James Gang - Allen Theater, Cleveland, OH, 2-24-2001

Here's a concert by the James Gang, Joe Walsh's band in the late 1960s and early 1970s. It's from a rare reunion in 2001.

I recently came across an audience bootleg recording of the James Gang performing at the Fillmore West in 1970. I thought, "great, with the latest improvements in audio editing technology, I can upgrade that into something worth listening." But the sound quality was too poor to be redeemable. However, I also noticed a soundboard concert from 2001. It was better in every way than the 1970 recording, including being much longer. The only problem was the date. But I figure, what the hell, it's too bad we can't get a concert recording like this of the band in their prime, but at least we got one. (Plus, there is a good official live album, "James Gang Live in Concert," from 1971.)

Compared to most bands from their era, there haven't been that many James Gang reunions. Probably that's because the leader of the band, Joe Walsh, had a very successful solo career, as well as a career with the Eagles. The two other band members, Jim Fox and Dale Peters, kept the James Gang going through most of the 1970s, including having a few notable years with Tommy Bolin on lead guitar. However, they broke up the band by the end of the 1970s. 

The classic line-up of Walsh, Fox, and Peters first reunited in 1991, playing three songs at an encore of a Joe Walsh concert. They played a few songs again in 1996 and 1998. But their very first full song together since 1971 was this one. They played a few songs at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland on February 22, 2001. Then this concert happened two days later, also in Cleveland. They did one more concert at the same venue one day later. But that was the extent of their 2001 reunion.

They got together to play two concerts in 2005. Then there was a short tour in 2006, with about 17 concerts. After that, it was a long time until they played again. They played three times in 2022. There haven't been any reunions since, and there may not be, given how all of them are in their late 70s as I write this in 2026. I haven't been able to find any recordings with soundboard level quality from their 2006 tour or any other reunions. So we're lucky at least we have this one.

The vocals were pretty low in the mix. So I used the MVSEP program to boost them relative to the instruments. Also, the cheering at the ends of songs was pretty quiet. But there was enough there that I was usually able to increase the volume of those parts to make it sound like a more reasonable amount of cheering. 

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long. 

01 Walk Away (James Gang)
02 Midnight Man (James Gang)
03 Take a Look Around (James Gang)
04 Ashetton Park [Instrumental] (James Gang)
05 The Bomber (James Gang)
06 talk (James Gang)
07 talk (James Gang)
08 Garden Gate (James Gang)
09 talk (James Gang)
10 Collage (James Gang)
11 Ashes, the Rain and I (James Gang)
12 talk (James Gang)
13 Tend the Garden (James Gang)
14 Stop (James Gang)
15 Personal Manager (James Gang)
16 Lost Woman (James Gang)
17 Funk No. 49 (James Gang)
18 Rocky Mountain Way (James Gang)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/7GXQ4fJ4

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/iRevOuiegW4LfJ3/file

I couldn't find any good photos from the band's brief 2001 reunion. So this comes from the time of their next reunion, in 2006. Specifically, it's from back stage at a concert at the Northfork Theatre in Westbury, Connecticut, on August 12, 2006. From right to left: guitarist Joe Walsh, drummer Jim Fox, and bassist Dale Peters.

Bettye LaVette - Soulville - Non-Album Tracks (2017-2023)

I've been posting a few Bettye LaVette albums lately. Here's another one. It's another collection of non-album tracks, from 2017 to 2023. This gets us caught up to current day, since I didn't find any non-album tracks worthy of inclusion since 2023.

Six of the songs here are unreleased: tracks 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 12. All of them are from concert bootlegs. They generally come from tribute concerts. I removed the audience cheering from all of them so they'd fit in better with the studio tracks.

Tracks 1 and 3 come from the deluxe edition of "Music from The American Epic Sessions." Track 4 is from the Todd Rundgren album "White Knight." Tracks 8 and 11 are from tribute albums. For more details, look at the mp3 tags for each song, as usual.

This album is 52 minutes long. 

01 Nobody's Dirty Business (Bettye LaVette)
02 Jingle Bells - White Christmas - This Christmas (Bettye LaVette)
03 When I Woke Up This Morning (Bettye LaVette)
04 Naked and Afraid (Todd Rundgren & Bettye LaVette)
05 Person to Person (Bettye LaVette)
06 Ain't No Way (Bettye LaVette)
07 Soulville (Bettye LaVette)
08 Loser (Dave McMurray with Bettye LaVette & Bob Weir)
09 On Your Way Down (Little Feat & Bettye LaVette)
10 A Apolitical Blues - Long Distance Call (Little Feat & Bettye LaVette)
11 Call It Stormy Monday (Count Basie Orchestra with Bettye LaVette)
12 The Man I Love (Bettye LaVette)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cgPapJ5S

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/9QsaHww5PLK38MI/file

The cover photo was taken at the Apollo Theater in New York City on April 4, 2019. I used Photoshop to remove some writing on the wall behind her head.

Neil Sedaka with Helen Reddy - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 2-14-1975

Singer-songwriter Neil Sedaka died just two days ago as I write this. Specifically, he died on February 27, 2026, at the age of 86. Reports say he was in good health, eating at a restaurant just two days earlier, then had a sudden medical emergency. I wasn't going to post something to mark his death if I didn't have some album worthy of posting. But, as it turns out, I actually have two worthy albums. I've been posting episodes of the "Midnight Special" TV show for months now. I hadn't gotten around to making albums for him. But I quickly did that after I heard about his death. So here's the first one.

Sedaka was a big star in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Unlike most big stars at that time, he not only co-wrote most of his hits, along with songwriting partner Howard Greenfield, he and Greenfield wrote many hits for others. But then musical tastes changed in 1964 with the rise of the Beatles and Bob Dylan and others, and he fell off the charts for a long time. However, he'd never lost his performing talent, or his songwriting talent, and he had a major comeback in the mid-1970s. His song "That's When the Music Takes Me" made the Top Forty U.S. singles chart in 1972. But he really came all the way back in 1974 with the song "Laughter in the Rain," which went all the way to Number One in the U.S. More hits followed from 1975 to 1977, especially "Bad Blood," which was another Number One in 1975, and a slow ballad version of "Breaking Up Is Hard to Do," which hit the Top Ten, also in 1975.

Because of this success, Sedaka was on the Midnight Special quite a lot from late 1974 onwards. In fact, he hosted the show a bunch of times: twice in 1975, once in 1976, and twice in 1977. As I write this in March 2026, high quality YouTube videos of this TV show have only reached the end of 1975, with more being slowly released chronologically. So all I can deal with are his appearances on the show in 1974 and 1975. It turns out there he played some songs twice. So I did a lot of moving around of songs for the two albums I've made to make sure no song appears twice on the same album.

Thus, this album is more Frankensteined together than any Midnight Special album I've posted up until now. It's taken from four different episodes. Tracks 1 through 6 come from the February 14, 1975 episode mentioned in the title. That was a unique episode, with three hosts, each getting exactly one third of the show time. The other two hosts were the Spinners and Todd Rundgren. I've already posted the Rundgren portion, and the Spinner portion will be posted eventually. 

Tracks 7 through 9 are from a July 25, 1975 episode. That included Sedaka singing "Love Will Keep Us Together." He wrote that song with Greenfield, and it was released on a 1973 Sedaka album. It was released as a single and failed to even make the charts. However, in 1975, Captain and Tennille released a version of it as a single in 1975, and it was a massive hit. Not only did it reach Number One in the U.S., it was the best selling song that year! In that same episode, he performed a duet with Helen Reddy, "Don't Let It Mess Your Mind."

Tracks 10 and 11 are from the November 14, 1975 episode. That actually is the date of the second Sedaka album I'll be posting. But I moved those songs here because one is another duet between Sedaka and Reddy, "Sad Eyes," and the other is a song just sung by Reddy, "Emotion." I wanted to put all the Reddy songs on the same album.

That leaves tracks 12 through 17. Those come from a November 29, 1974 episode. Together, they made up a big medley of his best early hits. I broke most of them into their own mp3 files though. 

By the way, note that I've created two "Covered" albums for Sedaka and his main songwriting partner, Howard Greenfield. So if you haven't listened to those yet, I suggest you do. Here are the links:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield.html

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2025/04/covered-neil-sedaka-howard-greenfield_24.html 

This album is 41 minutes long. 

01 That's When the Music Takes Me [Edit] (Neil Sedaka)
02 talk (Neil Sedaka)
03 The Immigrant (Neil Sedaka)
04 Laughter in the Rain (Neil Sedaka)
05 talk (Neil Sedaka)
06 Standing on the Inside (Neil Sedaka)
07 talk (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
08 Don't Let It Mess Your Mind (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
09 Love Will Keep Us Together (Neil Sedaka)
10 Sad Eyes (Neil Sedaka & Helen Reddy)
11 Emotion (Helen Reddy)
12 talk (Neil Sedaka)
13 Oh Carol (Neil Sedaka)
14 Stairway to Heaven (Neil Sedaka)
15 Sweet Sixteen (Neil Sedaka)
16 Breaking Up Is Hard to Do - Next Door to an Angel (Neil Sedaka)
17 Calendar Girl (Neil Sedaka)

pixeldrain.com/u/6zAb4GYz

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/t19NZPKdAZPuF0p/file

The cover image is from the July 25, 1975 episode, included here. It's a screenshot I took of Sedaka performing a duet with Helen Reddy.

Arlo Guthrie - Hesterly Armory, Tampa, FL, 11-11-1971

Arlo Guthrie was a prominent folk singer in the early 1970s, yet there are very few live recordings from that time with worthy sound quality. I've posted live recordings from him from 1969 and 1974, but there's basically nothing in between. So I decided to try to make something worthy. I found the best sounding audience bootleg from that era and used audio editing to bring it up close to soundboard-level sound quality.

I checked out a handful of audience boots from the era, and this one easily had the best sound quality. I wouldn't have given this a try if I didn't find this one with potential. The biggest problem was a lot of echo on the vocals. So I used the MVSEP program to split the vocals from the instruments. While I was at it, I boosted the vocals to a good level in the mix. Then I took the vocals track and ran it through the Reverb Removal option in MVSEP. But even that wasn't enough. I further ran those results through Adobe's vocal enhancer. I also ran all the banter between songs through that.

Between all these things, the very echo-y vocals sound almost normal now. Not quite, but close. So, while the sound quality still isn't ideal, I'm confident this is very listenable, and the best sounding live recording of him between 1969 and 1974.

In 1972, Guthrie would have the biggest hit of his career, with "City of New Orleans." But this is some months away from that, so that song wasn't performed here. According to the original notes I found, there was at least one more song played at the end of the concert, "Hobo's Lullaby." It's quite possible there were other missing songs, since this is relatively short compared to most concerts from that time period. Also, it seems the beginning of the first song, "Anytime," is cut off. So there could have been one or more missing songs there too. The way "Anytime" started sounded okay to me, even with the cut off, so I left it that way. Plus, I didn't have any other good live recordings of that song from that time period to use to fix it.

By the way, I find it interesting that although this concert is only two years after the 1969 concert I posted by him, only two songs are the same between those concerts: "Coming into Los Angeles" (his other hit) and "Stealin'." 

This album is an hour and two minutes long. 

01 Anytime (Arlo Guthrie)
02 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
03 I Could Be Singing (Arlo Guthrie)
04 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
05 1913 Massacre (Arlo Guthrie)
06 Don't Think Twice, It's All Right (Arlo Guthrie)
07 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
08 Mapleview (20%) Rag [Instrumental] (Arlo Guthrie)
09 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
10 Coming into Los Angeles (Arlo Guthrie)
11 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
12 Waiting for a Train (Arlo Guthrie)
13 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
14 Days Are Short (Arlo Guthrie)
15 Stealin' (Arlo Guthrie)
16 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
17 Gabriel's Mother's Hiway Ballad No. 16 Blues (Arlo Guthrie)
18 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
19 Lay Down Little Doggies (Arlo Guthrie)
20 talk (Arlo Guthrie)
21 Ring-Around-A-Rosy Rag (Arlo Guthrie)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZFAGqFSG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Y2qkyDWWUF50qr1/file

The cover photo is from 1972. I don't know additional details.