Fairport Convention - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-24-1974, Late Show

Here's another album from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. Yesterday, I posted the Fairport Convention early show from a 1974 concert. This is the late show.

I already explained in the write-up for the early show how Sandy Denny rejoined Fairport Convention in early 1974, in time for this concert. Unfortunately, that wouldn't last. She would leave the band for a second time in 1975, as her marriage with Trevor Lucas, another member of the band, was falling apart. She would die two years later, in 1977, after falling down a staircase.

There's some overlap in the song selection between the early shows and the late shows. Here are the songs that were performed in both: "Solo," "Dirty Linen," "Matty Groves," and "Down in the Flood (Crash on the Levee)." But the leaves room for a lot of unique songs in both shows.

This album is an hour and eight minutes long.

01 Rising for the Moon (Fairport Convention)
02 talk (Fairport Convention)
03 Solo (Fairport Convention)
04 talk (Fairport Convention)
05 Dirty Linen [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
06 talk (Fairport Convention)
07 One More Chance (Fairport Convention)
08 talk (Fairport Convention)
09 Sloth (Fairport Convention)
10 talk (Fairport Convention)
11 It'll Take a Long Time (Fairport Convention)
12 talk (Fairport Convention)
13 Matty Groves (Fairport Convention)
14 talk (Fairport Convention)
15 Hens March-Four Poster Bed-Brilliancy Medley-Cherokee Shuffle [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
16 talk (Fairport Convention)
17 Down in the Flood [Crash on the Levee] (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wesmEDWZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/AMGxc976ndnTqdk/file

The cover image is of Dave Swarbrick at a Fairport Convention concert in Denmark, some time in April 1974. It's from the exact same concert as the picture of Sandy Denny I used for the cover of early show. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Fairport Convention - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-24-1974, Early Show

Your near daily dose of Ebbets Field radio broadcast concerts continues. I have about 25 of these left, so enjoy it while it lasts. This time, the concert is Fairport Convention from a time Sandy Denny was part of the band. There's an early show and late show. Naturally, I'm posting the early show first.

Denny was part of Fairport Convention from 1968 to 1969. It wasn't a long time, but the band was incredibly prolific during that time, and that era has been very critically praised. She left that band to concentrate on a solo career, and especially focus more on her songwriting. She released a few albums, but didn't get widespread success. 

Meanwhile, another singer-songwriter, Trevor Lucas, produced a Fairport Convention album in 1972. That led to him joining that band in early 1973. Around the same time, he got romantically involved with Denny. They married later in 1973. Thus, it wasn't too surprising that Denny rejoined Fairport around the time of her marriage. By the time she rejoined, some key members had left, most notably Richard Thompson. But others were still there from the first time she was in the band: Dave Swarbrick, Dave Mattacks, and Dave Pegg.

At the time of this concert, the band had three lead vocalists: Denny, Lucas, and Swarbrick, with Denny dominating.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Fairport Convention)
02 Matty Groves (Fairport Convention)
03 talk (Fairport Convention)
04 Solo (Fairport Convention)
05 talk (Fairport Convention)
06 Dirty Linen [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
07 talk (Fairport Convention)
08 Fiddlestix [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)
09 talk (Fairport Convention)
10 Who Knows Where the Time Goes (Fairport Convention)
11 talk (Fairport Convention)
12 Like an Old Fashioned Waltz (Fairport Convention)
13 talk (Fairport Convention)
14 The Hexhamshire Lass (Fairport Convention)
15 talk (Fairport Convention)
16 Bring 'Em Down (Fairport Convention)
17 talk (Fairport Convention)
18 Down in the Flood [Crash on the Levee] (Fairport Convention)
19 talk (Fairport Convention)
20 John the Gun (Fairport Convention)
21 talk (Fairport Convention)
22 Sir B. McKenzie's Daughter's Lament [Instrumental] (Fairport Convention)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gsQn3FCR

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RYGexQ7haYSzFoD/file

The cover image is of Sandy Denny at a Fairport Convention concert in Denmark, some time in April 1974. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program. 

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 4: 2004-2010

Here is the fourth out of six "Covered" volumes for George Harrison.

Unfortunately, before the start of the time period of this volume, Harrison had already died. (He died in 2001 all too young, at the age of 58.) That means he wasn't putting out any more new music. So for this volume and the next two, we're basically playing catch up, with covers from earlier parts of his music career, including going back to his years with the Beatles.

The first song here is a special treat. It comes from the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame ceremony in 2004, because Harrison was posthumously inducted that year. This version of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" has a lot of stars peforming on it, including some I didn't include in the song title, due to wanting to keep it short, like Steve Winwood and Dhani Harrison. But what really makes this version stand out is the wild guitar soloing by Prince. A lot of people were impressed, as you can see by the fact the YouTube video is up to 140 million views when I'm writing this in May 2026. But this version remains unreleased. 

Generally speaking, I try hard to only include one version of each song in a Covered series like this. But every now and then, there are cases where I can't resist adding more than one. For this series, I have two versions of "Something" (on Volumes 1 and 2, by Shirley Bassey and James Brown). I also have two versions of "If I Needed Someone." I included the Hollies version of that song on Volume 1, because they had a hit with it back in 1965. It made the Top Twenty in Britain. That was Harrison's first hit song, actually. 

However, I'm including a second version of that song here, even though it's not one of his most popular songs. That's because in 2004, Roger McGuinn did a version of it. McGuinn used to be the main singer for the Byrds, and Harrison wrote the song with a very obvious Byrds influence. It was one he openly acknowledged from the start. He even sent McGuinn an advanced copy of the song, along with a thank you note. So it's nice to finally hear what the Byrds might have done with this Byrdsy song.   

This album is an hour and one minute long.

01 While My Guitar Gently Weeps (Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne & Prince)
02 All Things Must Pass (Paul McCartney)
03 If I Needed Someone (Roger McGuinn)
04 Love Comes to Everyone (Eric Clapton)
05 Handle with Care (Jenny Lewis with the Watson Twins)
06 Stuck Inside a Cloud (Herb Eimerman)
07 Dark Sweet Lady (Nelson Bragg)
08 I Want to Tell You (Thea Gilmore)
09 Blue Jay Way (Secret Machines)
10 Within You, Without You (Patti Smith)
11 That's the Way It Goes (Joe Brown)
12 I Live for You (Tift Merritt)
13 Blow Away (Den Fiori)
14 Hear Me Lord (Chip Mergott)
15 Deep Blue (Carolina Lima)
16 Be Here Now (Robyn Hitchcock)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/61Dy14BG

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/esiuW1bolSkXUjR/file

The cover image is from 1991.  

Tommy Bolin, Carmine Appice & the Good Rats - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 1974

Here's a rather strange concert from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts. This is a rather strange one, since it's just three long instrumentals. The main appeal is the lead guitar work of Tommy Bolin.

I've already discussed Bolin on another Ebbets Field album, because he backed blues singer Big Mama Thornton when she played at that venue, and was part of the band Zephyr when they had a reunion at that same venue. He had a strong connection to the venue, because he lived in the Denver area whenever he wasn't on tour, and he liked playing there as much as possible, even just adding his guitar playing to musical acts that were passing through town. I have two more Ebbets Fields concerts involving him I plan on posting.  

Carmen Appice is a famous rock drummer. He was in the band Vanilla Fudge in the late 1960s. But he and the band's bassist, Tim Bogert, left that band to form the band Cactus. But that band, while successful, didn't last long. Appice and Bogert left it to form a trio with Jeff Beck called "Beck, Bogert and Appice." But that group didn't last long either. So at the time of this concert, apparently Appice was in Denver to see if he could talk Bolin into forming yet another new band, this one to be called "Bolin, Bogert and Appice." That band never materialized. But it seems this concert was a kind of public rehearsal to see if they clicked together musically. 

Here's the Wikipedia entry for Appice:

Carmine Appice - Wikipedia 

I don't know if Bogert was at this concert, however. It seems that Bolin and Appice were backed by the band the Good Rats. They had enough success to merit their own Wikipedia entry:

The Good Rats - Wikipedia

The song "Stratus" from this performance has been officially released on a compilation album called "The Bottom Shelf." But the other two songs here are unreleased. "Stratus" first appeared on the stduio album "Spectrum," which was the debut album for jazz fusion drummer Billy Cobham. Bolin played a very well regarded guitar solo on that studio version.

I don't know the names of the other two songs, if indeed they have names. If anyone else does, please let me know and I'll change the names. Mostly, this album consists of lots of jamming. It seems the first two songs ended with only brief pauses, because the only clapping is at the very end. Also, I don't know the exact date of the concert either. I look forward to being corrected on that as well.

I don't know if this was ever broadcast on the radio, or if a recording of it survives thanks to the devotion of Tommy Bolin fans. Either way, the sound quality is pretty good. I used the MVSEP program to get rid of some noise on all three songs.

This album is 36 minutes long. 

01 Blues Jam [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin, Carmine Appice & the Good Rats)
02 Stratus [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin, Carmine Appice & the Good Rats)
03 Jazzy Jam [Instrumental] (Tommy Bolin, Carmine Appice & the Good Rats)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nt43VDjQ

alternate:

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

So far, the only photos I've been able to find that were actually taken inside the Ebbets Field venue are of Tommy Bolin. This is Bolin at the venue at some point in 1974. It may not be from this exact concert, since he played there a number of times that year.

Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter & Marty Stuart - City Winery, Nashville, TN, 11-16-2020

In late 2020 and into 2021, Emmylou Harris hosted some special concerts at the City Winery in Nashville, Tennessee. The world was still dealing with the Covid pandemic, so she couldn't tour. But she held a few webcast concerts for local charities, with Covid distancing rules in place for the sparse audiences. Recently, I posted two of them. I thought that was all I could find. But then a kind anonymous person saw those posts, and sent me more. In each one, she had a special guest or guests. This time, it's Carlene Carter and Marty Stuart.

Carter was the daughter of June Carter Cash with her first husband, Carl Smith. Since her mother went on to be married to Johnny Cash for most of her life, Carlene became a member of the Cash musical family, as well as the closely related Carter musical family. She also was married for all of the 1980s to singer-songwriter Nick Lowe. She had a solo music career starting in the late 1970s. Her popularity peaked in the early 1990s, with some hit albums and singles on the U.S. country charts.

Here's her Wikipedia page:

Carlene Carter - Wikipedia

The Wikipedia entry intro for Marty Stuart is better than the one for Carlene Carter, so I'll quote it here:

"John Marty Stuart (born September 30, 1958) is an American country and bluegrass music singer, songwriter, and musician. Active since 1968, Stuart initially toured with Lester Flatt, and then in Johnny Cash's road band before beginning work as a solo artist in the early 1980s. He is known for his combination of rockabilly, country rock, and bluegrass music influences, his frequent collaborations and cover songs, and his distinctive stage dress. His greatest commercial success came in the first half of the 1990s... Stuart has recorded over 20 studio albums, and has charted over 30 times on the Billboard Hot Country Songs charts. His highest chart entry is 'The Whiskey Ain't Workin'', a duet with Travis Tritt."

Like Carlene Carter, he also ended up related to Johnny Cash. His first wife was Johnny's daughter Cindy. Since the late 1990s, he's been married to country star Connie Smith.

Here's his Wikipedia page:

Marty Stuart - Wikipedia 

This is an acoustic concert. The three stars performed in songwriter circle style, with each of them taking turns singing their songs. In the song credits, I only listed the lead singers. On many songs, whoever the lead singer was often was assisted by backing vocals by one or both of the others.

The music here is unreleased. After I got the video, I converted it to audio and broke it into mp3s. The sound quality is excellent. The only problem was the banter between songs was very low, so I generally boosted the volume for those bits. The webcast had been a pay-per-view thing, which is now defunct. I believe this is the first time this concert is publicly available on the Internet. Thanks again to the anonymous donor.

This album is an hour and 28 minutes long.

01 talk (Emmylou Harris)
02 Gold Watch and Chain (Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter & Marty Stuart)
03 talk (Emmylou Harris)
04 Easy from Now On (Emmylou Harris)
05 talk (Carlene Carter)
06 The Bitter End (Carlene Carter)
07 talk (Marty Stuart)
08 Ready for the Times to Get Better (Marty Stuart)
09 talk (Emmylou Harris)
10 Blackhawk (Emmylou Harris)
11 talk (Carlene Carter)
12 Sad Clowns (Carlene Carter)
13 talk (Marty Stuart & Carlene Carter)
14 Fault Lines (Marty Stuart)
15 talk (Emmylou Harris & Marty Stuart)
16 Spanish Johnny (Emmylou Harris & Marty Stuart)
17 talk (Carlene Carter)
18 To Change Your Heart (Carlene Carter)
19 talk (Marty Stuart)
20 Tempted (Marty Stuart with Emmylou Harris)
21 talk (Emmylou Harris)
22 Strong Hand (Emmylou Harris)
23 talk (Carlene Carter)
24 Foggy Mountain Top (Carlene Carter)
25 talk (Marty Stuart)
26 Orange Blossom Special (Marty Stuart)
27 talk (Emmylou Harris)
28 The Road (Emmylou Harris)
29 talk (Carlene Carter)
30 Me and the Wildwood Rose (Carlene Carter)
31 talk (Marty Stuart)
32 Time Don't Wait (Marty Stuart)
33 talk (Emmylou Harris)
34 Beyond the Great Divide (Emmylou Harris, Carlene Carter & Marty Stuart)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JU8MPLz8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0v6GnvJAu0XQwkJ/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this concert. From right to left: Carlene Carter, Emmylou Harris, and Marty Stuart. I used Photoshop to move Carter closer to the other two. 

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 3: 1990-2003

This is the third out of six "Covered" volumes for George Harrison.

I had a lot to say about the development of Harrison's songwriting in Volumes 1 and 2. But after a flurry of activity in the late 1980s with his very successful "Cloud Nine" album and two albums with the Traveling Wilburys, his music career slowed waaaay down for the rest of his life. In fact, after a short tour of Japan with Eric Clapton in 1992, he pretty much retired from the music business for the rest of his life. He made slow progress on another studio album, "Brainwashed," but it wasn't released until 2002, a year after his death. 

Yet even though he spent many years away from music (with 15 years between his last two solo albums!), he did enough to get inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2004 for his solo career, in addition to already being inducted in 1987 for being a member of the Beatles.

That brings us to his unfortunate death. He died on November 29, 2001, at the age of 58. On December 30, 1999, Harrison was attacked in his home by an insane man. He was stabbed over 40 times, and barely survived. He died in 2001 of lung cancer, probably a result of a life of smoking. But friends and family say he was physically strong until the knife attack on him in 1999, and quite weak after that. So they blamed the attack for putting him in a condition where he was unable to fight off the cancer.

At any rate, Harrison's songs weren't covered much in most of the time frame here. Only the first four songs in this volume were recorded prior to his death in 2001. But after he died, there was a flood of tribute concerts and cover versions to celebrate his great musical career.

One thing I want to address here is his role in the Traveling Wilburys, the short-lived supergroup consisting of Harrison, Bob Dylan, Tom Petty, Jeff Lynne, and Roy Orbison. I've tried to include covers of all the good songs Harrison wrote or co-wrote from his Beatles career and his solo career, at least when there are worthy cover versions of them. But with the Traveling Wilburys, I wanted to be more selective. Technically, all the songs on both of that band's albums were co-written by all the members. But in reality, most of them were primarily, or sometimes entirely, written by one member. So it doesn't make sense for me to include a cover of a song like "Tweeter and the Monkey Man" here, when that one clearly sounds like a Bob Dylan song. 

Thus, I did a little digging to figure out which Traveling Wilburys songs could be considered written or co-written by Harrison. Luckily, the band members gave some interviews where they talked about the songwriting process and who did what. I may well have missed some information though, so if anyone thinks I missed some songs by this band that are worthy of inclusion, please let me know.

Another problem I ran into with the Traveling Wilburys is that a few of their songs have been covered a lot, but many of them have very few covers. I had particular trouble with the song "Wilbury Twist." I found a Tom Petty interview where he explained that he co-wrote that one with Harrison, so that meant it merited inclusion. But I didn't find any cover versions I liked. So in the end, I just included the Traveling Wilburys version. I have a rule not to include songs by the songwriter highlighted by the "Covered" series unless there's some special reason. But in this case, a majority of the lead vocals are sung by other members in the band, so it's not exactly a cover of Harrison being the main singer anyway. 

This album is one hour long.

01 Wilbury Twist (Traveling Wilburys)
02 That Kind of Woman (Gary Moore)
03 Cheer Down (Rainer, Joey Burns & John Convertino)
04 I Me Mine (Elliott Smith)
05 Horse to the Water (Jools Holland, Sam Brown & Jim Capaldi)
06 For You Blue (Paul McCartney)
07 Isn't It a Pity (Eric Clapton & Billy Preston)
08 You (Lisa Mychols)
09 When We Was Fab (Wendy Ip)
10 Love You To (Marshall Crenshaw)
11 Wah-Wah (Jeff Lynne & Eric Clapton)
12 Savoy Truffle (They Might Be Giants)
13 Old Brown Shoe (Leslie West)
14 Devil's Radio (Masters of Reality)
15 Give Me Love [Give Me Peace on Earth] (Dave Davies)
16 Long, Long, Long (Elliott Smith)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/TKHomhYi 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2USkcxm1qimgtCf/file

The cover image is from 1986. 

Ry Cooder - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-20-1974

The flood of near daily Ebbets Field radio broadcast continues. This time, the performer is Ry Cooder.

I've already posted albums from Cooder, so I won't say much about him. But I'll note this concert took place a couple of weeks before the release of his album "Paradise and Lunch." It was one of the most acclaimed albums of his music career. However, he only performed one song from that album, the medley of "Fool for a Cigarette - Feelin' Good."

As usual with these Ebbets Field concerts, the music is unreleased and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 56 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Ry Cooder)
02 talk (Ry Cooder)
03 Too Tight Blues (Ry Cooder)
04 You've Been Doing Something Wrong [I Can Tell by the Way You Smell] (Ry Cooder)
05 talk (Ry Cooder)
06 Blind Man Messed Up by Tear Gas (Ry Cooder)
07 talk (Ry Cooder)
08 Great Dream from Heaven [Instrumental] (Ry Cooder)
09 talk (Ry Cooder)
10 How Can a Poor Man Stand Such Times and Live (Ry Cooder)
11 Ax Sweet Mama (Ry Cooder)
12 talk (Ry Cooder)
13 Floating Bridge (Ry Cooder)
14 talk (Ry Cooder)
15 Fool for a Cigarette - Feelin' Good (Ry Cooder)
16 Crazy 'bout an Automobile [Every Woman I Know] (Ry Cooder)
17 talk (Ry Cooder)
18 Feelin' like a Submarine [Kentucky Blues] (Ry Cooder)
19 Don't Take Everybody to Be a Friend (Ry Cooder)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/XMVX3XoT

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/HsIs0PhECz2TXU9/file

The cover image is from an appearance on the "Old Grey Whistle Test" TV show, aired on March 20, 1973.

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 2: 1972-1989

Here's the second volume out of six "Covered" albums celebrating the songwriting of George Harrison.

When this album starts, in 1972, Harrison was seemingly on top of the world. His 1970 solo album "All Things Must Pass" was a huge critical and commercial success, hitting Number One in the U.S., Britain, and many countries. It surprised many by outselling the solo albums of John Lennon and Paul McCartney. 

For the first half of the 1970s, Harrison maintained a very active musical career. In addition to putting out his own solo albums, he produced and/or played on albums by other musical acts. We can see that here, especially with his help for fellow ex-Beatle Ringo Starr. There are no less than five songs here performed by Starr. 

"Back Off Boogaloo" follows the pattern of "Octopus's Garden" and "It Don't Come Easy" on the previous volume, in that it was solely credited to Starr when in fact it was co-written by Harrison. It was a big hit in 1972, especially in Britain, where it made it all the way to Number Two in the singles chart. But while those two songs I just mentioned are still credited only to Starr, in 2017, the official credits for "Back Off Boogaloo" changed to be a co-write with Harrison.

The same pattern continued for Starr's next big hit, "Photograph," which went all the way to Number One in 1973 in the U.S., Canada, and other countries. But this one was the first one to be officially credited to Starr and Harrison from the very beginning. Like all the other Starr songs mentioned above, it seems Starr started it, but needed a lot of help from Harrison to finish it off. Starr later said he was good at writing a verse or two, and a chorus, but then he often would get stuck. He also said of Harrison helping his songwriting in this era, "I only know three chords and he'd stick four more in, and they'd all think I was a genius."

But Harrison also wrote or co-wrote songs for others during this time period: "The Holdup" by David Bromberg, "So Sad (No Love of His Own)" by Alvin Lee and Mylon Lefevre, "Far East Man" by Ron Wood, and "I'll Still Love You (When Every Song Is Sung)" by Cilla Black. In all those cases, the cover versions included here came first. For "So Sad" and "Far East Man," Harrison released his own versions a year or two later.

Here's a fun fact about the version of "Something" by James Brown. That great song has been covered around 1,000 times, making it one of the most covered songs of all time. But Harrison said that Brown's version was his favorite out of all the covers he'd heard. In an interview many years later, he said, "There are a lot of really good versions of 'Something.' But the one that is just a killer, and nobody even knows about it except for a few friends of mine, is the James Brown version of it. He put it out as the flip side to a revamped version of 'Think.' And you gotta play it, it's just unbelievable." He even sent Brown a postcard complimenting him on it and suggesting that it should be released as an A-side instead.

Unfortunately, in the mid-1970s, Harrison lost a lot of the passion he'd had for his music career up until then. Here's a quote taken from a Wikipedia article: "Writing for Rolling Stone in 2002, Mikal Gilmore commented that 'the crises [Harrison] faced in the mid-1970s changed him,' and that depression was a key factor. Depression permeated many of the songs that Harrison wrote during this period, an issue that was not helped by his continued heavy drinking and cocaine use." As a result, he mostly stopped writing songs for others, and put out fewer albums himself. This trend deepened in the 1980s, when he only put out three studio albums, compared to six in the 1970s (with one of them being a double album).

As a result, Harrison's music didn't get the same attention in the 1980s, so there weren't as many covers. That's especially the case since he did very little to promote his career. The only concert tour he took in the 1970s and 1980s was in 1974. Only the last three songs here are from the 1980s. One of those, by the way, "Run So Far," was written for a 1989 album by Eric Clapton. However, Harrison's own version would be released in 2002.

This album is one hour long. 

01 Back Off Boogaloo (Ringo Starr)
02 What Is Life (Olivia Newton-John)
03 The Holdup (David Bromberg)
04 Photograph (Ringo Starr)
05 Something (James Brown)
06 Don't Let Me Wait Too Long (Rotten to the Core)
07 You and Me [Babe] (Ringo Starr)
08 I'd Have You Anytime (Ralfi Pagan)
09 So Sad [No Love of His Own] (Alvin Lee & Mylon Lefevre)
10 Sunshine Life for Me [Sail Away Raymond] (Ringo Starr)
11 Far East Man (Ron Wood)
12 I'll Still Love You [When Every Song Is Sung] (Cilla Black)
13 Dark Horse (Thomas Harris)
14 Wrack My Brain (Ringo Starr)
15 Cloud Nine (Gary B.B. Coleman)
16 Run So Far (Eric Clapton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/PETt92E9 

alternate: 

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

The cover image is from the 1970s, but I don't know the exact year. 

Billy Joel - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-10-1974

Somehow, I keep posting Billy Joel material from the 1970s, before he became a superstar. Here he was at Ebbets Field in Denver in 1974.

In 1973, Joel released his second album, "Piano Man." That contained the song of the same title. That song would go on to be a classic and Joel's signature song, and it would sell millions. But at the time, it was only a modest hit, reaching Number 24 on the US singles chart. It also was his first hit. The single was released in February 1974, so it might have still been on the charts at the time of this concert. 

However, his level of popularity was still pretty small. Consider the fact that the Ebbets Field venue could hold only 250 people at the most.

In October 1974, he would release his third album, "Streetlife Serenade." But he only performed one song from that album in this concert, "The Entertainer." The other songs were all from the "Piano Man" album, except for "Everybody Loves You Now" from his debut album, "Cold Spring Harbor."

This is a pretty short concert. I'm guessing that he did an early show and a late show, and only one of them was broadcast on the radio. He performed this with a small band.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. I don't remember why I put "[Edit]" in the title of "Everybody Loves You Now." Probably, I patched a damaged spot.

This album is 43 minutes long. 

01 Piano Man (Billy Joel)
02 Somewhere Along the Line (Billy Joel)
03 You're My Home (Billy Joel)
04 talk (Billy Joel)
05 Travelin' Prayer (Billy Joel)
06 The Ballad of Billy the Kid (Billy Joel)
07 talk (Billy Joel)
08 My First Impression of Country Western Music (Billy Joel)
09 The Entertainer (Billy Joel)
10 talk (Billy Joel)
11 Everybody Loves You Now [Edit] (Billy Joel)
12 Captain Jack (Billy Joel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/v5YsTWCQ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/zn5rr5SGBF2Ml8w/file

The cover image is from the Troubadour, in Los Angeles, on November 6, 1973.

Covered: George Harrison, Volume 1: 1964-1971

It's time that I tackle a truly great songwriter for the "Covered" series: George Harrison. I hope and assume that anyone reading the blog already knows that he was a member of the Beatles. This series includes songs he wrote while in the Beatles with songs from his long solo career afterwards. I found enough for six volumes.

Harrison is such a famous musician that I'm not going to try to sum up his life or even just his music career. But I do want to write some about the early evolution of his songwriting.

When it came to writing songs, he was a late bloomer. In the Beatles, John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote about 100 songs separately or together before the Beatles released their first album in 1963. (A lot of them were discarded.) Harrison was watching and learning from one of the greatest songwriting teams of all time. But apparently it wasn't until 1963 when he wrote his first complete song, or at least one he considered good enough to show to the other Beatles. His "Don't Bother Me" would appear on the band's second album, "With The Beatles." He wrote it while sick in bed during the summer of 1963. He later said that it was as an exercise to see if he could write a song, and "at least it showed me that all I needed to do was keep on writing, and then maybe eventually I would write something good."

But despite this early success (which, in fact, was a good song), the next two Beatles albums went by without any original Harrison songs on them. (He occasionally sang cover versions on Beatles recordings instead.) He later said that he lacked confidence and found it hard to compete with what he called the many "wondrous hits" written by the Lennon-McCartney team. But then the 1965 Beatles album "Help!" contained two of his songs. From that point on, every Beatles album contained at least one of his songs, usually two, and once three. (There were four on 1968's "The White Album," but that can be seen as two albums with two of his songs each.) He also had the occasional song come out on a B-side or archival release. Ultimately, 22 of his songs were released while the Beatles were together, out of 188 original songs by the band in total. But a few more of his songs trickled out in archival releases, such as "You Know What to Do," "Not Guilty," and "All Things Must Pass." There are still more of his songs the Beatles tried in the studio but remain unreleased. Most of those eventually appeared on his solo albums.

Unfortunately, for many years, Lennon and McCartney underestimated Harrison's songwriting, and didn't do much to encourage him. The two of them were writing so many excellent songs that they weren't keen to find room for many of Harrison's songs as well. But by 1969, that changed. Harrison's two songs for the "Abbey Road" album that year, "Something" and "Here Comes the Sun," aren't just great Beatles songs, they're some of the best and most acclaimed songs of all time. "Something" is one of the most frequently covered songs ever, and as I write this in 2026, "Here Comes the Sun" is the most listened Beatles song on Spotify. 

As a result, Lennon and McCartney could no longer downplay Harrison's songwriting talent. Lennon called "Something" the best song on "Abbey Road." And, in 1969, McCartney said, "I think that until now, until this year, our songs have been better than George's. Now this year his songs are at least as good as ours." Also, decades later, McCartney had this to say: "It was easy to underestimate George because me and John... had always written most of the stuff... and George was a late bloomer as far as writing was concerned. He wasn't that interested in the beginning but then he started to get interested and, boy, did he bloom, you know? He wrote some of the greatest songs ever."

On September 8, 1969, the Beatles had an important meeting about their future plans. Ringo Starr couldn't attend, so the other Beatles made a tape recording of the meeting. That means a recording of exactly what was said has survived. In the meeting, due to the undeniable success of Harrison's songs on "Abbey Road," Harrison was treated as a songwriting equal to Lennon and McCartney, perhaps for the first time within the band. 

Lennon had been drifting away from the Beatles for some time, distracted by his relationship with Yoko Ono and hobbled by a heroin addiction. But in the meeting, he suggested the Beatles record a new album and a new single before the end of 1969, which would have been an ambitious schedule. He also suggested that he, McCartney, and Harrison get four songs each on every Beatles album moving forward, with Starr getting one or two if he wanted. (At this point, Starr had only written two songs on Beatles albums credited solely to him.)

Here's an entire article about that meeting. It's fascinating reading if you're a Beatles fan, with a lot of discussion about Harrison's songwriting and his role in the band: 

https://www.guitarplayer.com/guitarists/john-lennon-plan-to-keep-the-beatles-together

Unfortunately though, later that month, Lennon took part in a rock festival in Toronto, Canada, as a solo artist. That experience went so well for him that it gave him the confidence to want to leave the Beatles and have a solo career instead. About a month after that, he told the other Beatles he was leaving the band, although they kept that a secret for another six months due to wanting to present a united front in a legal dispute they were having with their record company.

However, even after Lennon's announcement he was leaving, there was still a chance the Beatles would continue, releasing more solo albums mixed with Beatles albums where Lennon, McCartney, and Harrison would get four albums each. Here's the audio of a radio interview Harrison did in March 1970 where he talked about the Beatles getting back together later in 1970 to record another album after all four of them did solo albums:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F-fNA3Ee5eM 

Unfortunately, growing problems prevented that from happening, most especially due to financial conflicts between the band members as they fought over management and ended up suing each other. But that meant that by 1970, Harrison had a big backlog of excellent songs he'd been writing. Many of them came out on his classic and very successful solo album "All Things Must Pass" later in 1970. (Technically, it was a triple album, but it's basically a double album of songs because the third album just contains some long jam sessions.) A lot of those were written much earlier, but had been ignored by the other Beatles. For instance, "Isn't It a Pity" was written back in 1966, and had been rejected by the others for both the "Revolver" and "Sgt. Pepper's" albums!

Anyway, let me steer this more to discussing the songs on this volume. Across the six volumes in this series, I have included ALL the songs Harrison wrote for the Beatles, but most of them don't show up until later volumes, just because what I considered the best cover versions didn't happen until years later. Instead, this volume has many songs that Harrison was writing with and/or for other musical acts at the time, since usually the best (and often the only) versions were the first ones. So, for instance, "Sour Milk Sea" was a song he wrote for Jackie Lomax, though Lomax's 1968 single of it didn't make the charts. He co-wrote "Badge" with Eric Clapton, and it was released by the band Clapton was in at the time, Cream. 

"Hurdy Gurdy Man" is an interesting case. Donovan wrote it when he was vacationing in India with the Beatles and others in 1968. It was a big hit, making the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain that year. But it turns out Harrison helped him out, writing a verse of the song by himself. But when the song came out as a single, the Harrison verse was missing. It was cut by the producer, due to the pressure of keeping a single under three minutes. Donovan later regretted this, saying it was the best verse in the song. He has often performed the Harrison verse in concert ever since. Apparently, Harrison was also very disappointed the verse wasn't included. I've used a live solo acoustic version from 1973 that includes that verse. But I put it in 1968 chronologically, since that's when Donovan's version of the song first came out (and when the Harrison verse should have come out as well).

"Octopus's Garden" is another tricky case. Technically, and legally, that song was written solely by Ringo Starr, and was included on the Beatles' "Abbey Road" album. But, in fact, it's pretty obvious to me that while the original idea was Starr's, Harrison played a key role finishing the song. At the time, Starr had barely done any songwriting, and he needed help. Harrison did Starr a favor by not asking for a songwriting credit. In both the "Let It Be" and "The Beatles: Get Back" films, one can actually see footage of Harrison helping him write the song while also teaching songwriting techniques.

Basically, the exact same thing happened with "It Don't Come Easy." The song was released as a solo single by Starr in 1971, and it made the Top Five in both the U.S. and Britain. Here's an except from the Wikipedia entry about the song: "Although Starr received sole writing credit for 'It Don't Come Easy,' Beatles historian Bruce Spizer writes that he had 'substantial, but uncredited, assistance' from his bandmate George Harrison. In author Robert Rodriguez's description, the official songwriting credit was long thought to be 'bogus' and, notwithstanding Starr's involvement, a sign of Harrison's 'great generosity' in wanting to help the drummer establish himself independently of the Beatles." Starr started writing it in 1968 by himself, but he had trouble finishing songs. I would guess Harrison wrote half or more of it.

A couple of songs here you might not recognize, even if you're a big fan of Harrison's music, because he never released his own versions of them: "Ain't That Cute" by Doris Troy, "Sing One for the Lord" by Billy Preston, and "I'm Your Spiritual Breadman" by Ashton, Gardner and Dyke. In each case, he was involved in the production and/or recording of albums by those artists, and got involved enough to write or co-write some songs. "Try Some, Buy Some" by Ronnie Spector was another case of that, but he eventually did release his own version of that one.

This album is 59 minutes long.

01 Don't Bother Me (Gregory Phillips)
02 If I Needed Someone (Hollies)
03 Sour Milk Sea (Jackie Lomax)
04 Hurdy Gurdy Man (Donovan)
05 Badge (Cream)
06 Octopus's Garden (Ringo Starr)
07 My Sweet Lord (Billy Preston)
08 Something (Shirley Bassey)
09 Ain't That Cute (Doris Troy)
10 Sing One for the Lord (Billy Preston)
11 Here Comes the Sun (Richie Havens)
12 Taxman (Junior Parker)
13 It Don't Come Easy (Ringo Starr)
14 I'm Your Spiritual Breadman (Ashton, Gardner & Dyke)
15 Try Some, Buy Some (Ronnie Spector)
16 Let It Down (Stone the Crows)
17 The Inner Light (Jimmy McGriff & Junior Parker)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/MtrvVGxu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/IIi6h8Vu3ZIF8Yh/file

The cover image is from 1965.

Moby Grape - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-8-1974

The next concert coming from the Ebbets Field radio broadcasts is the band Moby Grape.

I really like this band, but they had a cursed history. Rock music author Jeff Tamarkin has written about them: "The Grape's saga is one of squandered potential, absurdly misguided decisions, bad luck, blunders, and excruciating heartbreak, all set to the tune of some of the greatest rock and roll ever to emerge from San Francisco. Moby Grape could have had it all, but they ended up with nothing, and less." Their 1967 debut album, the cleverly titled "Moby Grape," is on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the top 500 albums of all time. 

But things began falling apart as soon as that record was released. One big problem was their manager Matthew Katz, who got them to sign band contracts and basically managed them into the ground. One particular issue was that he took the rights to the name "Moby Grape." To get around this, in later years, the band would use a variety of other names instead, such as Mosley Grape, Legendary Grape, Maby Grope, Fine Wine, and The Melvilles! I don't know what they were billed as for this show, but hopefully everyone attending knew they were really Moby Grape.

By 1974, the band had had break-ups and key members departing, and sometimes returning. Around 1974, three of the five original members were still in the band: Peter Lewis, Jerry Miller, and Bob Mosley. Additionally, Jeff Blackburn and Johnny Craviotto filled in for other departed members. Blackburn, by the way, co-wrote "My, My, Hey, Hey" with Neil Young.

Here's the band's Wikipedia page:

Moby Grape - Wikipedia

At first, I thought this concert had been officially released, because I found a version with an entire professional appearing booklet of photos and relevant text. But it turns out that's just a well done "grey market" release. (That means it has been legally released in Europe only due to the copyright laws there, but the artists get none of the profits.)   

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Changes - Fall on You (Moby Grape)
02 Ain't No Secret (Moby Grape)
03 Hey Grandma (Moby Grape)
04 Murder in My Heart for the Judge (Moby Grape)
05 Gypsy Wedding (Moby Grape)
06 Miller's Blues (Moby Grape)
07 Window into My Soul (Moby Grape)
08 Gone Dead Train (Moby Grape)
09 Pan American (Moby Grape)
10 Silver Wheels (Moby Grape)
11 talk (Moby Grape)
12 Get On Up (Moby Grape)
13 Can't Be So Bad (Moby Grape)
14 Omaha (Moby Grape)
15 talk (Moby Grape)
16 Going Down (Moby Grape) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/THvT4vjz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/D6EMMNr0m52Mq3r/file 

There are so few photos of the band in the 1970s that I had to resort to using one from 1978. That's Jerry Miller on the left and Peter Lewis on the right at the Civic Center Plaza, in San Francisco, in February, 1978.

The Strawbs - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 3-4-1974

Here we go again with another Ebbets Field radio broadcast recording. This time, it's the British band the Strawbs in 1974.

The Strawbs were formed in 1963, but it took them a while to get going. They released their first album in 1969. They gained momentum, and by the time of this concert, they were near their peak of popularity. In 1973, they had their two biggest hits, "Part of the Union" and "Lay Down." 

However, there was a problem. "Part of the Union," which went all the way to Number Two in Britain, was written by band members Richard Hudson and John Ford, while "Lay Down" was written by band member Dave Cousins. A power struggle ensued. Hudson and Ford left in 1973 and started their own musical duo, "Hudson Ford." They had a couple of big hits on their own. In fact, other band members left, leaving just Cousins, plus another member, Dave Lambert, to recruit more people to fill out the band again.

They released a new album, "Hero and Heroine," the same month this concert took place. That album would give them another Top Forty hit in Britain, "Shine on Silver Sun." But that would prove to be the band's last significant hit. The band would disband in 1980, a victim of changing musical trends. But they would reunite later in the 1980s, and stayed together in different permutations until 2023. Cousins, the clear leader and main songwriter, died in 2025 at the age of 85.

Here's the Wikipedia page if you want to know more:

Strawbs - Wikipedia

I was surprised to see the band didn't perform "Part of the Union," since that was their biggest hit. But that made a lot more sense when I realized it was written by two members who had just left the band the year before. However, more surprising is they also apparently didn't perform "Shine on Silver Sun," the hit from the album released the exact same month as this concert. Oh well.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. It's been a while, but if I recall correctly, I think I boosted the vocals on all the songs (using the MVSEP program), since they were somewhat low in the mix. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long.

01 talk by emcee (Strawbs)
02 talk (Strawbs)
03 New World (Strawbs)
04 talk (Strawbs)
05 Lay Down (Strawbs)
06 talk (Strawbs)
07 Autumn (Strawbs)
08 talk (Strawbs)
09 Tears and Pavan (Strawbs)
10 talk (Strawbs)
11 Just Love (Strawbs)
12 talk (Strawbs)
13 Out in the Cold (Strawbs)
14 Round and Round (Strawbs)
15 Lay a Little Light on Me (Strawbs)
16 talk (Strawbs)
17 Hero and Heroine (Strawbs)
18 talk (Strawbs)
19 The River (Strawbs)
20 Down by the Sea (Strawbs)
21 talk by emcee (Strawbs)
22 Why and Wherefore (Strawbs)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3VG73ntm 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/DtGJ8dVsAbs5pyu/file 

The cover image is taken from an appearance on the "Midnight Special" TV show, which aired on March 15, 1974.

Elvis Costello - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 11-12-2013

Here's another concert from the April 2026 leak of dozens of soundboard recordings from the Capitol Theatre in Port Chester, New York. This is an Elvis Costello solo acoustic concert.

In September 2013, Costello released his latest studio album, "Wake Up Ghost," supported by the band the Roots. So one would think this concert just two months later would promote that. But no, you would wrong. Even this concert was over two hours long, only two of the songs were from that album ("Cinco Minutos con Vos" and "Tripwire"). Instead, it seemed he played whatever he felt like playing from all points in his career, including some obscurities. Then, in early 2014, he returned to this venue backed by the Roots, and performed a more typical concert promoting the "Wake Up Ghost" album. A recording of that concert has been leaked as well, and I'd like to post it eventually.

Some improvements were made by this recording by my musical associate Lil Panda. I made some additional minor changes on top of that, such as boosting the volume of the cheering at the ends of some songs, since that usually was quite low, as is the case for many soundboard bootlegs. I also boosted the volume of most of the banter between songs.

If you're a big Elvis Costello fan, this is a good concert for you, because he only played a few of his hits and made a lot of unexpected but interesting selections instead. And the sound quality can't be beat.

By the way, when this appeared in the leak I mentioned above, it was labeled as a 2012 concert. But I found out it definitely was a 2013 concert instead. The proof is from this page from an Elvis Costello fan site:

https://www.elviscostello.info/wiki/index.php?title=Concert_2013-11-12_Port_Chester

It links to a newspaper review of the concert, which removes all doubt about the date. It also has some other interesting things related to this concert. For instance, that's where I got the photo for the cover. 

This album is two hours and 12 minutes long. 

01 King Horse (Elvis Costello)
02 Either Side of the Same Town (Elvis Costello)
03 Little Triggers (Elvis Costello)
04 talk (Elvis Costello)
05 Sneaky Feelings (Elvis Costello)
06 talk (Elvis Costello)
07 Crimes of Paris (Elvis Costello)
08 talk (Elvis Costello)
09 Town Cryer (Elvis Costello)
10 talk (Elvis Costello)
11 Starting to Come to Me (Elvis Costello)
12 After the Fall (Elvis Costello)
13 Watching the Detectives (Elvis Costello)
14 The Long Honeymoon (Elvis Costello)
15 The Delivery Man (Elvis Costello)
16 talk (Elvis Costello)
17 Walkin' My Baby Back Home (Elvis Costello)
18 Beyond Belief (Elvis Costello)
19 Human Hands (Elvis Costello)
20 Party Girl (Elvis Costello)
21 talk (Elvis Costello)
22 Almost Blue (Elvis Costello)
23 talk (Elvis Costello)
24 The Flirting Kind (Elvis Costello)
25 talk (Elvis Costello)
26 Shipbuilding (Elvis Costello)
27 Cinco Minutos con Vos (Elvis Costello)
28 Alison (Elvis Costello)
29 In Another Room (Elvis Costello)
30 A Slow Drag with Josephine (Elvis Costello)
31 Blue Chair (Elvis Costello)
32 talk (Elvis Costello)
33 Dirty Rotten Shame [Edit] (Elvis Costello)
34 Jimmie Standing in the Rain (Elvis Costello)
35 I Want You (Elvis Costello)
36 [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)
37 Tripwire - [What's So Funny 'Bout] Peace, Love and Understanding (Elvis Costello)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/berEjnCv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/YwJdSSi5H1BmYT6/file

The cover photo isn't the best, for instance, with his face partly covered in shadow. But it's the best I could find, since it hat was casting a shadow on his face nearly all the time. I used it because it's from this exact concert. It's a screenshot I took from a video.  

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 4: 2016-2026 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

In recent days, I've been posting four alternate "Covered" album by Neil Young. As I explained previously, I mostly picked the songs in the ten volume "Covered" series for him. But these four are the turn for guest poster Fabio from Rio to make the picks. This is the fourth and last of those alternates.

There's not much else to say that I didn't say in previous write-ups. However, I'll reiterate that, for these four alternate volumes as a whole, about half the songs are different versions of songs on the original ten-volume "Covered" series, and the other half are songs that didn't get included there. But I'd say on this volume, only a few are unique, like "Ramada Inn," "Hey Babe," and "Human Race." And there actually are two versions of "Pressure" in these alternate albums, and none in the original 10-volume series.

Thanks again for Fabio for his role in making all these albums, both the original series and this series of alternates.  

This album is an hour and five minutes long. 

01 Pressure (Ossifer)
02 Expecting to Fly (Jakob Dylan & Regina Spektor)
03 Ambulance Blues (Jeff Rosenstock, Laura Stevenson)
04 The Losing End (Bill Janovitz)
05 Thrasher (Scott the Hoople)
06 Like an Inca (Lukas Nelson & Promise of the Real)
07 Ramada Inn (Scott the Hoople)
08 Hey Babe (Jeff Rosenstock & Laura Stevenson)
09 Human Race (Bernhard Schafers)
10 Lotta Love (Juliana Hatfield)
11 Give Me Strength (Emma Swift)
12 Such a Woman (Charlie Greene)
13 Comes a Time (Lena Hall)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/x61VMjCZ 

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/0rXP3r6JnwvGlv0/file

The cover image is from 2012 or thereabouts.

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Art's Bar and Grill, Boulder, CO, 5-2-1973

Mere minutes ago, I posted a concert of Zephyr with Tommy Bolin performed at the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado, in May, 1973. I'm posting this similar one immediately thereafter because I actually strongly recommend you listen to this one instead, unless you're a die-hard fan and want both. The issue is sound quality. The two concerts are similar, but this one sounds much better.

I gave a lot of explanation to the Ebbets Field concert I just posted that also applies here. But I guess I'll give a quick summary for those who didn't read the write-up for that album. The band Zephyr was formed in 1968 in the Boulder, Colorado area. Candy Givens was a charismatic lead singer and Tommy Bolin was an exceptionally talented lead guitarist. Bolin left the band in 1971 after two albums. The band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

Then, in the summer of 1973, Bolin had some free time between commitments for his band at the time, the James Gang. So he agreed to play a handful of reunion concerts with Zephyr, just in the Boulder and Denver area. This concert was professionally recorded, and officially released in 1997 under the name "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As I write this in 2026, it's the only officially released Zephyr live album.

So, since this has been officially released, why am I posting it? That goes against my usual policy. It's because there was a serious flaw to the official release: the lead vocals were so low in the mix, they were almost inaudible. Here's a fan review I found of this album at the Discogs website, that sums up the problem: "Great example of Tommy Bolin's guitar playing. Amazing. Only issue is the mix has poor vocals. Great singer but can't hear her."

I guess in 1997 when this album was released, that problem would have been very difficult to fix. But now, anybody can fix it with ease, due to massive improvements in audio editing technology. So I fixed it. I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. Then I drastically boosted the volume of the vocals, and then merged the two parts back together. The result is like night and day, in my opinion. Before, the album was pretty much unlistenable, unless you treated it as an all instrumental album. But now it sounds just fine, like a well recorded live album from that time period.

So that's why I'm posting this, despite it being officially released. Also, I checked, and that release is out of print. 

If you compare this with the Ebbets Field concert recording, there are some songs performed on that one not performed here, and vice versa. As I said, if you're a big fan, you might want to hear both. But if you only want one, I would definitely make it this one, due to the sound quality. 

This album is an hour and nine minutes long.

01 Just Warming Up [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Boom-Ba-Boom [Instrumental] (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Somebody Listen (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Huna Buna (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
08 Crazy 'bout You (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
09 Goin' Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
10 Hard Chargin' Woman (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZP8XjRwQ

alternate:

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

In 1970, Zephyr appeared on a local PBS TV show, simply called "The Show." Video footage of that performance survives. So I took a screenshot from that video for the cover image. Candy Givens is seen as the lead singer, with Tommy Bolin on guitar behind her.

Zephyr with Tommy Bolin - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 5-24-1973

Before I say anything else, I want to warn you about the sound quality here. A big reason I've been prioritizing the posting of concerts from the Ebbets Field venue is due to the consistently high sound quality. But this is an exception. This sounds markedly worse than any other recording from this venue that I've posted so far. I'm guessing it's an audience boot instead of a radio broadcast. So listener beware.

The main draw for this concert is lead guitarist Tommy Bolin, whose reputation has continued to grow since his untimely death in 1976. He was a member of the band Zephyr when that band started out in 1968. The main appeal of the band was that it paired Bolin's obvious guitar talents with the singing of Candy Givens, a woman whose singing had similarities to the singing of Janis Joplin. Zephyr put out albums in 1969 and 1971. They toured the U.S., but they didn't manage to get a commercial breakthrough. In 1971, just after the band's second album was released, Bolin left the band, due to growing personality conflicts in the band. The rest of the band continued without him, releasing another album in 1972.

In the summer of 1973, Bolin was at loose ends. He had joined the band the James Gang early in 1973. But that band had some time off between recording an album and when it would be released in September. Bolin was living in Boulder. Someone came up with the idea of Bolin reuniting with Zephyr for a few concerts just in the Boulder and Denver area. It would just be for fun, and to make a little money, since he was already committed to being a part of the James Gang. So this was one of a very small number of shows. I'm calling it "Zephyr with Tommy Bolin," because while he had been a member, he was no longer a member. 

As it turned out, Zephyr fizzled out shortly after these reunion shows. The band got back together in 1976 and continued onward. However, it only released one more album, in 1982. Then the band ended for good in 1984, when lead singer Candy Givens died of a drug and alcohol overdose.

I was disappointed that this concert doesn't sound very good. I tried to do some audio editing to improve things, but I could only do so much with the raw material. Then I noticed that another one of these reunion shows was actually released as an official live album, the only live album from the band. That release has the informative title "Zephyr Live at Art's Bar and Grill May 2, 1973." As you can see, that took place just three weeks prior to this concert, at a small club in Boulder.

So I gave that album a listen. The sound quality is much better than this one. But there was a fatal flaw: the lead vocals were extremely low in the mix, almost inaudible. So I decided to fix that, and then post that album too. I strongly recommend you actually listen to that album instead of this one, due to the drastically different sound quality. But, since I'm posting all the Ebbets Field concerts I can get my hands on, I'm posting this one too. If you're a real die-hard fan of Zephyr and/or Tommy Bolin, you might want both.

Here's the Wikipedia entry on Zephyr, though it's not very thorough. As I write this in May 2026, it doesn't even mention the 1973 reunion with Bolin.

Zephyr (band) - Wikipedia  

This album is 52 minutes long.

01 Cross the River (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
02 The Locomotion (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
03 Lay Down and Die (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
04 Rock Me, Baby (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
05 Going Home (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
06 The Creator Has a Master Plan (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)
07 Sail On (Zephyr with Tommy Bolin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/59iXMozo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/1zqAVNC1EVqMtR9/file

The cover image has major quality issues, just like the music for this album. But I chose it over other options because this is an actual photo taken inside the Ebbets Field venue! It's the first one I've found that fits with one of the albums I want to post. That's Candy Givens playing harmonica with a bandana on her head, and Tommy Bolin on guitar. 

I could have tried to improve this image in various ways, but I didn't want to spend a lot of time on it since the album has issues anyway.

Nick Lowe - Party of One Demos (1988)

I really need to post more Nick Lowe albums. I have a bunch ready to go, but I'm so swamped I never get around to them. However, this is something I only discovered a few days ago (as I write this in May 2026), so it went to the top of my pile of stuff to post.

In 1990, Lowe released the album "Party of One." It was a good album - in my opinion, all of Lowe's albums are at least good - but it didn't sell that well. Somehow, an album's worth of demos from that album has been leaked to the public, with excellent sound quality. It contains all the songs from that album, plus seven more (tracks 6, 9, 11, 13, 14, 16, and 18). Two of those extras ended up as bonus tracks for the album (tracks 9 and 14). Another two (tracks 11 and 18) wound up on a 1992 album by a band he briefly joined, "Little Village." Another one, the great "I Live on a Battlefield," appeared on his next studio album in 1994, "The Impossible Bird." That leaves "I've Got Work to Do" and "Love's Been Gone Too Long" still unreleased.

On the "Party of One" album, all the songs were performed with a full band. Whereas this is just Lowe on vocals and guitar, though the songs are fairly fleshed out. He often added bass and backing vocals as well. Personally, I like this stripped down version better than the album version.

Everything here is unreleased except for two songs: "Rocky Road" and "Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive." These exact versions of those have shown up on a "Party of One" EP.

This album is 58 minutes long. 

01 You Got the Look I Like (Nick Lowe)
02 Shting-Shtang (Nick Lowe)
03 I Don't Know Why You Keep Me On (Nick Lowe)
04 [I Want to Build A] Jumbo Ark (Nick Lowe)
05 What's Shakin' on the Hill (Nick Lowe)
06 Love's Been Gone Too Long (Nick Lowe)
07 All Men Are Liars (Nick Lowe)
08 Refrigerator White (Nick Lowe)
09 You Stabbed Me in the Front (Nick Lowe)
10 Honey Gun (Nick Lowe)
11 Fool Who Knows (Nick Lowe)
12 Who Was That Man (Nick Lowe)
13 Rocket Coast (Nick Lowe)
14 I've Got Work to Do (Nick Lowe)
15 Gai-Gin Man (Nick Lowe)
16 I Live on a Battlefield (Nick Lowe)
17 Rocky Road (Nick Lowe)
18 Don't Think about Her When You're Trying to Drive (Nick Lowe) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qgCNMcrb

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/nNPgZSSrFS9rhf2/file

The cover image is supposed to have been taken in London in 1989. The original was in black and white. But, as I usually do, I used the Kolorize program to colorize it. For his hair, I checked with color images from around this time, and he'd already gone totally grey/white. 

The Four Tops - BBC In Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 2-24-1989

I've only come across one concert the Four Tops did for the BBC. Perhaps one or more will come along, and I'll be forced to rename this one. But for now, here it is.

I would prefer if this concert took place earlier in their career. But 1989 isn't a bad time, because they had hits right up until then. The band had some lean years in the late 1970s and much of the 1980s, many of them with no hits, or only minor hits. But they did occasionally have a bit hit, such as "When She Was My Girl" in 1981, which just missed the Top Ten in the U.S. and made it to Number Three in Britain. They also had a big hit with "Loco in Acapulco," which was co-written by Phil Collins and Lamont Dozier, of the great Holland-Dozier-Holland songwriting team for Motown Records. In 1988, that song missed the Top 100 entirely in the U.S., but it made the Top Ten in Britain. Another song from that same year, "Indestructible," did make the Top Forty in the U.S., as well as in Britain.

The year of 1989 is also a good time for a concert recording, because it was the effective end of the band as a creative entity. They only released one more album after this, in 1995, and it consisted of covers of Christmas songs. It's also great that the band still consisted of all four original members at this point. That would continue until one of the members died in 1997.

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good, though not great. One problem was that the vocals were low in the mix. So I fixed that by running all the songs through the UVR5 program, and adjusting the balance. 

This album is 31 minutes long.

01 Reach Out, I'll Be There [Instrumental Version] (Four Tops)
02 Loco in Acapulco (Four Tops)
03 7 Rooms of Gloom (Four Tops)
04 When She Was My Girl (Four Tops)
05 Bernadette (Four Tops)
06 Mean Green Mother from Outer Space - Bernadette [Reprise] (Four Tops)
07 Walk Away Renee (Four Tops)
08 Reach Out, I'll Be There - Standing in the Shadows of Love - I Can't Help Myself (Four Tops)
09 Indestructible (Four Tops) 

NOTE: When posting this link, I got a Firefox warning that bestfile isn't secure. So it wouldn't let me download this link. I think it's having an issue with any bestfile link. Please let me know if this is happening to you as well. I hope this is just a temporary glitch. This is another time I'm glad I'm posting two links.

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ugijmDC9

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/user/files/PI6NSVQgN7s1BFn/edit

The cover photo is from a TV show appearance in Hof, Germany on March 4, 1989.

Buddy Guy - Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 7-28-2018

I've been a bit slow about it, but I'm still sometimes posting concerts from the April 2026 leak of soundboard recordings from Port Chester. Here's one for blues legend Buddy Guy.

I've posted music from Guy before, so I'll just include a Wikipedia link if you're not familiar:

Buddy Guy - Wikipedia

Guy is one of those blues musicians who have seemingly played music forever. He is 89 years old as I write this, and he's still touring! At the time of this concert, he was 82.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent (but in mono). 

This album is an hour and 33 minutes long.

01 talk (Buddy Guy)
02 Damn Right, I've Got the Blues (Buddy Guy)
03 Hoochie Coochie Man (Buddy Guy)
04 She's Nineteen Years Old - Cheaper to Keep Her (Buddy Guy)
05 I Just Want to Make Love to You (Buddy Guy)
06 Chicken Heads (Buddy Guy)
07 Five Long Years (Buddy Guy)
08 talk (Buddy Guy)
09 Feels like Rain (Buddy Guy)
10 talk (Buddy Guy)
11 Cognac (Buddy Guy)
12 All Around the World [Grits Ain't Groceries] - Sunshine of Your Love (Buddy Guy)
13 talk (Buddy Guy)
14 Who's Making Love (Buddy Guy)
15 Boom Boom (Buddy Guy)
16 talk (Buddy Guy)
17 Strange Brew (Buddy Guy)
18 Someone Else Is Steppin' In (Buddy Guy)
19 talk (Buddy Guy)
20 Voodoo Child [Slight Return] (Buddy Guy)
21 Instrumental (Buddy Guy)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UpJQDa1P

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/SE4LGQy0yZa3f0X/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. 

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 3: 2007-2016 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the third volume out of four containing alternates to the "Covered" volumes made for the songs of Neil Young.

As with the other volumes in this series, the song selections were almost entirely made by guest poster Fabio from Rio. I just made a few small suggestions. So thanks again to him for his work on this.

I've already said pretty much all I wanted to say in Volumes 1 and 2 in this series, so look to that for more commentary. Also, Fabio wrote some liner notes, which are included in the download zip. (But they're the same notes for all four volumes.) 

This album is one hour long.

01 Bandit (Liam Titcomb)
02 Sugar Mountain (Harpoondodger & Pat Robitaille)
03 Long May You Run (Chris Seldon)
04 Wonderin' (Nils Lofgren)
05 Coupe de Ville (Jens Severin & Helpless)
06 I Am a Child (Eliza Gilkyson, John Gorka & Lucy Kaplansky)
07 Words [Between the Lines of Age] (Chip Taylor)
08 You and Me (Trappers Cabin)
09 On the Way Home (America)
10 Lost in Space (Cosmo D)
11 Shots (Max Spada)
12 Can't Stop Workin' (Minus 5)
13 Hangin' on a Limb (Hall - Eserstam)
14 Country Home (Ragged Glory Holes)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HkT8kKJb

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/tNUkYbG4WCAjmCj/file

The cover image is from 2005.

Ray Charles with Sarah Vaughan - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 4-30-1976

I haven't posted any episodes of the "Midnight Special" TV show in a while, since I've been focused on Ebbets Field concerts and some other things. But don't worry, I always get back to unfinished projects sooner or later. Here's an episode hosted by Ray Charles, with Sarah Vaughan as his guest.

In case you're not aware, the people behind this TV show are posting one "new" episode a week, and have been doing that for a few years now. When I say "new," I mean most of these had been lost to history until they post high quality versions. Lately, as I write this in May 2026, they've made it from 1973 to early 1976. I've been disappointed with many of their recently posted episodes though. For some reason, in early 1976, the show was heavily dominated by Helen Reddy, who was that main host practically every week. But just yesterday as I write this, they posted an episode that really caught my interest. It was the first time Charles had been on the show since 1973. (I've posted an album of that show already, so check it out.) So that alone was interesting for me. But even better was that Sarah Vaughan was his main guest, resulting in them singing a couple of songs together. 

It's true that Charles and Vaughan had their peak years in the 1950s and 1960s (and in Vaughan's case also the 1940s). But they still had all their musical powers in the 1970s; it's just that popular musical tastes had changed. Both sound great here. Charles even was keeping up with the times in a good way with a cover of "Living for the City," a hit for Stevie Wonder in 1973.

Vaughan was not the only guest. The others were: the Bay City Rollers, Cate Brothers, Freddy Fender, and Aaron Williams, who did ventriloquist comedy. I strongly suspect Charles requested Vaughan to be on the show, but the likes of the Bay City Rollers had nothing to do with him.

As usual for this TV show, the music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent. 

This album is 37 minutes long. 

01 Every Saturday Night (Ray Charles)
02 talk (Wolfman Jack)
03 talk (Ray Charles)
04 Georgia on My Mind (Ray Charles)
05 talk (Ray Charles)
06 The Man I Love (Sarah Vaughan)
07 Living for the City (Ray Charles)
08 I'm Gonna Keep On Singin' (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)
09 What'd I Say (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)
10 Blues for Big Scotia (Ray Charles)
11 America the Beautiful (Ray Charles)
12 What'd I Say [Reprise] (Ray Charles & Sarah Vaughan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/nGUFdxSg

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/xnID8H3LUUvVjkc/file

The cover image is a screenshot I took from a video of this exact concert. Actually, I took three: one of the whole scene, one of Charles' head and one of Vaughan's head. Then I brought them together in Photoshop. That allowed more detail in those areas. 

Howlin' Wolf with Detroit Junior - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 8-23-1973

Enjoy your daily dose of Ebbets Field radio broadcasts while they last. Here's a concert by blues legend Howlin' Wolf. I've been wanting to post some music from his for ages, but I didn't have anything I considered worthy. Now, finally, I do. However, be mindful that only the second half of this recording actually features Howlin' Wolf. The first half mostly stars another blues musician, Detroit Junior.

It's important to keep in mind that Howlin' Wolf's health was in a bad way by the time this concert happened. He was only 62 years old in 1973. Sure, that's old, but not so old compared to some blues musicians. For instance, B.B. King performed over 300 concerts a year well into his 80s, and kept touring until one year before his death at the age of 89. But starting in 1969, Wolf had a number of serious health issues. He had a heart attack that year. The next year, he got in a serious car accident that forced him to be on dialysis for the rest of his life. Then in 1971, he had another heart attack. His blood pressure and kidneys kept getting worse. Despite all that, he kept touring occasionally and even increased the number of concerts he did in 1973. He would keep touring in 1974 and 1975 until his health issues just got to be too much. He died in early 1976 at the age of 65.

Due to these many problems, his band leader Eddie Shaw put his foot down and limited Wolf to just six songs per concert. In this concert he only did five songs, but one of them, "Goin' Down Slow," lasted over nine minutes, so that easily counted for two.

I don't want to summarize Wolf's entire career. Here's Wikipedia for that:

Howlin' Wolf - Wikipedia 

Unfortunately, only performing six songs that last a total of about 30 minutes isn't good value for a typical concert-goer, even if it was to see a blues legend. So that's why the first half of the concert was dominated by Wolf's backing band, especially singer and pianist Detroit Junior (birth name Emery Williams, Jr.). He was a reasonably well known blues figure in his own right. Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Detroit Junior - Wikipedia

Someone else worth a mention is Hubert Sumlin. He didn't do any singing in this concert, but he was the lead guitarist. He joined Wolf's band in 1954, and was basically his musical right hand man for the rest of Wolf's life. Rolling Stone magazine ranked him number 43 on their list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. Here's his entry:

Hubert Sumlin - Wikipedia

Although Wolf's health was failing, he still sounded exactly like you'd expect. In my opinion, 1973 was his last good year before his health problems started to be really noticeable in his music. That was the year he released his last studio album, "The Back Door Wolf," which is an album I quite like.  

This album is 58 minutes long. Just the Howlin' Wolf portion is 28 minutes. 

01 talk by emcee (Detroit Junior)
02 Talk to My Baby (Detroit Junior)
03 talk (Detroit Junior)
04 I Can't Stop Loving You [Instrumental] (Detroit Junior)
05 talk (Detroit Junior)
06 Your Love Is Creeping Away from Me (Detroit Junior)
07 talk (Detroit Junior)
08 Baby Workout (Detroit Junior)
09 talk (Detroit Junior)
10 How Blue Can You Get (Detroit Junior)
11 talk (Detroit Junior)
12 What'd I Say (Detroit Junior)
13 talk (Detroit Junior)
14 Little Red Rooster (Howlin' Wolf)
15 Going Down Slow [Edit] (Howlin' Wolf)
16 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
17 Killing Floor (Howlin' Wolf)
18 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
19 Shake for Me (Howlin' Wolf)
20 talk (Howlin' Wolf)
21 Goodbye Instrumental (Howlin' Wolf)
22 talk by emcee (Howlin' Wolf)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/qzeCBjBo

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/uOMFPh1ttZRG1L6/file

The cover image is from a concert at the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival, in the Municipal Auditorium in New Orleans, on April 12, 1973.

Covered: Neil Young: Alternates, Volume 2: 2001-2007 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the second volume out of four, of alternates for Neil Young's "Covered" series. As I explained in my write-up for Volume 1, guest poster Fabio from Rio did most of the legwork finding cover versions for the original ten volumes, but I had most of the say in picking which ones were ultimately chosen. So these four alternate volumes are kind of Fabio's "revenge," because he did the picking. There were only one or two songs I pointed out I didn't think were that strong.

There's not much else to say. As with Volume 1, about half the songs are different versions of covers chosen in the original ten volumes, and about half the songs are ones that only show up in these alternates volumes. 

This album is an hour and three minutes long. 

01 Dreamin' Man (Freebo)
02 Pressure (Ned Whattakiller)
03 This Note's for You (Royal Cat Club)
04 Pocahontas (Johnny Cash)
05 On the Beach (Radiohead)
06 Let It Shine (Ad Vanderveen)
07 Falling from Above (Jamey Darnold)
08 Hawks and Doves (Scott Miller & the Commonwealth)
09 Red Sun (Charlie Macon)
10 Without Rings (Scott Sandi)
11 The Needle and the Damage Done (Jorane)
12 Families (Gil Michaels)
13 Helpless (Elk City)
14 Cortez the Killer (Carrie Rodriguez with Tim Easton)
15 Ohio - Find the Cost of Freedom (Dalia)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ySf9gd4c

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/BLbNlIQ1jzvddqu/file

The cover image is from 1991 or thereabouts.