. That video later got converted to audio, and made into a popular bootleg under the name the "Silver Wilburys." However, that only included about half of the songs here, generally the later ones starring the famous guests. So I found a YouTube video to get the audio for the entire thing.

The sound quality was pretty good, but there was a lot of hiss, and some other issues. I ran all of it through the MVSEP program, using the "Denoise" filter to get rid of most of the hiss. Then I ran it through another filter to get rid of even more hiss. I also made some other adjustments, like boosting the lead vocals relative to the instruments. I think it sounds a lot better now. 

Additionally, there was a lot of dead air between songs. The musicians on stage were winging it, so it took time for them to decide what song to play next, then determine what key to play it in, and things like that. Most of that discussion couldn't be heard at all. Plus, there was a lot of guitar tuning. So I cut out some of that, when it started to really drag between songs. But still, I kept most it, especially whenever any talking on stage could be heard. I also turned down the volume of the guitar noodling between songs, so one could better hear what else was going on.

I made an additional edit on the song "Proud Mary," enough to add "[Edit]" to the song title. Taj Mahal was helping with the singing. On the other songs, this was fine. But this song was Fogerty's moment, singing a CCR song for the first time in 15 years, and Mahal's vocal ad-libs were a distraction for the most part. I read a comment on the YouTube video of this concert that likened his singing on that song to the way Yoko Ono sometimes ruined a John Lennon song. I had to agree. So, using MVSEP again, I cut out just the parts of his vocals that annoyed me. For instance, at one point, Mahal began singing one part of the song when Fogerty sang another part of the song. Needless to say, Fogerty sang the correct part. 

When listening to this, please keep in mind the spirit of this performance. After the first few songs, which Taj Mahal and his band knew well, it's safe to assume that the rest involved everyone winging it. So you have some mistakes that even an average bar band wouldn't make, like how Taj Mahal forgot half the lyrics to "Johnny B. Goode." But that wasn't point. Some legendary musical figures were just having fun on stage (including both Harrison and Fogerty playing some guitar solos). This is pretty much the only and only time in rock music history these people did anything like this. 

This album is an hour and 48 minutes long. 

Here's another photo from the concert. 

01 Leaving Trunk (Taj Mahal)
02 talk (Taj Mahal)
03 Checkin' Up on My Baby (Taj Mahal)
04 She Caught the Katy and Left Me a Mule to Ride (Taj Mahal)
05 Farther on Down the Road [You Will Accompany Me] (Jesse Ed Davis with Taj Mahal)
06 You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (Taj Mahal)
07 talk (Taj Mahal)
08 Matchbox - Gone, Gone, Gone (George Harrison & Taj Mahal)
09 talk (Everyone)
10 Lucille (Taj Mahal)
11 Crosscut Saw (Taj Mahal)
12 talk (Everyone)
13 Bacon Fat (Taj Mahal)
14 talk (Everyone)
15 Knock on Wood (John Fogerty with Taj Mahal)
16 talk (Everyone)
17 In the Midnight Hour (John Fogerty with Taj Mahal)
18 talk (Everyone)
19 Honey Don't (George Harrison)
20 talk (Everyone)
21 Blue Suede Shoes (John Fogerty & George Harrison)
22 talk (Everyone)
23 Watching the River Flow (George Harrison with Bob Dylan)
24 talk (Everyone)
25 Proud Mary [Edit] (John Fogerty with Taj Mahal)
26 talk (John Fogerty)
27 Johnny B. Goode (Taj Mahal)
28 talk (Everyone)
29 Willie and the Hand Jive (Taj Mahal)
30 Peggy Sue (George Harrison with Bob Dylan)
31 talk (Everyone)
32 Dizzy Miss Lizzy (George Harrison)
33 talk (Everyone)
34 Twist and Shout (John Fogerty & Taj Mahal)
35 talk (Taj Mahal)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nStUSnDq 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/GV7bA4Zovc8wkh7/file

I was only about to find two photos of this concert that looked even halfway decent. I posted the best one as the cover, even though it only shows Dylan, Harrison, and a member of the backing band standing between them. I posted the other one up above the song list. It sounds the overall club environment, but you can barely make out who is on stage.

There also are a couple of photos of all the band members together back stage, which must have been taken after the concert, since Fogerty said he wasn't sure the likes of Dylan and Harrison were there when the concert began. The Native American musician John Trudell is in the picture as well. He was probably there to see Jesse Ed Davis, another Native American, who played on Trudell's albums. Unfortunately, Davis had a lot of problems with drug addiction. He died of a drug overdose a year after this concert took place.

Covered: Denny Randell & Sandy Linzer: 1964-1998

Here's another songwriting duo highlighted for my "Covered" series: Denny Randell and Sandy Linzer. I wouldn't be surprised at all if you have never heard of them. I hadn't either, until recently. But while they didn't write any massive hits, they have enough hits for a solid album.

Randell and Linzer were both born in 1941. They were introduced to each other in 1963, and immediately began co-writing songs. The first song here, "Dawn (Go Away)," was written by Linzer with Bob Gaudio, a member of Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, and an impressive songwriter in his own right. I've already posted a "Covered" album for the Bob Crewe and Bob Gaudio songwriting team. 

Randell and Linzer wrote a lot of songs for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons, sometimes with Gaudio. I've included three such songs here (and a Franki Valli solo one). But "Working My Way Back to You" was also a hit for Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons in 1966. I included the 1979 version by the Spinners instead because that was a much bigger hit. In fact, it was the biggest hit this songwriting team ever had, reaching Number One in Britain and Number Two in the U.S. 

In a similar way, "Can't Get Enough of You Baby" was a small hit for Question Mark and the Mysterians in 1967, but not enough to make the U.S. Top Forty. I included the 1998 version by Smash Mouth instead, since that was a bigger hit, making the Top Forty chart.

Probably another success was the song "I Believe in You and Me." (Linzer wrote it with someone else.) Whitney Houston had a Top Five hit in the U.S. with it in 1996. But, frankly, I find Houston's typically histrionic over-singing hard to take. It turns out the song was first released by the Four Tops in 1982. So I've included that version instead. It wasn't a hit, but the singing is much better.

I've been posting a lot of "Covered" albums featuring songwriters who got started in the early or mid-1960s. Nearly all of them stopped having hits by the end of the 1970s, due to changing musical trends (except for later covers of their earlier songs). But Randell and Linzer were a rarity in that they kept writing more hits through the end of the 1980s. The last original hit here is "Talk It Over" by Grayson Hugh in 1989.

However, their songwriting partnership petered out at the end of the 1970s. The vast majority of the songs up to and including "Native New Yorker" in 1977 were written by both of them. But the songs that come after that were written by one of them or the other, usually with other songwriting partners (except for tracks 12 and 17, which I mentioned above are not the original hit versions). 

Both Randell and Linzer also worked in other aspects of the music business, for instance producing albums, and promoting and developing the musical careers of some acts. Both of them are still alive, and about 85 years old, as I write this in 2026.

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Dawn [Go Away] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
02 A Lover's Concerto (Toys)
03 Let's Hang On (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
04 Attack (Toys)
05 Opus 17 [Don't You Worry 'bout Me] (Frankie Valli & the Four Seasons)
06 I'll Be Back Up on My Feet (Monkees)
07 Penny Arcade (Cyrkle)
08 Breakin' Down the Walls of Heartache (Johnny Johnson & the Bandwagon)
09 You Can Do Magic (Limmie & Family Cookin’)
10 Swearin' to God (Frankie Valli)
11 Native New Yorker (Odyssey)
12 Working My Way Back to You - Forgive Me Girl (Spinners)
13 Use It Up and Wear It Out (Odyssey)
14 I Believe in You and Me (Four Tops)
15 Fresh (Kool & the Gang)
16 Talk It Over (Grayson Hugh)
17 Can't Get Enough of You Baby (Smash Mouth)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xSguvDEM

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/revo89NczNfZKK9/file

I guess it's pretty obvious that the cover is two photos put together in Photoshop, but I couldn't find any images of the two of them in the same frame. That's Sandy Linzer on the left, with the suit and tie, in 1977. I don't know the date of the Denny Randell photo on the right, but it's probably from the 1960s. 

Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle - City Winery, Nashville, TN, 4-3-2021

I recently discovered that Emmylou Harris performed about six concerts at the City Winery in Nashville in 2021, as people were just starting to attend concerts again due to the Covid pandemic. The concerts were done to benefit local charities helping with animal welfare, and each was different than typical Harris concerts in some way. I was able to find two of them on YouTube. This one is special because it was a joint acoustic concert with Steve Earle. The two of them took turns singing songs and telling stories in front of a very small audience, with excellent sound quality.

If you want, you can find the video of this on YouTube and watch the concert instead of just listening to it. I converted the video to audio, then chopped it into mp3 files.

The sound quality is excellent because the concert was a webcast. I missed it at the time, but better late than never. I plan on posting the other concert I found soon. 

This album is an hour and 36 minutes long. 

01 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
02 Raise the Dead (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
03 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
04 Copperhead Road (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
05 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
06 Big Black Dog (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
07 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
08 Devil Put the Coal in the Ground (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
09 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
10 My Antonia (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
11 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
12 Hometown Blues (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
13 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
14 All I Left Behind (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
15 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
16 You're the Best Lover that I Ever Had (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
17 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
18 My Name Is Emmett Till (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
19 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
20 Goodbye (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
21 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
22 Blackhawk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
23 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
24 Harlem River Blues (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
25 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
26 If I Needed You (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
27 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
28 City of Immigrants (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
29 talk (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)
30 Pilgrim (Emmylou Harris & Steve Earle)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m2paqekc 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/Tp4XhQjIm89w1un/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert. I used Photoshop to move the two of them a lot closer to each other.

Robert Plant - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 9-17-2015

Slowly but surely, I'm determined to post all the best stuff from the leak of concert bootlegs from Port Chester, New York. Here's a 2015 Robert Plant concert.

Musical associate Lil Panda did some work on the files here and then set them to me. He's very good at audio adjustments, better than me, so this sounds excellent.

At the time of this concert, Plant was promoting his 2014 album "Lullaby and the Ceaseless Roar." It was the first of two albums he did with his back up band the Sensational Space Shifters. Only two songs performed were from that album though, maybe because it had been about a year since it had been released. He also mostly ignored his earlier solo albums. Instead, he leaned on cover songs and Led Zeppelin songs.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long. 

01 Poor Howard (Robert Plant)
02 Tin Pan Valley (Robert Plant)
03 Trampled Under Foot (Robert Plant)
04 talk (Robert Plant)
05 Turn It Up (Robert Plant)
06 Black Dog (Robert Plant)
07 talk (Robert Plant)
08 Let the Four Winds Blow (Robert Plant)
09 talk (Robert Plant)
10 Rain Song (Robert Plant)
11 No Place to Go - Dazed and Confused (Robert Plant)
12 talk (Robert Plant)
13 The Lemon Song (Robert Plant)
14 talk (Robert Plant)
15 Little Maggie (Robert Plant)
16 Win My Train Fare Home (Robert Plant)
17 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Robert Plant)
18 talk (Robert Plant)
19 Satan Your Kingdom Must Come Down - In My Time of Dying (Robert Plant)
20 Rock and Roll (Robert Plant)
21 talk (Robert Plant)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/jNg7sJS7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/On8nUBjOq9RY3Ke/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. Since Plant was bathed in purple light, I used purple text as well.

Freddie King - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-27-1974

The flood of posts from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts continues. Here's a 1974 show starring Freddie King.

I posted one Freddie King concert so far. It also is from 1974, but I didn't know the date. This one is a little bit better, I think. It definitely is longer, well over double the length. I've done enough of these Ebbets Field shows that I'm pretty confident this had to be an early show and a late show, since that was the constant pattern for the venue. But I don't know where the break took place, if that's true. Also, no song was played twice.

These Ebbets Field concerts almost always sound excellent, with few problems, which is a big reason why I'm prioritizing posting them. But there were some flaws with this recording. One is that some songs had missing pieces. For "Come On, Part 1" and "Have You Ever Loved a Woman," I was able to make fixes. That's why those two have "[Edit]" in their titles. But for the song "That's Alright," I couldn't find any live versions of the same song from around the same time to use for a fix. So I had to leave that one incomplete.

The music here is unreleased. 

This album is an hour and 49 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Freddie King)
02 I'm Ready (Freddie King)
03 Ain't No Sunshine (Freddie King)
04 Ghetto Woman (Freddie King)
05 Come On, Part 1 [Let the Good Times Roll] [Edit] (Freddie King)
06 Pack It Up (Freddie King)
07 Have You Ever Loved a Woman [Edit] (Freddie King)
08 Blues No. 4 [Instrumental] (Freddie King)
09 T.V. Mama (Freddie King)
10 Going Down (Freddie King)
11 Wee Baby Blues (Freddie King)
12 Going Down [Reprise] [Instrumental] (Freddie King)
13 talk by emcee (Freddie King)
14 talk (Freddie King)
15 That's Alright [Incomplete] (Freddie King)
16 Big Legged Woman (Freddie King)
17 Sweet Home Chicago (Freddie King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/1Bmt1iK9 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/nndTKyb50KJtSf5/file

The cover image is from Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom on January 7, 1974, in Atlanta, Georgia.

Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 4: The Grateful Dead with John Fogerty

Here's the fourth and last out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one mainly features the Grateful Dead. However, there's a section in the middle where John Fogerty sang four songs while backed by the Dead. 

But there's more. Neil Young also showed up to sing lead vocals on a song, again backed by the Dead. He sang the Bob Dylan song "Forever Young." I believe the only other time he sang this song in concert was at the Bridge School Benefit that same year. Furthermore, John Popper of Blues Traveler played harmonica on one song. And for the concert finale, the Dead left the stage so Joan Baez could sing "Amazing Grace," with backing vocals by Graham Nash and Kris Kristofferson.

The Grateful Dead were extremely close to Bill Graham, from the very start of their career. He took control of the Fillmore in San Francisco in 1966, the first year of the band's existence. They would go on to play concerts managed and promoted by Graham probably hundreds of times.

In my write-up for Volume 1 of this concert, I mentioned a quote from Bob Weir of the Dead, who called Graham "the most important non-musician in music." Here also is a quote from band member Jerry Garcia: "Bill was our power guy, he's the guy that made rock and roll into an art-form. He loved dickering with agents and managers, that's what was fun for him. Bill himself was larger than life and an amazing guy. I've just missed the friend."

And here's a quote from band member Mickey Hart: "Bill always took great pride in everything he did. Whether it was The Fillmore or the Winterland, you could see him before the show, with his watches and his clipboard, making sure the chairs were right… He was a saloon keeper, he was a proprietor at the beginning – that's what his license said, 'saloon keeper.' He took great pride in bringing people into an environment, making them feel really great, then making sure they got safe. He was like a warrior promoter, and he really cared, he would sit up at night and dream this stuff. It wasn't like he just went to work and punched a clock; he was driven."

Typically, the Dead played whatever they wanted to play, without much thought about time limits or the specific circumstances of the concert. But for this concert, they came pretty close to playing an abbreviated "best of." They kept the overall length of their set short, compared to their usual standards of playing two or three hours, while skipping the usual long "Space" and "Drums" solos. And they played some of their best known songs. They even finished with "Touch of Grey," their sole Top Ten hit in the U.S. I'm not saying that was a good thing or a bad thing; I just think it's interesting.

The most memorable part about their set, however, had to be the songs sung by John Fogerty. In 1989, Fogerty sang a few songs backed by some members of the Dead, though it wasn't the full band. You can find that recording here:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/12/in-concert-against-aids-oakland_19.html

That collaboration probably led to this one two years later, where he was backed by all of the Dead. These two concerts turned out to be the only two times Fogerty and the Dead played on stage together. (There were no more opportunities after Jerry Garcia died four years later.) This was also only the fourth time he played any of his Creedence Clearwater Revival songs at a formal concert after a long hiatus. Due to a legal dispute with his record company, he didn't play them from 1972 until 1987. After this, he began playing them on a regular basis. 

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

61 talk (David Graham)
62 Hell in a Bucket (Grateful Dead)
63 China Cat Sunflower (Grateful Dead)
64 I Know You Rider (Grateful Dead)
65 Wang Dang Doodle (Grateful Dead with John Popper)
66 talk (Grateful Dead)
67 Born on the Bayou (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
68 Green River (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
69 Bad Moon Rising (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
70 talk (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
71 Proud Mary (John Fogerty & the Grateful Dead)
72 Truckin' (Grateful Dead)
73 That's It for the Other One (Grateful Dead)
74 Wharf Rat (Grateful Dead)
75 Sunshine Daydream (Grateful Dead)
76 talk (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
77 Forever Young (Neil Young & the Grateful Dead)
78 Touch of Grey (Grateful Dead)
79 talk (Joan Baez)
80 Amazing Grace (Joan Baez with Graham Nash & Kris Kristofferson)
81 talk (David Graham)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/G1KUGAmb 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/S3aMhOemSjAIHE3/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows John Fogerty in front, with Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead in back, with glasses and a beard.

Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 3: Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young

Here's the third out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one features Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young (CSNY).

Bill Graham was pivotal to the career of CSNY, so it was fitting they were one of the headlining music acts for his memorial concerts. He was involved in most of the really key concerts for the band, from Woodstock to Live Aid. In 1970, when CSNY was just starting out, he called them "America's Beatles." That quote got a lot of mileage and really helped them. But probably his most important role was in 1974, when he organized their big reunion tour. 

Graham Nash told a interesting story relating to Graham in his autobiography "Wild Tales: A Rock & Roll Life." It relates to an episode at one of their Fillmore East shows in New York City in 1970. After a three-hour show and two encores, the band was in their dressing room, refusing to come out while the crowd was cheering for more. Nash wrote, "Bill Graham slipped a note under our door. It said: 'Your audience awaits you.' 'We’re not coming out, no matter how much you pay us,' Neil told Bill. The next thing we knew, a hundred-dollar bill came sliding under the door. As soon as Neil saw that, he shouted, 'Not enough!' Seven more hundred-dollar bills came sliding through at regular intervals. We were all laughing our asses off about it. Neil scooped those bills up and we went out to do another encore." 

That showed the lengths Bill Graham would go to in order to make sure the audience went away fully satisfied. I would guess that any other concert promoter would have figured two encores was plenty after a long concert, and kept all the money.

CSNY got together for a reunion album in 1988, "American Dream." But they only played about five concerts together from 1988 to 1990, all of them benefit concerts. Graham's death caused them to reunite again, after over a year of not performing together. It would be their last concert as a foursome until they went on tour in 2000. In this concert, they skipped the songs from their reunion album and stuck to their classics.

This album is 43 minutes long.

46 talk by emcee (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
47 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
48 Teach Your Children (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
49 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
50 Love the One You're With (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
51 Long May You Run (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
52 Long Time Gone (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
53 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
54 Southern Cross (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
55 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
56 Only Love Can Break Your Heart (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
57 Wooden Ships (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
58 talk (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
59 Ohio (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)
60 talk by emcee (Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Le4MDZsb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/KA7dtrXCoVKLj0i/file

I have to admit I cheated with the cover. I couldn't find any good photos of CSNY together at this concert, and even only a couple of bad ones. They were spread too far apart on the stage. But I did find a good one of Neil Young and David Crosby on stage at this exact concert, so I used that one. I also found a good one of just Stephen Stills, also at this exact concert. So I cheated by using Photoshop to paste Stills into the image between Young and Crosby. Sorry if that bothers anyone, but I liked it better that way.

Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 2: Santana with Los Lobos

Here's the second out of four volumes of the 1991 Bill Graham memorial concert, called "Laughter, Love and Music." This one mainly features Santana. But they were joined by Los Lobos for two songs. Additionally, Bobby McFerrin sang a wordless solo on one song.

In my opinion, it was a must that Santana performed at this concert, because Bill Graham played a pivotal role in the band's career. In 1967, when Santana was starting out, they were based in the San Francisco Bay Area. Getting to play at the Fillmore, owned and managed by Graham, was essential for getting a larger following. At first, Graham banned them after they failed to show up for a concert on time. But, a few months after that, he saw they had improved and become much more professional, and he took the band under his wing. He became their manager from 1969 to 1971.

He pushed hard to make them famous. Most importantly, he was asked to help manage and promote the Woodstock festival in 1969. He only agreed to do it if Santana, then a totally unknown band, was allowed to perform. Santana did, and that concert was their big break. But Graham did much more, including getting them their first national T.V. appearance on the "Ed Sullivan Show." He was fired from managing them around the time the band's original line-up broke up in 1971. But he still stayed close to the band and continued to advise them. As just one example, in 1977, he advised the band to cover "She's Not There" by the Zombies. They did, and had a Top Forty hit with it in both the U.S. and Britain.

Here's a quote from Carlos Santana about Graham, said shortly after Graham's death: "He really served people really well by giving people more than entertainment, so we're all very grateful to Bill Graham for your contribution to the arts, and we'll see you there when we get there. Thank you, Bill." 

This album is 53 minutes long.

34 Angels All Around Us - Spirits Dancing in the Flesh (Santana)
35 Somewhere in Heaven (Santana)
36 talk (Santana)
37 Peace on Earth... Mother Earth (Santana)
38 Third Stone from the Sun [Instrumental] (Santana)
39 Oye Como Va (Santana with Los Lobos & Bobby McFerrin)
40 talk (Santana with Los Lobos)
41 Bertha (Los Lobos & Santana)
42 talk (Santana)
43 I Love You Much Too Much [Instrumental] (Santana)
44 Jingo (Santana)
45 talk by emcee (Santana)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfBQFec2

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/A1ZZVbu1I4Ng2wj/file

The cover image is taken from this exact concert. It shows Carlos Santana of Santana on the left and Cesar Rojas of Los Lobos in sunglasses on the right.

Laughter, Love and Music, Bill Graham Memorial, Golden Gate Park, San Francisco, CA, 11-3-1991, Part 1: Bobby McFerrin, Jackson Browne, Journey, Tracy Chapman, and More

On October 25, 1991 rock concert promoter Bill Graham died. The helicopter he was riding in went down in heavy fog as he returned home from a Huey Lewis and the News concert in Concord, California. Also killed were his companion, Melissa Gold, and his pilot, Steve Kahn. Federal investigators later said that Kahn was warned by air traffic controllers not to fly because of inclement weather. Just six days after that, a memorial rock concert for him was held in Golden Gate Park, in San Francisco. About 300,000 fans attended. There's enough music from this concert for four albums. Here's the first one.

Graham could be called a music promoter, and that much is true, but he was a lot more than just that. Grateful Dead guitarist Bob Weir called him "the most important non-musician in music." 

He's best known for owning the Fillmore and Winterland concert venues, but that's just a small part of the picture. There's no other promoter who has even come close to having the impact on music that he had, and I believe he's the only promoter inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He helped start and nurture the San Francisco music scene in the late 1960s, and helped a great many musical acts get their big breaks and then stay famous. 

Rabbi Robert Kirschner said of him, "There was a lot more to Bill than the Fillmore and Winterland and associations with the whole pantheon of rock 'n' roll in that era. He was also a visionary. He basically invented the whole idea of 'rock theater,' where you went to a concert for an immersion experience." His concerts were always special. For instance, when went to concerts at the Fillmore in the late 1980s, everyone who went could take home a free concert poster, as well as eat a free apple or two if they wanted. Who else would go the extra mile to improve a concert experience like that?!

And although he could be a ruthless businessman, he also was at the forefront of using music to promote social causes, especially to help fund charities. Neil Young had some moving words to say about that during this concert. "Bill Graham made us all look good. Gave us a chance to show you that we could do something good instead of just going on with our careers. He kept pushing us to do things for other people and making a place available for us to do it, so that there was no way out. Thank you, Bill."

There's a lot more that could be said about Graham and his remarkable career, but I'll direct you to his Wikipedia page for that:

Bill Graham (promoter) - Wikipedia

Suffice to say that he was beloved by many rock musicians, so they showed up for this memorial concert despite having only a couple of days to prepare. I'm sure many, many more would have wanted to play, but there was limited time available. Generally speaking, only the big name acts closest to him were chosen. 

For this first volume out of four, I gathered together all the musical acts that only performed a couple of songs each. Generally speaking, they are in the correct chronological order. However, Robin Williams, Journey, and Tracy Chapman all appeared after the next act, Santana, instead of before it. 

Also, note that I believe I've included all the music from the concert. The concert lasted about five and a half hours. The four volumes I've put together total four hours and fifteen minutes. The difference is the time between the acts.

There was just one non-musical performer at the concert, comedian Robin Williams. Normally, I like to keep things to just the music, but I've made an exception in this case to include his stand-up routine. But I stuck it at the end of this album, making it easier for you to keep it, skip it, or delete it. In fact, he performed just before Journey.

I've leave it to you to find out more about the performers if you want. But I have one comment to make about Journey. From 1977 until 1987, Steve Perry was the lead vocalist of that band. But in 1987, he felt burned out and quit the band. For the next several years, he retreated from the public eye and just tried to live a normal life. But he came out of semi-retirement for this concert. This end up being the last time Perry played with Journey.

You can find an entire article about it here:

https://ultimateclassicrock.com/last-journey-show-steve-perry/ 

Also, here's a Los Angeles Times about this memorial concert, written right after it took place:

Bay Area Plays Tribute to Graham : Memorial: About 300,000 gather for free concert at Golden Gate Park honoring the rock promoter who died 10 days ago in a helicopter crash. - Los Angeles Times 

All the music here is unreleased, I believe. I'm pretty sure the entire concert was broadcast on a local radio station, which is why we have an excellent sounding recording of all of it. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
02 talk (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
03 My Feet Can't Fail Me Now (Dirty Dozen Brass Band)
04 talk by emcee (Bobby McFerrin)
05 talk (Bobby McFerrin)
06 Did I Hear You Say You Love Me (Bobby McFerrin)
07 talk (Bobby McFerrin)
08 The Star Spangled Banner (Bobby McFerrin)
09 talk by emcee (Jackson Browne)
10 For a Dancer (Jackson Browne)
11 talk (Jackson Browne)
12 World in Motion (Jackson Browne)
13 talk by emcee (Jackson Browne)
14 talk by emcee (Joe Satriani)
15 Always with Me, Always with You [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
16 talk (Joe Satriani)
17 The Crush of Love [Instrumental] (Joe Satriani)
18 talk by emcee (Joe Satriani)
19 talk by emcee (Aaron Neville)
20 Ave Maria (Aaron Neville)
21 talk by emcee (Aaron Neville)
22 talk by emcee (Journey)
23 talk (Journey)
24 Faithfully (Journey)
25 Lonely Road without You (Journey)
26 Lights (Journey)
27 talk by emcee (Tracy Chapman)
28 All That You Have Is Your Soul (Tracy Chapman)
29 Where the Soul Never Dies (Tracy Chapman)
30 talk by emcee (Tracy Chapman)
31 talk by emcee (Robin Williams)
32 Stand-Up Comedy Routine (Robin Williams)
33 talk by emcee (Robin Williams)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BGA5GZ1u

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XgCnvfog3Ukj8Gr/file

The cover image shows Steve Perry and Neal Schon of Journey at this exact concert. Perry is holding a microphone at the edge of the stage, and Schon is playing guitar. Oh, and I took the "Laughter, Love and Music" logo from a promotional poster for the event.

Covered: Geoff Stephens: 1964-2002

I recently posted a couple of "Covered" albums dealing with British professional songwriters from the 1960s and 1970s (as I write this in May 2026). As I said elsewhere, there was a circle of a dozen or more who often collaborated with each other, and wrote lots of pop hits. Here's another one from that group, Geoff Stephens.

Many of the other songwriters in this group that I've been discussing came up with the British Invasion, the musical trend that started around 1963. But Stephens was slightly older - he was 29 years old in 1963- and his music career began before that. He served in the military for a couple of years and held a series of odd jobs before getting serious about songwriting. His first song was covered by a musical act in 1961. 

His first hit was "Tell Me When" in 1964, co-written by Les Reed, another songwriter in that group. I've already posted the hit version by the Applejacks in the "Covered" album for Barry Mason and Les Reed. So I went with a different version here. Later that same year, he had an even bigger hit with a song he wrote all by himself, "The Crying Game." The version by Dave Berry went all the way to the Top Five in Britain, although it wasn't a hit. (Boy George eventually had a hit in the U.S. with it in 1992.) It had an unusual melody, showing surprising musical sophistication for a pop hit 1964.

He had an even bigger hit in 1966 with "Winchester Cathedral," performed by the New Vaudeville Band. It actually was recorded by session musicians. The lead vocalist was John Carter, another songwriter I've profiled with a "Covered" album." Stephens had a fondness for vaudeville/ music hall music from the 1920s and earlier, and wrote the song in that vein. It was such a massive success - hitting Number One in the U.S. and some other countries, and selling three million copies worldwide - that it started a mini-vaudeville trend for the next couple of years. Few British artists could resist performing at least one or two songs in that style, for some reason.

Sometimes, Stephens was the sole songwriter, as was the case with "Winchester Cathedral." But more often, he wrote with other members of that unnamed British professional songwriter group. For instance, "There's a Kind of Hush" was written with Les Reed, "Sorry Suzanne" was written with Tony Macaulay, "My Sentimental Friend" was written with John Carter, "Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast" was written with Peter Callander, and so on. As you can see, Stephens didn't favor just one songwriting partner. In fact, he had many more, including Roger Greenaway, Barry Mason, Don Black, and Mitch Murray. All of those other people have their own "Covered" albums, or their albums are coming.

Stephens had many more hits through most of the 1970s, until about 1978. In fact, one of his biggest hits was one of his last, since "Silver Lady" by David Soul went to Number One in Britain in 1977. (That one was co-written with Tony Macaulay, by the way.) But musical styles changed drastically in the late 1970s, with the rise of disco, punk, and new wave. So his hits stopped at that time, as was the case with most of the other songwriters in that group he'd been working with since the mid-1960s. 

Starting in the early 1980s, he mostly switched to writing songs for musicals. In doing so, he still collaborated with people from that same group, writing different musicals with Don Black, Les Reed, and Peter Callander. He died in 2020 at the age of 86.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Geoff Stephens - Wikipedia 

Because Stephens often wrote with other songwriters who have their own "Covered" albums, sometimes I've resorted to using non-hit versions, so the same versions don't appear on two different albums. So, for instance, I have "Sorry Suzanne" here by the Glass Bottle, instead of the hit version by the Hollies. "Smile a Little Smile for Me" is an outliner, because I chose a late cover for the same reason. The hit version was in 1970. Without that one, this album would end in 1980. 

This album is one hour long. 

01 Tell Me When (Jaybirds)
02 The Crying Game (Dave Berry)
03 Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James (Manfred Mann)
04 Winchester Cathedral (New Vaudeville Band)
05 My World Fell Down (Ivy League)
06 There's a Kind of Hush (Herman's Hermits)
07 Boy (Lulu)
08 Sunshine Girl (Herman's Hermits)
09 Lights of Cincinnati (Scott Walker)
10 My Sentimental Friend (Herman's Hermits)
11 Sorry Suzanne (Glass Bottle)
12 Knock, Knock, Who's There (Mary Hopkin)
13 Daughter of Darkness (Tom Jones)
14 Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Wayne Newton)
15 You Won't Find Another Fool like Me (New Seekers)
16 Doctor's Orders (Carol Douglas)
17 Silver Lady (David Soul)
18 It's Like We Never Said Goodbye (Crystal Gayle)
19 Like Sister and Brother (Frank Hooker & Positive People)
20 Smile a Little Smile for Me (Chris von Sneidern)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bm3YSnFy

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/pEoVVFc3lzQ7Bfp/file

I don't know anything about the cover image except that it's "circa 1970." The original was in black and white. I colorized it with the use of the Kolorize program.

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 2: 1976-1983 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the second and last of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. As I was saying with Volume 1, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, and the songs, but we usually don't love the overproduction of most of the Carpenters records. So, for these two volumes, Fabio is presenting the songs stripped down to just vocals and a piano. 

These are all the released studio versions, but edited to remove the other instruments. For the songs with "[Edit]," Fabio did at least some of the editing himself. For the others, he found versions on the Internet where people had already made edits.

There's more to say, but Fabio says that in the liner notes he wrote included in the download zip. Other than that, there's not much more for me to say, except thanks to Fabio for putting these albums together. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 I Have You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 There's a Kind of Hush [All Over the World] [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 We've Only Just Begun [Edit] (Carpenters)
04 You [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 All You Get from Love Is a Love Song [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 I Just Fall in Love Again (Carpenters)
08 Honolulu City Lights [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Need to Be in Love (Karen Carpenter)
10 Merry Christmas, Darling (Carpenters)
11 Where Do I Go from Here [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 If We Try [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)
13 Make Believe It's Your First Time [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 When It's Gone [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Two Lives [Edit] (Karen Carpenter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Xn8YmPqA 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/amevxgiU6IsLSFf/file

As with Volume 1, Fabio and I wanted a photo of Karen singing and Richard playing piano, and nothing else. That's what we got with this one. This one is from September 1971, probably September 23rd. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973, Late Show

Yesterday, I posted the early show of Big Mama Thornton playing at Ebbets Field in Denver in 1973, with Tommy Bolin on lead guitar. Here's the late show.

Most of what I'd want to say about this was said in my write-up for the early show. So please read that. Just a quick recap: it would be plenty interesting to have a recording of blues legend Big Mama Thornton performing at a small club like this in 1973. But a nice bonus is having Bolin on guitar. He was living in the area at the time, shortly before joining the James Gang and then later joining Deep Purple, and he sometimes would back up blues artists when they were passing through town. This seems to be the only instance of that that luckily got recorded.

As with the early show, if you listen to this, it's pretty clear Thornton was winging it, singing whatever song came into her head at any moment. Bolin and the rest of the back-up band probably had no practice time with her, and did a good job trying to keep up with her. 

One nice thing is that the songs in the late show are almost entirely different than those of the early show, with only "Hound Dog" and "Swing It on Home" being the same. And apparently that was Thornton playing the short drum solo at the end of the last song.

If anyone knows the names of the instrumental second and third tracks, please let me know, so I can give them proper names. I did some Internet searching and found someone who had played with Bolin who knew the name of the first song, or I never would have been able to name that instrumental.

As with the early show, the music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 47 minutes long.

01 Swamp Carol [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin)
02 Instrumental Jam (Tommy Bolin)
03 Blues Shuffle [Instrumental] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
04 Pack Up My Troubles (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
05 Good Morning, Little Schoolboy [Good Morning, Little Schoolgirl] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
06 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
07 Oh Happy Day (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
08 Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
09 He's Got the Whole World in His Hands (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
10 Go Down Moses - He's Got the Whole World in His Hands [Reprise] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
11 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
12 Drink on the Table (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
13 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
14 What'd I Say (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
15 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
16 Swing It on Home - Drum Solo [Edit] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/WNLRoRCv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/VLaXtYf8pAPGlJP/file

The cover image shows Big Mama Thornton on the "Dick Cavett Show" on July 22, 1971. That's the case for the early show cover image as well. I thought it would be nice to have her in the same clothes for the covers of the early and late shows. 

Covered: Mitch Murray & Peter Callander: 1962-2004

A few days ago, I posted a "Covered" album featuring Barry Mason and Les Reed. They were part of a small circle of professional songwriters in Britain in the 1960s and 1970s. Here's another songwriting duo from that same circle: Mitch Murray and Peter Callander.

Murray was the first of the two to have songwriting success. He wrote the song "How Do You Do It" in 1962, when he was 22 years old. Producer liked it so much that he gave it to the Beatles for their very first single. The Beatles recorded it, but they wanted to release one of their own songs instead, which they did with "Love Me Do." So the song went to Gerry and the Pacemakers, who took it all the way to Number One in the British singles chart in early 1963. I went with the Beatles version, even though it wasn't released until 1995.

Murray had more hits over the next couple of years, with many of them being recorded by "British Invasion" bands. In 1964, he wrote the popular book "How to Write a Hit Song." Sting of the Police, who was 12 years old at the time, loved the book and later said it inspired him to start writing his own songs. Murray also had a minor hit of his own, "Down Came the Rain," in 1965, under the name "Mister Murray." I didn't include it though because it's a novelty song that doesn't bear repeat listening. (The twist is that the verses are sung normally, but the choruses are sung in an unexpectedly strange voice.)

Meanwhile, Peter Callander trained to be a professional chef, but soon switched to songwriting instead. He began having musical acts record his songs starting in 1963, though he was less successful at first. He wrote some songs with Les Reed, another songwriter I mentioned above, until he met Murray in 1965. They mostly wrote together from that point on, with Murray generally writing the melodies and Callander the lyrics.

Their first big success together was "Even the Bad Times Are Good" by the Tremeloes in 1967. From that point on, they generally had at least one sizable hit each year, including some I didn't put here because I didn't like them so much. They finished strong, with two Number One hits in both the U.S. and Britain in 1974, "The Night Chicago Died" and "Billy, Don't Be a Hero." 

But their songwriting partnership seems to have ended shortly thereafter, and so did their success. I didn't find any songs they wrote after that point worthy of inclusion. The last song here, "A Fool Am I," is from 2004, and recorded by Agnetha Faltskog, one of the singers in ABBA. But it was originally a minor hit for Cilla Black in 1966. The other songs are all the original hit versions from 1974 or earlier, with the exception of the Beatles one I mentioned above.

Murray soon switched careers from music to comedy. He did comedy T.V. shows, funny voices for recordings, and gave humorous speeches. That last skill led to him writing several best-selling books about how to give funny speeches. He is still alive and 86 years old as I write this in 2026. I don't what happened to Callander after the 1970s. He died in 2014 at the age of 74.

Here are their Wikipedia pages:

Mitch Murray - Wikipedia

and

Peter Callander - Wikipedia   

This album is 51 minutes long. 

01 How Do You Do It (Beatles)
02 I'm Telling You Now (Freddie & the Dreamers)
03 I Like It (Gerry & the Pacemakers)
04 Leave a Little Love (Lulu)
05 I Love Her (Paul & Barry Ryan)
06 Even the Bad Times Are Good (Tremeloes)
07 The Ballad of Bonnie and Clyde (Georgie Fame)
08 Suddenly You Love Me (Tremeloes)
09 Hitchin' a Ride (Vanity Fare)
10 Ragamuffin Man (Manfred Mann)
11 Turn On the Sun (Nana Mouskouri)
12 Daddy Don't You Walk So Fast (Daniel Boone)
13 I Did What I Did for Maria (Tony Christie)
14 The Night Chicago Died (Paper Lace)
15 Billy, Don't Be a Hero (Bo Donaldson & the Heywoods)
16 Black Eyed Boys (Paper Lace)
17 A Fool Am I (Agnetha Faltskog)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mP1ECLeF

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/gAMYG7WgvV5FX86/file

For the cover image, I found two photos of Murray and Callander together, in a recording studio in February 1968. I liked Murray from one and Callander from the other, so that's what I used. Callender is the one with the light colored shirt and blue tie.

The Carpenters - Imaginary Piano Recital, Volume 1: 1970-1975 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's another Fabio from Rio guest post. It's the first of two volumes featuring the Carpenters. Basically, Fabio and I love Karen Carpenter's voice, but the production of Carpenters records usually left a lot to be desired. Too often, the songs were drenched with syrupy strings and other overproduction that detracted from the beauty of her voice, and the song, instead of adding to them. So we've tried to counter that in various ways. First, I posted a "Near Acappella" album that stripped the music just down to vocals, bass, and drums. Then, we posted two completely "Acappella" albums. Now, there's this. The idea is, an imaginary piano recital, with nothing but Karen Carpenter singing, and usually her brother Richard playing piano.

Fabio found all the songs for this. First, he found some other people on the Internet who already had used audio editing technology to strip official studio versions of songs down to just lead vocals and piano. But many songs he liked hadn't been given that treatment, or hadn't been stripped enough, so he did his own audio editing. So all the songs have been edited, heavily, but the ones with "[Edit]" in them specifically indicate the ones with Fabio's editing.

Fabio has a lot more to say on this. So check out his liner notes that are included in the download zip. 

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 [They Long to Be] Close to You [Edit] (Carpenters)
02 Maybe It's You [Edit] (Carpenters)
03 For All We Know (Carpenters)
04 One Love [Edit] (Carpenters)
05 Rainy Days and Mondays [BBC Version] [Edit] (Carpenters)
06 Superstar [Groupie] [Edit] (Carpenters)
07 A Song for You [Edit] (Carpenters)
08 I Won't Last a Day without You [Edit] (Carpenters)
09 I Can't Make Music [Edit] (Carpenters)
10 Sing [Edit] (Carpenters)
11 The End of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
12 Top of the World [Edit] (Carpenters)
13 Yesterday Once More [Edit] (Carpenters)
14 Love Me for What I Am [Edit] (Carpenters)
15 Solitaire [Edit] (Carpenters)

Top of the World [Country Singalong Version] [Edit] (Carpenters) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Jd2UdXrz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/7Kd3757bXETVnXz/file

For the cover image, we wanted to show Karen singing and Richard playing piano. Luckily, we found two, just enough for our two volumes. I don't know the details of where or when this image was taken though, except that it's "circa 1971."

Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1973, Early Show

The next installment of Ebbets Field radio broadcast concerts is something unexpected: blue legend Big Mama Thornton performing with Deep Purple lead guitarist Tommy Bolin! There are early and late shows, with the two of them quite different. Here's the early show.

Thorton is best known for the song "Hound Dog." She had a hit with it in 1952, before Elvis Presley's version. Her version sold half a million copies, which was a remarkable amount back at that time. She's also well known for a song she wrote, "Ball and Chain," after Janis Joplin did a great version of it in the late 1960s. Her time in the spotlight in the 1950s didn't last long, since she only had that one hit. But in the 1960s and into the 1970s she had a career revival playing in blues and/or folk clubs and festivals. At the time of this concert, she was about 46 years old.

Here's her Wikipedia page:

Big Mama Thornton - Wikipedia 

Tommy Bolin was born and raised in Iowa, but his family moved to Boulder, Colorado, in his late teens. He began playing in local bands. One of them, Zephyr, released a couple of albums, and toured nationally, though they didn't have any hits. After that band broke up around 1971, he joined a couple other short-lived bands, and wrote a lot of songs. In 1973, he joined the James Gang (after Joe Walsh left) and dominated it, writing nearly all the songs for two albums. By 1975, he'd left the James Gang and joined Deep Purple for about a year. He also released solo albums in 1975 and 1976. But he died of a drug overdose at the very end of 1976.

Tommy Bolin - Wikipedia

Anyway, the reason I mention all this about Bolin is because it's relevant in explaining how his involvement with Thornton came to be. In 1972 and 1973 especially, Bolin was at loose ends and living in Boulder, often without a band. During this time, he developed a good relationship with Chuck Morris, who owned the Ebbets Field venue (and a couple more in the area). Often, when blues musicians were passing through town and were lacking a backing band, Morris would get Bolin and/or some of Bolin's friends to provide the backing. (Bolin would make the drive from Boulder to Denver in less than an hour.) Or sometimes Bolin would just ask to sit in. In this way, he played with many musical greats, including Howlin' Wolf, Albert King, and Chuck Berry. Usually, these big names would be greatly impressed by Bolin, who was far from being just an inexperienced local musician. 

It seems none of these shows pairing Bolin with these blues legends were recorded... except for this one with Thornton, somehow. I don't know if this was broadcast on the radio at the time, like other Ebbets Field shows, or if just got luckily recorded by the venue anyway. Bobby Berge and Stan Shelton rounded out the backing band. 

Chances are there was little to no practice between Thornton and the backing band beforehand. You can hear at times where Thornton starts a song and just expects the other musicians to figure out what's going on and join in. But it's also clear that she respected Bolin's lead guitar playing, as can be seen by the space he was given to solo, especially with the two instrumentals at the beginning. (If anyone knows the names of those songs, if they have names, please let me know. I also had to figure out the names of the other songs. Please let me know if I got any of them wrong.)

Surprisingly, not only was Thornton a great blues vocalist, she could also play drums pretty well. That's her playing a short drum solo near the end of this recording.

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 Instrumental Jam (Tommy Bolin)
02 Blues Shuffle [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin)
03 Blues with Intro (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
04 Little Red Rooster [Early One Morning] (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
05 Rock Me Baby (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
06 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
07 Shake, Rattle and Roll - Hi Ho Silver (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
08 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
09 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hound Dog (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
11 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
12 Swing It on Home - Drum Solo (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)
13 talk (Big Mama Thornton with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/fnNa7zWg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/XF5Bz0rmGxi8TR1/file 

The cover image shows Big Mama Thornton on the "Dick Cavett Show" on July 22, 1971. By the way, looking at the cover, you may wonder that she doesn't look like a "Big Mama." When she was younger, she was most definitely big - at one point, she weighed about 450 pounds. But years of heavy drinking gave her health problems that caused her to lose a lot of weight by the early 1970s. By the time she died in 1984, she only weighed about 95 pounds.

The Funk Brothers (with Joan Osborne, Sam Moore, the Four Tops, and More) - International De Jazz De Montreal, Montreal, Canada, 7-4-2004

Have you ever heard of the "Funk Brothers?" Maybe not, but you certainly must know many of the songs they played on. They were the house band for Motown Records in the 1960s and early 1970s. They played on at least 50 Number One hit songs in the U.S., and many hundreds of other hits. But they played in almost total obscurity until 2002, when the documentary movie "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" finally told their story. They did some touring in the wake of that movie. Here's one concert where they were joined by some famous singers, especially Joan Osborne, Sam Moore, and the Four Tops.

I'm not going to go into a detailed history of the Funk Brothers. If you want to know more, here's the Wikipedia page about them: 

The Funk Brothers - Wikipedia

But I will mention that there were about 13 members in all. The involvement of different people changed over the years they worked for Motown, roughly 1959 to 1972. By the time of this concert, many key members had died or retired. These are the ones who actually performed at this concert:

Jack Ashford - percussion
Bob Babbit - bass
Eddy Jr Willis - guitar
Joe Hunter - keys
Uriel Jones - drums
Ed Green - drums

Since none of them sang, the lead vocals are done by a series of guests. I couldn't find any information about the first singer, Naydan Neile. It's possible the spelling of that name is incorrect. (I got the name from the DVD of this concert, and they misspelled the name of another singer.) The second singer, Haydain Neale, was the lead singer of the band Jacksoul. He died quite young of lung cancer in 2009. Then there were four songs by Joan Osborne. Two were followed by Sam Moore, of the soul duo Sam and Dave. A short set by the Four Tops followed. They still had their same four original members.

Then, for the last song, everyone (but the Four Tops) sang together. A couple of other singers were present, including Carolyn Crawford. She sang on some Motown hits back in the 1960s, including "My Smile Is Just a Frown (Turned Upside Down)." But in this recording, we only get her singing a couple of lines in the final song. I assume this concert is edited down, and she sang one or more songs earlier in the show.

The sound quality is excellent, because I took this from a DVD of the concert. It hasn't been released on any audio format. But, as I was just suggesting above, the actual concert must have been longer. The editing is tight, with almost no pause or banter between songs. 

The Funk Brothers were getting rather old by the time of this concert. So they did some touring from 2003 to 2005 to celebrate and promote the "Standing in the Shadows of Motown" movie, then retired for good. I've come across various bootlegs of some of their concerts from those years, but this one has the best sound quality, by far. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Funk Brothers)
02 You Can't Hurry Love (Funk Brothers with Naydan Neile)
03 Ooo Baby Baby (Funk Brothers with Naydan Neile)
04 Let's Get It On (Funk Brothers with Haydain Neale)
05 Mercy, Mercy Me [The Ecology] (Funk Brothers with Haydain Neale)
06 What's Going On (Funk Brothers with Haydain Neale)
07 For Once in My Life (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
08 talk (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
09 [Love Is like A] Heat Wave (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
10 talk (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
11 What Becomes of the Broken Hearted (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
12 talk (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
13 I Heard It through the Grapevine (Funk Brothers with Joan Osborne)
14 talk (Funk Brothers with Sam Moore)
15 [Your Love Has Lifted Me] Higher and Higher (Funk Brothers with Sam Moore)
16 Ain't Too Proud to Beg (Funk Brothers with Sam Moore)
17 Baby I Need Your Loving (Funk Brothers with the Four Tops)
18 Reach Out, I'll Be There (Funk Brothers with the Four Tops)
19 Standing in the Shadows of Love (Funk Brothers with the Four Tops)
20 I Can't Help Myself [Sugar Pie, Honey Bunch] (Funk Brothers with the Four Tops)
21 talk (Funk Brothers with the Four Tops)
22 Ain't No Mountain High Enough (Funk Brothers with Everyone)

This album is 57 minutes long.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rW8yXYkg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/lsvjG4vKabl1kzg/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. It shows three of the Four Tops in black jackets in front, plus some of the Funk Brothers wearing red jackets a bit behind. 

Paul Simon with Art Garfunkel, Phoebe Snow and Randy Newman - Saturday Night Live, NBC Studios, New York City, 10-18-1975

Recently, a commenter suggested that I should compile the musical performances from the "Saturday Night Live" T.V. show in the same way I compiled them from the "Playboy After Dark" T.V. show. That's a good idea, and I'll probably do that at some point. But in the meantime, there's this, as a kind of teaser. Did you know that in 1975, the first season of "Saturday Night Live," there was an episode that was almost entirely dedicated to musical performances related to Paul Simon, including a short reunion of Simon and Garfunkel? There was, and here's the music from it.

When "Saturday Night Live" got started, the show was still figuring out just what it would be. For instance, the first episode was unusual since all the comedic skirts were very short, less than two minutes long. Then this one was the second episode. It seems to have been an experiment in making the show much more musical than it turned out to be. In fact, the entire show was basically turned over to Paul Simon, like it was his personal T.V. special. He performed some songs, and picked other musical guests to perform other songs. He also did a couple of skirts, including one where he played basketball against a professional basketball player (Connie Hawkins, who was six feet, eight inches tall). The joke was that Simon is short, at five feet, two inches, so he would make a terrible basketball player. The regular cast was barely seen at all, other than the news update section.

In 1975, Simon was having a moment. Simon and Garfunkel broke up in 1970, and at first the commercial success of his solo career was much lower. But his 1975 album "Still Crazy After All These Years" went all the way to Number One in the U.S. album charts, helped by the hit single "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover," which also went to Number One. This show took place only a couple of weeks after that album was released. 

His new album contained "My Little Town," the first Simon and Garfunkel collaboration on record since they broke up in 1970. So Simon had Art Garfunkel on the show to perform that song, plus two others. Garfunkel also got to sing a song by himself. 

 

Simon also used the show to shine the spotlight on some of his favorite musical acts. Not only did Randy Newman perform a song, but Simon actually sang one of Newman's songs himself, "Marie." This is a really special treat, since Simon almost never did cover songs. I haven't seen this cover version anywhere. 

Phoebe Snow was also having her moment of commercial success, thanks to her hit single "Poetry Man." But she chose not to sing that, and did "No Regrets," a song done by Billie Holiday, instead. Plus, Snow and the Jessy Dixon Singers helped out on "Gone at Last," just like they did on Simon's previous album. 

I wasn't able to find this music circulating as an audio bootleg, except for the three Simon & Garfunkel songs. So I found a high quality version of the video, converted it to audio, and chopped it into mp3s. I cut out everything that wasn't related to the music, like the few comedic skirts. That was about 20 minutes of material. I carefully edited the transitions to cut out the commercial breaks and things like that, so it would sound like a continuous concert.

This album is 39 minutes long. 

01 Still Crazy After All These Years (Paul Simon)
02 talk (Paul Simon)
03 Loves Me like a Rock (Paul Simon & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
04 Marie (Paul Simon)
05 talk (Paul Simon)
06 Sail Away (Randy Newman)
07 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
08 The Boxer (Simon & Garfunkel)
09 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
10 Scarborough Fair (Simon & Garfunkel)
11 My Little Town (Simon & Garfunkel)
12 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
13 I Only Have Eyes for You (Art Garfunkel)
14 talk (Paul Simon & Phoebe Snow)
15 No Regrets (Phoebe Snow)
16 Gone at Last (Paul Simon, Phoebe Snow & the Jessy Dixon Singers)
17 American Tune (Paul Simon)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/m4tnWz4R

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/9k79ChfHUojnDep/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. It shows Phoebe Snow and Paul Simon singing "Gone at Last." For the font, I used the colors and style of the T.V. show.

Martha Reeves - Don Kirshner’s Rock Concert, Hofstra Playhouse, Hempstead, NY, 3-23-1974

Here's something I stumbled across on YouTube yesterday. I liked it so much that I decided to post it right away. Martha Reeves was the lead singer of Martha and the Vandellas in the 1960s, which later changed its name to Martha Reeves and the Vandellas. They had a lot of big hits for Motown Records, including the all-time classics "Heat Wave," "Nowhere to Run," and "Dancing in the Street."

But as the 1960s turned into the 1970s, Reeves and the Vandellas weren't given the top songs written by Motown's songwriters. Motown basically self-destructed in the early 1970s anyway, especially due to the terrible decision to move the company from Detroit to Los Angeles to make movies (which generally didn't materialize). So Reeves managed to get out of her Motown contract in 1972, and broke up the Vandellas to pursue a solo career.

Unfortunately, her solo career never took off like it should have. She was signed by M.C.A. records, and they literally spared no expense with her debut album, the cleverly titled "Martha Reeves." I say they "spared no expense" because it cost $250,000 to record, which was one of the most expensive record productions ever up until that time. But the record didn't take advantage of her talents, being overproduced, and it didn't sell well. Her next couple of albums suffered the same fate. Then she became a born-again Christian in 1977. She also directed more of her energy to acting, letting her music career slide for several years.

Given all that, I didn't have high expectations when listening to this. But I was really impressed. It seems the songs from her debut album were given new life when performed live. It helped that she had a crack band. I was especially interested to find out that the bass player was none other than James Jamerson, one of the greatest bass players of all time. He was part of the Motown house band (nicknamed the Funk Brothers) in the 1960s and early 1970s, but he rarely performed live in a band like this. But, listening to his playing here, you can hear why he's so highly praised. 

Since the main performance from "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" is rather short, at only 22 minutes, I searched to see if I could add a few more songs at the end. There wasn't much. This seems to be the only concert appearance from this era more than a song or two, and they were usually songs already included here. But I did find two songs performed on the "Saturday Night Live" T.V. show in 1975, and one song on the "Midnight Special" T.V. show in 1976. That one, by the way, featured Barry Manilow on piano, since he performed a song right before her, and another one right after.

The first song, "Wild Night," has "[Edit]" in its title because there was an emcee voice-over for about the first 15 seconds. I got rid of that in the usual way, using the MVSEP program. By the way, speaking of that song, how the heck was this not a hit?! It sure sounds like a winner to me. It only made it to Number 75 on the R&B singles chart, and didn't make the main U.S. singles chart at all. Van Morrison's original version in 1971 also had trouble. It was a minor hit, but not the big smash it deserved to be. It took John Mellancamp and Meshell Ndegeocello to finally give the song the success it deserved all along, making it to Number Three in the U.S. singles chart in 1994.

One final aside. I'm not actually sure of the location of this concert. Most episodes of the "Don Kirshner's Rock Concert" were filmed in this location in 1974, so that's why I went with it. But some episodes were filmed elsewhere. So this is a best guess, until I can hear something definitive. 

Everything here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 30 minutes long.  

01 Wild Night [Edit] (Martha Reeves)
02 [I've Got to Use] My Imagination (Martha Reeves)
03 There's a Storm in My Soul (Martha Reeves)
04 Ain't That Peculiar (Martha Reeves)
05 Love [Makes Me Do Foolish Things] (Martha Reeves)
06 Power of Love (Martha Reeves)
07 Silver Bells (Martha Reeves)
08 [Your Love Keeps Lifting Me] Higher and Higher (Martha Reeves)
09 Dancing in the Street (Martha Reeves)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3k8Sb9Dj

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/sCsDKFGyxtCi69F/file

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

Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-11-1973

Here's another Ebbets Field radio broadcast. This one features Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen.

The Wikipedia entry intro is badly written, so I'll try to come up with my own summary. This band was led by pianist and vocalist George Frayne IV, a.k.a. Commander Cody. The band was formed in 1967, but they didn't release their debut album until 1971. Once they did, it contained a surprise hit with the song "Hot Rod Lincoln," which made it all the way to the Top Ten in the U.S. singles chart. It was a surprise hit because it was a cover of an obscure 1950s song, and the 1950s style was very much out of step with the musical trends of 1971. 

Unfortunately, it would prove to be their only hit. The band broke up in 1977. However, Frayne continued to make a lot more music using the "Commander Cody" name. He died in 2021.

Although Wikipedia didn't have a good intro for this band, it does have a good paragraph explaining the band's style. So I'll quote that here: "[the band's] style was built on the foundation of country music, which the band fused with boogie woogie, rock and roll, rhythm and blues, Western swing and jazz, which Classic Rock said resulted in 'a counter-cultural twist to the Nashville sound.' Relix said that the band 'tossed together rockabilly, blues, country, boogie-woogie, Western swing and whatever else came their way.' Tinnitist called the band 'one of the more interesting bands of the hippie era, fusing county, rockabilly, western swing, jump blues, and more into an infectious amalgam that set the table for outfits like NRBQ.'"

Here's the rest of the entry:

Commander Cody and His Lost Planet Airmen - Wikipedia

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 Instrumental Intro (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
02 Good Rockin' Tonight (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
03 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
04 What's the Matter Now (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
05 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
06 Truck Driving Man (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
07 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
08 Four or Five Times (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
09 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
10 Down and Out (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
11 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
12 Mama Hated Diesels (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
13 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
14 Little Sally Walker (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
15 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
16 Ain't Nothin' Shakin' (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
17 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
18 Daddy's Drinkin' Up Our Christmas (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
19 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
20 Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
21 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
22 Hot Rod Lincoln (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
23 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
24 Rave On (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
25 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
26 Rock That Boogie (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
27 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
28 Jailhouse Rock (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
29 talk by emcee (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
30 talk (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
31 Mean Woman Blues (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
32 Lost in the Ozone Again (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)
33 talk by emcee (Commander Cody & His Lost Planet Airmen)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5C8xtSek 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/49LEVP2T5KtIvTS/file

The cover image comes from an appearance on the "Midnight Special" T.V. show in Burbank, California, on July 6, 1973.