Tom Rush and Orphan - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 10-22-1974

Here's a 1974 concert by singer-songwriter Tom Rush. For the first fifteen minutes the band Orphan played some of their own songs without him. Then for the remainder of the show, he performed with Orphan backing him up.

In recent days, I've been really getting into the recordings of concerts from the Ebbets Field venue in Denver, Colorado. One reason I like it is because it was a small venue, holding only about 250 people, so they got some lesser known musical acts there. Yet they had excellent taste, and lots of their concerts were professionally recorded and broadcast on a local radio station. Thus, we get recordings from the likes of Tom Rush, when there are very, very few concert recordings of him from this era, due to him not being a big name. So expect a lot more along these lines with future Ebbets Field posts.

Tom Rush was one of the first of the singer-songwriters that came out of the 1960s folk movement. His first album was released in 1962. In addition to writing many of his own songs, he was one of the first to record versions of songs by other emerging singer-songwriters like Joni Mitchell, Jackson Browne, and James Taylor, helping them establish their careers. His most famous original song is "No Regrets," which he wrote in 1968. The Walker Brothers had a big hit with it in 1975.

Here's his Wikipedia entry. He's 85 years old as I write this in 2026.

Tom Rush - Wikipedia 

Rush's music career proceeded in the normal way until 1974, with him releasing a new album every year or two. But his 1974 album "Ladies Love Outlaws," which he was touring to promote when this concert happened, would be his last album for a while. He got burned out on his music career, especially touring, and retired to a farm in New Hampshire. He didn't resume his music career until 1981. So this concert is a good time for a concert, marking the end of the first phase of his career.

I don't know much about the band Orphan. They're so little known that they don't even have a Wikipedia page, which is pretty unusual. However, I was able to learn from elsewhere that they released studio albums in 1972, 1973, and 1974. They seem to have broken up or faded away after that. But this concert isn't the only time they appear in my music collection. I also have a 1972 bootleg concert of singer-songwriter Jonathan Edwards where they backed him, just like they backed Rush here. Perhaps I'll post that one sometime soon, because it's a good one. They mentioned their previous connection Edwards in some of their banter between songs, and played one of his songs, "Train of Glory."

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. Just the Tom Rush set is exactly an hour long.

01 talk by Larry Bruce (Orphan)
02 It's a Good Day (Orphan)
03 talk (Orphan)
04 Everyone Lives to Sing (Orphan)
05 It's So Hard (Orphan)
06 Be My Woman Tonight (Orphan)
07 talk (Orphan)
08 Train of Glory (Orphan)
09 talk by Larry Bruce (Tom Rush with Orphan)
10 Jenny Lynn (Tom Rush with Orphan)
11 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
12 Desperados Waiting for a Train (Tom Rush with Orphan)
13 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
14 Mother Earth (Tom Rush with Orphan)
15 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
16 Hobo's Mandolin (Tom Rush with Orphan)
17 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
18 The Panama Limited (Tom Rush with Orphan)
19 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
20 Child's Song (Tom Rush with Orphan)
21 Who Do You Love (Tom Rush with Orphan)
22 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
23 No Regrets (Tom Rush with Orphan)
24 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
25 Ladies Love Outlaws (Tom Rush with Orphan)
26 talk (Tom Rush with Orphan)
27 Glory Road (Tom Rush with Orphan)
28 talk by Larry Bruce (Tom Rush with Orphan)
29 Lost My Driving Wheel (Tom Rush with Orphan)
30 Rotunda (Tom Rush with Orphan)
31 talk by Larry Bruce (Tom Rush with Orphan)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/iASCHZt6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/2N85SGayuGPjGJ2/file

The cover image is from a concert at the Great Southeast Music Hall in Atlanta, Georgia, on October 7, 1974. The original was in black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.