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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is an hour and 27 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/G1KUGAmb 

alternate:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 43 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/Le4MDZsb

alternate: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This album is 53 minutes long.

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QfBQFec2

alternate: 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Bill Graham (promoter) - Wikipedia

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

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

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

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

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

You can find an entire article about it here:

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

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

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

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

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

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

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BGA5GZ1u

alternate: 

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

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

Covered: Randy Newman, Volume 2: 1973-1999

Here's the second out of three "Covered" albums for singer-songwriter Randy Newman.

As I mentioned in "Volume 1," in the early 1970s, Newman was considered a cult albums, very critically acclaimed, but with not much commercial success for his own career. Even the many covers of his songs were rarely hits, though there were exceptions, especially "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)," which was a Number One hit in the U.S. for Three Dog Night in 1970.

But things changed drastically for him in 1977, with the song "Short People." To pretty much everyone's surprise, his version was an massive novelty hit. It made it all the way to Number Two in the U.S., kept out of the top spot only by the all-time classic "Stayin' Alive" by the Bee Gees. It was wildly misunderstood, to say the least. A great many of his songs are sarcastic. For instance, his great song "Political Science" sarcastically advocates for blowing up the world with nuclear weapons. Many people who heard "Short People" didn't realize it was a sarcastic attack on prejudice by pointing out how silly it would be to hate short people for no reason, including ignoring the lyrics of the bridge, which explicitly run counter to the rest of the song. 

But in any case, the song made him a household name, even though his overall sales still didn't increase much. His only two really big hits on the singles charts remain "Short People" and "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)." Since Newman's version of "Short People" is so well known, it's the only song in this series I've included that's performed by him.

I also want to give a special mention to "Sail Away." I think it's an incredible song. But it also shows how unique his songwriting is, and how easy it can be for people to misunderstand his songs if they don't pay attention. It's basically an advertisement for a slave trader prior to the Civil War, attempting to coax Black Africans to come to the U.S. for a better life, when in fact the trader is tricking them into slavery. Yet somehow this sarcastic premise becomes a powerful song about the evils of slavery. It's been widely covered, including by the likes of Bobby Darin, Etta James, Linda Ronstadt, Ray Charles, Gladys Knight, Joe Cocker, and Kirsty MacColl. It was hard for me to pick just one cover, but I thought the version by Etta James is extra powerful.

From the start of Newman's songwriting career, he'd had a sideline writing instrumental music for T.V. shows, which then led to movie soundtrack work. That began way back in 1962, as I mentioned in the previous volume. His first movie soundtrack was in 1971. He did a few more movies here and there over the next couple decades. But his career took a turn in 1995, when he did the soundtrack for the hit movie "Toy Story." One song he did for that, "You've Got a Friend in Me," wasn't a hit per se, barely reaching the singles chart. But it became widely known, and widely beloved by children, and it's gone on to sell over three million copies! Surely that makes it one of the best selling non-hits ever. 

For that song, I've included a duet version between Newman and Lyle Lovett, since it's an interesting one that's also much less well known than the version just featuring Newman.

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Have You Seen My Baby [Hold On] (Ringo Starr)
02 Sail Away (Etta James)
03 Last Night I Had a Dream (Fanny)
04 Let's Burn Down the Cornfield (Etta James)
05 Naked Man (Grass Roots)
06 Lucinda (Joe Cocker)
07 Short People (Randy Newman)
08 Baltimore (Nina Simone)
09 Mr. President (Marshall Tucker Band)
10 You Can Leave Your Hat On (Joe Cocker)
11 Louisiana 1927 (Aaron Neville)
12 Political Science (Everything but the Girl)
13 You've Got a Friend in Me (Randy Newman & Lyle Lovett)
14 Feels like Home (Emmylou Harris, Linda Ronstadt & Dolly Parton)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6SB3U9ZA

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/f6YT8V3gAvHLIQ3/file 

The cover image is from 1978.

Covered: Billy Steinberg & Tom Kelly: 1980-2019

I don't keep a close eye on music news, but yesterday I happened to hear that songwriter Billy Steinberg died. Specifically, he died on February 16, 2026, at the age of 75. That probably doesn't mean anything to most people, because I don't think he's very well known as far as songwriters go. But it meant something to me, because I had already made a "Covered" album of the songs he and songwriting partner Tom Kelly made. (It's one of several dozen "Covered" albums I've made but haven't gotten around to posting yet.) Due to his death, I decided to post this sooner rather than later.

Steinberg and Kelly wrote a lot of hits from the 1980s to the 2000s that you probably know without ever knowing who wrote them. Even though they were male, somehow they had the most success with females covering their songs. They had five Number One hits in the U.S., all sung by women: "Like a Virgin" by Madonna (1984), "True Colors" by Cyndi Lauper (1986), "Eternal Flame" (co-written with Susanna Hoffs and recorded by the Bangles in 1989), "So Emotional" by Whitney Houston (1987), and "Alone" by Heart (1987).

Billy Steinberg was born in Fresno, California, though his family moved to Palm Springs when he was a teenager. After graduating from college, he formed a band called Billy Thermal. However, they didn't have any success, and one album they recorded around 1980 wasn't released until decades later, after he made a name for himself as a songwriter. He had his first songwriting success with "How Do I Make You," which was a hit for Linda Ronstadt in 1980.  

Tom Kelly was born in a small town in Illinois in 1952. He went to a college in that state, but dropped out to pursue a music career. He was a backing musician for Dan Fogelberg in 1976 and 1977. He also did a lot of session work, for instance singing backing vocals on Toto albums. He had his first songwriting success with "Fire and Ice," a minor hit for Pat Benatar in 1981.

Both Steinberg and Kelly independently had songs on Benatar's 1981 album, "Precious Time." They met at a party that year, and soon began writing together. Previously, both of them had written lyrics and music. But they soon fell into a pattern where Steinberg generally wrote the lyrics while Kelly wrote the music. Their really big break as a songwriting team was "Like a Virgin" by Madonna. After that, they were in high demand. What's on this album is just the cream of the crop of the many dozens of songs they wrote for well-known musical acts.

Their partnership continued very fruitfully until the mid-1990s. At that point, Kelly tired of songwriting and dropped out of the music business. He'd already had enough success to live on the royalties he'd made. However, Steinberg kept going with new songwriting partners. From the mid-1990s until the mid-2000s, he mostly wrote with Rick Newels, who already was a successful professional songwriter. From the mid-2000s to about the mid-2010s, he mostly wrote with Josh Alexander.

Steinberg had a lot of songwriting success after he stopped working with Kelly. But I listened to his big hits and, to be honest, didn't like them very much after about 2000. They suffer the same problems as most popular pop music since about 2000: formulaic and forgettable. So I generally didn't include most of those. To be honest, even a lot of their earlier stuff was formulaic and forgettable, but sometimes, in fact many times, they had some real winners.

But in case you're curious, Steinberg's biggest later hits include "I Turn to You" by Melanie C (2000), "Love Doesn't Have to Hurt" by Atomic Kitten (2003), "Too Little Too Late" by JoJo (2006), "Don't Hold Your Breath" by Nicole Scherzinger (2011), and "Give Your Heart a Break" by Demi Lovato (2012). After that, the hits petered out, although some older songs keep getting rerecorded and making the charts again, especially "Alone" and "I Drove All Night." For instance, Alyssa Reid went all the way to Number Two in the British charts with "Alone" in 2012, although it was titled "Alone Again" and had the now practically obligatory rap section.

I'm not a fan of Whitney Houston's version of "So Emotional." But since it was a massive Number One hit, I wanted to include it in some form. I found a radically different cover version by Jon McLaughlin from 2019 that I like much better, so I used that instead. Had it not been for that song, this album would end in 2000.

Here are their Wikipedia pages: 

Billy Steinberg - Wikipedia

Tom Kelly (musician) - Wikipedia  

That album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 How Do I Make You (Linda Ronstadt)
02 Fire and Ice (Pat Benatar)
03 Like a Virgin (Madonna)
04 Sex as a Weapon (Pat Benatar)
05 True Colors (Cyndi Lauper)
06 Eternal Flame (Bangles)
07 Alone (Heart)
08 In Your Room (Bangles)
09 I Touch Myself (Divinyls)
10 My Side of the Bed (Susanna Hoffs)
11 I Drove All Night (Roy Orbison)
12 Night in My Veins (Pretenders)
13 Lucky Love [Acoustic Version] (Ace of Base)
14 I'll Stand by You (Pretenders)
15 Falling into You (Celine Dion)
16 California (Belinda Carlisle)
17 One and One (Edyta Gorniak)
18 Everytime It Rains (Ace of Base)
19 The Consequences of Falling (k.d. lang)
20 So Emotional (Jon McLaughlin)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/4xNLLW9p 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/uxa5jlpb5sQPr8t/file

I don't know the details of the cover photo. But that's Tom Kelly on the left and Billy Steinberg on the right. There are patches of white in Steinberg's hair, which went completely white in later photos of him. 

Kevin Gilbert - Covers (1986-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the third and last album that make up guest poster Mike Solof's collections of his favorite songs from the music career of Kevin Gilbert. The first two albums focused on original songs, but this one consists entirely of cover versions.

As I mentioned in my write-up for the first album in this series, Gilbert often mixed a catchy pop sensibility in his songs with the musical complexity of prog rock. As a result, he especially liked prog rock type bands that also had some pop appeal. Probably his favorite band of all was Genesis. In fact, he was such a Genesis fan that he once performed the entirety of the Genesis double album "The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway" in concert! This album contains three Genesis covers, as well as some other prog rock songs that are almost never covered by anyone, such as "Siberian Khatru" by Yes and "Karn Evil 9" by Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. And yet we can see Gilbert's pop side as well, with covers of songs like "The Joker" by the Steve Miller Band and "If I Fell" by the Beatles. Definitely interesting stuff here.

As usual, Mike has included a PDF in the download zip that has more information and photos and such. But note that it's the same PDF as in the other two Kevin Gilbert albums he put together. 

This album is 60 minutes long.

Here's a list of the original musical acts for each of the songs here: 

01 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes - Crosby, Stills and Nash
02 Firth of Fifth - Genesis
03 The Joker - Steve Miller Band
04 Rendezvous 602 - U.K.
05 Back in NYC - Genesis
06 Kashmir - Led Zeppelin
07 Rocket Man - Elton John (with Pink Floyd intro)
08 Siberian Khatru - Yes
09 If I Fell - Beatles
10 Karn Evil 9 - Emerson, Lake & Palmer
11 The Musical Box - Genesis 

And here's the usual song list: 

01 Suite- Judy Blue Eyes (Toy Matinee)
02 Firth of Fifth (Kevin Gilbert & Mickey Sorey)
03 The Joker (Kevin Gilbert)
04 UK Suite [Rendezvous 6-02 - Danger Money - Caesar's Palace Blues] (Kevin Gilbert & Mickey Sorey)
05 Back in N.Y.C. (Kevin Gilbert)
06 Kashmir (Kevin Gilbert)
07 Rocket Man (Toy Matinee)
08 Siberian Khatru (Kevin Gilbert)
09 If I Fell (Toy Matinee)
10 Karn Evil 9 (Kevin Gilbert)
11 The Musical Box (Giraffe)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/mvhs6yEL

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/o1G0R8xtPXiJqQL/file

I believe I found the cover image in an Instagram post. It had some distracting things on it, like some text added on top. But I wiped that out using Photoshop. I don't know exactly when or where it's from. 

Kevin Gilbert - Rarities (1985-1996) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here's the second out of three "best of" albums guest posted Mike Solof has made for singer-songwriter Kevin Gilbert. The first album, "Originals," focuses on Mike's favorite songs that were on Gilbert's studio albums (including albums for bands he led, such as Toy Matinee). This one digs deeper. 

Considering that Gilbert's music career only lasted about ten years, he created a remarkable amount of music. He only put out a few albums in his lifetime. But since his death in 1996, a couple dozen more albums have come out! Gilbert was one of those musicians, like Prince, who played practically every instrument he could get his hands on, and was always writing and creating. So there was a ton of rare material for Mike to draw on when making this album. (As usual, look to the mp3 tags for all the details on the sources of the songs.)

One interesting highlight of this album is "Leaving Las Vegas." That was a big hit for Sheryl Crow. But Gilbert co-wrote it, as well as co-writing most of the songs on Crow's debut album, "Tuesday Night Music Club." The two of them were romantically linked for a while, and Crow was a member of Gilbert's band for a time.  

Like Mike always does with his guest posts, he's created a PDF file with additional comments and photos and so forth. In this case, the PDF is the same for all three Gilbert "best of" albums he made.  

This album is 59 minutes long. 

01 National Public Radio (Kevin Gilbert)
02 Things She Said [Jazz Version] (Kevin Gilbert)
03 Circling Winds (Kevin Gilbert)
04 Goodbye L.A. (Kevin Gilbert)
05 Suit Fugue [Dance of the A & R Men] [Early Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
06 God's Been Tapping My Phone (Kevin Gilbert)
07 Queen of Misery (Toy Matinee)
08 KMTT Jingle (Kevin Gilbert)
09 Leaving Las Vegas (Kevin Gilbert)
10 Tea for One [Sax Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
11 Something Nice for My Dog (Kevin Gilbert)
12 Late for Dinner [Dark Mix] (Kevin Gilbert)
13 Souvenir (Kevin Gilbert)
14 Finally Over You (Kevin Gilbert)
15 All Fall Down [Toto Version] (Kevin Gilbert)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/N98cVBGz

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/pzxlRnsVOmw60ea/file

I don't know the details of where or when the cover image is from. It was selected by Mike. 

Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 1: 1973-1994 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

It's high time I post more for the "Covered" series, highlighting great singer-songwriters. This time, we're looking at the songs of Tom Waits. Enough material has been found for four volumes. Here's the first one. As with all albums in this series, the focus is on cover versions, instead of versions done by the songwriter.

First off, I've gotta say I wouldn't be posting this now had it not been for the help of musical friend Fabio from Rio. It was he who suggested making Covered albums for Waits. I would have wanted to tackle him eventually, but that probably would have been well into the future. I have an issue with Waits: I can't stand his voice. As a result, even though it's easy for me to see he's a very talented songwriter, I haven't been that familiar with his songs. But Fabio is a big fan. He sent me literally hundreds of Waits cover versions, with recommendations on the best ones. I went through that and narrowed it down quite a lot. Hopefully this will make a strong collection that can turn the curious on to Waits' music.

Fabio from Rio helped with all aspects of putting this together. He even wrote the write-ups for the four volumes for Waits. So first I'm posting the relevant Wikipedia page:

Tom Waits - Wikipedia 

And now, take it away, Fabio (and a big thanks to him for all his work on this!):

For the general public, Tom Waits is "that guy with the raspy wino voice and the weird songs. Wasn't he one of the convicted fellows in that offbeat Jim Jarmusch movie?" A few music aficionados may also know him as the writer of songs like Springsteen's "Jersey Girl" or Rod Stewart's "Downtown Train", but that is usually where the story ends.

What many are not aware of is that Waits is widely recognized by his peers and by musical experts as an exceptional and influential songwriter. He is praised for his unique voice, vivid storytelling, poetic lyrics, and innovative musical style that blends genres like blues, jazz, vaudeville, and experimental rock. Waits is also known for creating three-dimensional characters and detailed narratives, often exploring life on the fringes. His lyrics are celebrated for their specificity, humor, melancholy, and ability to evoke strong moods, often drawing comparisons to Beat poets and Mark Twain.

Waits is a "songwriters' songwriter," with songs covered by literally hundreds of artists, many of them great composers themselves. He has been subject to many tributes. While searching for tracks for that project, I collected about three dozen different albums fully dedicated to his songs, and around 400 assorted covers, adding up to almost 1,200 tracks and 80-plus hours of music!

I initially selected about 220 different tunes (an almost fully comprehensive "Tom Waits songbook" that would comprise about 15 hours) which Paul wisely helped reduce to around 60 tracks across four volumes. We could have another four or eight volumes with additional top-notch Tom Waits songs - there is enough quality material for that - but I feel this reduced version is just the right size for a first dive into Tom Waits vast catalog. I hope you enjoy it!

Some listeners may find Waits' music difficult to approach due to his peculiar tone (which, contrary to popular belief, was not destroyed by booze and cigarettes, but was conscientiously cultivated as a vocal persona, as he mentioned in some interviews). The fact that some of his more experimental work sounds like monkeys loose in a crystal store doesn't help either. For those, a "Covered" collection focusing on his more melodic output is a great starting point, where one may discover the essence of Waits' music (often through soothing, frequently female, voices).

This first volume includes performances from a long range of years (1973 to 1994), but most of the songs here were composed during Waits' early and middle phases (the seventies and early eighties). His first albums feature piano-led ballads, romantic melancholy, and a relatively smooth, crooning voice. The character is that of a late-night drifter, nostalgic and tender. As his career progressed, Waits' voice grew tougher (both literally and figuratively) and his narratives darker and more cinematic. His late seventies and early eighties albums introduced sardonic humor, social misfits, and a sharper sense of irony, while still rooted in jazz, blues, and cabaret traditions.

Waits started as a folk singer/songwriter in the early seventies, with heavy jazz influences, when his voice was still not so rough. You can hear this in the first selection of this collection, "Rosie," from his 1973 first album. It's the only song in these four volumes that is the composer's own interpretation. He also first caught the ear of the public with an early cover of "Ol' 55" by The Eagles (which we skipped in favor of Sarah McLachlan's 1993 version, which both Paul and myself prefer). Other famous interpreters at the first volume are Johnny Cash and Marianne Faithfull (with songs Tom composed specifically for them), and also 10,000 Maniacs, Elvis Costello, Crystal Gayle and Canned Heat, which showcases the full range of styles and performers reached by Waits' compositions.

---

Thanks again, Fabio. I'll just add that there were only a few cases where Waits wrote hit songs, so we weren't tied down much by that factor. ("Downtown Train" is probably his biggest hit, thanks to the 1989 Rod Stewart version, included here.) And often, his songs didn't get a lot of covers until many years after they were written. So if you don't see some of his songs you really like from this era, wait before you judge. There's a good chance those songs could show up on one of the later volumes.

This album is 54 minutes long. 

01 Rosie (Tom Waits)
02 Foreign Affair (Manhattan Transfer)
03 Jersey Girl (Bruce Springsteen)
04 Is There Any Way Out of This Dream (Crystal Gayle)
05 I Hope that I Don't Fall in Love with You (10,000 Maniacs)
06 Strange Weather (Marianne Faithfull)
07 Downtown Train (Rod Stewart)
08 Gun Street Girl (Canned Heat)
09 San Diego Serenade (Nanci Griffith)
10 Tom Traubert's Blues [Waltzing Matilda] (Rod Stewart)
11 More than Rain (Elvis Costello & Brodsky Quartet)
12 Ol' 55 (Sarah McLachlan)
13 Down There by the Train (Johnny Cash)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FBZaqvMS

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/IJ5fbwJ3YDrAHXl/file

The cover photo was taken in Chicago, Illinois, on May 30, 1986.

Dan Fogelberg - Best of Live: 1974-1995 (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

I just posted a "best of" album guest poster Mike Solof made of his favorite studio tracks by singer-songwriter Dan Fogelberg. He wanted to divide his music up into a studio best of and a live best of, so here's the companion live best of.

Mike is a really big fan of Fogelberg's music and is making these to help me, and others like you, better enjoy his music. As he usually does, Mike made a PDF with more information and pictures, which is included in the download zip. I encourage you to give that a look. It's the exact same one as for the studio best of.

For the studio best of, all the songs are officially released, and usually from his studio albums. For this one, most of the songs come from official live albums as well. But four of the songs here come from bootlegs. Specifically, tracks 10, 11, 13, and 16. But they're excellent sounding ones, just as good as the live albums.

By the way, Fogelberg's last concert was for the "PBS Soundstage" concert in 2003. (He died of cancer in 2007 at the age of 56.) I would really like to post that here, but I've only found a few songs from it on YouTube. If anyone has all of it, please let me know. Thanks. 

This album is an hour and 13 minutes long. 

01 Songbird (Dan Fogelberg)
02 The Power of Gold (Dan Fogelberg)
03 Blow Wind Blow (Dan Fogelberg)
04 Hard to Say (Dan Fogelberg)
05 Innocent Age (Dan Fogelberg)
06 Looking for a Lady (Dan Fogelberg)
07 Once upon a Time (Dan Fogelberg)
08 Make Love Stay (Dan Fogelberg)
09 The Chauvinist Song (Dan Fogelberg)
10 Morning Sky (Dan Fogelberg)
11 Someone's Been Telling You Stories (Dan Fogelberg)
12 Part of the Plan (Dan Fogelberg)
13 talk (Dan Fogelberg)
14 Song from Half Mountain (Dan Fogelberg)
15 Souvenir (Dan Fogelberg)
16 To the Morning (Dan Fogelberg)
17 Here Comes the Sun (Dan Fogelberg)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/9q7tK9se

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/QZQOzX6EPddIoQh/file

As with the cover to the studio album, Mike picked this one. I don't know exactly where or when it comes from. 

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 7: In Concert, Town and Country Club, London, Britain, 8-18-1991

Months ago, I posted a poll about posting more albums from people's favorite musical acts. I've been distracted by a lot of things since then, including new polls, but I want to keep going back to that. So here's another BBC album from one of the top voters from that poll, Richard Thompson.

This is a concert from 1991, the year Thompson released the studio album "Rumour and Sigh." It got a lot of critical acclaim, and I believe its probably his best solo album. This concert heavily leans into that album, with eight songs out of the 13 songs coming from it. Note also this was performed with a full band.

There was one problem with this recording, and that was the very common problem of the lead vocals being too low in the mix. So, as usual, I fixed that with the use of the UVR5 audio editing program.

When I first posted this album, I posted a version that was a little under an hour long, and I thought that was all there was. But a commenter sent me a different version that was missing two songs ("Backlash Love Affair" and "1952 Vincent Black Lightning"), but also had two other songs I didn't have ("Oh I Swear" and "Crash the Party"). I compared the different versions and found that it was definitely the same concert, with the exact same banter and so forth. But it seems the BBC played different versions at different times with different edits. I did my best to put everything together to create the longest version yet available.   

The music here is unreleased, and the sound quality is close to excellent.

This album is an hour and 11 minutes long. The BBC edited down a longer concert to fit in an hour-long radio show slot. But this is longer than an hour, since it comes from two slightly different versions.

UPDATE: On November 8, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found an earlier volume in this series that I'd missed, so the volume number changed. That meant the title, cover art, and mp3 tags changed too.

01 Read about Love (Richard Thompson)
02 Backlash Love Affair (Richard Thompson)
03 Gypsy Love Songs (Richard Thompson)
04 talk (Richard Thompson)
05 Keep Your Distance (Richard Thompson)
06 talk (Richard Thompson)
07 Tear Stained Letter (Richard Thompson)
08 talk (Richard Thompson)
09 Oh I Swear [Edit] (Richard Thompson & Shawn Colvin)
10 talk (Richard Thompson)
11 talk (Richard Thompson)
12 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (Richard Thompson)
13 talk (Richard Thompson)
14 I Misunderstood (Richard Thompson)
15 I Feel So Good (Richard Thompson)
16 Valerie (Richard Thompson)
17 Mother Knows Best (Richard Thompson)
18 Mystery Wind (Richard Thompson)
19 Crash the Party (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UCp6Hn3M

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/MHJelbd9TAV387n/file

The cover photo was taken at the Warfield Theater in San Francisco, California, on July 17, 1991.

Various Artists - Songwriters Special, Austin City Limits, University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, 9-11-1991

I recently stumbled across this on YouTube. I thought it was pretty interesting, so I decided to post it straight away. It's a special episode of the Austin City Limits TV show from 1991, called "Songwriters Special." It's basically a songwriters' circle, with four different musical acts taking turns: Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls, and Julie Gold.

I found a blog post by Julie Gold about this concert. She said that Nanci Griffith was selected as the host, and Griffith got to pick the other musical acts. However, each of the acts played the same number of songs (three), and then everyone joined in on the finale, a cover of "No Expectations" by the Rolling Stones.

Chances are you haven't heard of Julie Gold, because her music career has been very low profile. However, she was chosen because she was the songwriter behind Griffith's biggest hit, "From a Distance," which she performed here. She also wrote a song appearing on Griffith's next album at the time, called "Heaven." She would go on to write several more songs covered by Griffith.

Here's the Wikipedia entry about her:

Julie Gold - Wikipedia 

This album remains unreleased. The sound quality is pretty good. I downloaded the YouTube video, converted it to audio format, and broke it into mp3s. 

This album is 55 minutes long. 

01 It's a Hard Life Wherever You Go (Nanci Griffith)
02 talk (Nanci Griffith)
03 You've Never Had It So Good (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
04 talk (Nanci Griffith)
05 talk (Indigo Girls)
06 Hammer and a Nail (Indigo Girls)
07 talk (Nanci Griffith)
08 From a Distance (Julie Gold)
09 talk (Nanci Griffith)
10 Late Night Grande Hotel (Nanci Griffith)
11 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
12 I Am a Town (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
13 talk (Indigo Girls)
14 Fare Thee Well (Indigo Girls)
15 Heaven (Julie Gold)
16 talk (Nanci Griffith)
17 Listen to the Radio (Nanci Griffith)
18 talk (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
19 I Feel Lucky (Mary Chapin Carpenter)
20 talk (Indigo Girls)
21 Jonas and Ezekiel (Indigo Girls)
22 talk (Julie Gold)
23 Temporary Worker (Julie Gold)
24 talk (Nanci Griffith)
25 No Expectations (Nanci Griffith, Mary Chapin Carpenter, the Indigo Girls & Julie Gold)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/CR4CKJX5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/sAVcPay4fNv5Hl8/file

I got lucky with the cover art. I found a photo taken backstage of all the musical acts at this concert. The original version of the photo was black and white, but I found a colorized version. It had issues though, so I recolorized it. I looked at the YouTube video of the concert to get in the general ballpark of the colors of the clothes they were wearing. 

From left to right, that's Amy Ray, Emily Saliers, Julie Gold, Nanci Griffith, and Mary Chapin Carpenter.

Richard Thompson - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: 1988-1991

I had a weird dream last night (as I write this in October 2025). In the dream, I heard the song "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" by Richard Thompson, but I noticed a famous Queen song was basically the same song, just with different words and very different production. I don't think it's true that any Queen song resembles that one, but it was a fun was to be reminded what a fantastic song "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" is. And it also reminded me that it's time to post another Richard Thompson album. So here's the next BBC album from him. This one is a collection of BBC studio sessions, all solo acoustic.

Everything here remains unreleased. The first five songs are from an appearance on the Andy Kershaw Show in 1988. Tracks 6 through 9 are from another 1988 radio show, the Richard Skinner Show. "She Moved through the Fair" is a live cut from the "Folk on Two" radio show. The remaining songs, tracks 11 through 16 are from a 1992 radio show called "Kaleidoscope."

Unfortunately, "Al Bowlly's in Heaven" isn't on here, but it is on the "BBC Sessions, Volume 2" album I've posted here. That's probably the greatest song about war-related PTSD ever written. Most of the songs here are from his albums at the time, like 1988's "Amnesia" and 1991's "Rumour and Sigh." But there are a few rarities and older ones as well.

This album is 48 minutes long. 

UPDATE: On November 8, 2025, I updated the mp3 download file. The music is exactly the same. But I found an earlier volume in this series that I'd missed, so the volume number changed. That meant the title, cover art, and mp3 tags changed too. 

01 Killerman Gold Posse (Richard Thompson)
02 Waltzing's for Dreamers (Richard Thompson)
03 Pharoah (Richard Thompson)
04 Push and Shove (Richard Thompson)
05 Killing Jar (Richard Thompson)
06 Turning of the Tide (Richard Thompson)
07 talk (Richard Thompson)
08 Two Left Feet (Richard Thompson)
09 Valerie (Richard Thompson)
10 She Moved through the Fair (Richard Thompson)
11 I Feel So Good (Richard Thompson)
12 1952 Vincent Black Lightning (Richard Thompson)
13 The Choice Wife [Instrumental] (Richard Thompson)
14 I Misunderstood (Richard Thompson)
15 Don't Let a Thief Steal into Your Heart (Richard Thompson)
16 God Loves a Drunk (Richard Thompson)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xJM8VVUy

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wL8TMxaJTATURtx/file

The cover photo is from 1992. That's all I know about it. 

Covered: Will Jennings, Volume 2: 1988-1999

Here's "Volume 2" celebrating the songwriting of Will Jennings.

With "Volume 1," I showed that Jennings co-wrote many popular hits in the late 1970s and all through the 1980s. His winning streak continued through all of the 1990s in this volume.

Jennings co-wrote five Number One hits in the U.S. in Volume 1. He only co-wrote two in this volume: "Roll with It" and "My Heart Will Go On." But it was a fluke "Tears in Heaven" only reached Number Two (held back by "Save the Best for Last" by Vanessa Williams), since it was one of the top five best selling singles of the year. Rolling Stone Magazine also put it on their list of the top 500 songs of all time.

I found an article that talked a bit about Jennings' involvement with "Tears in Heaven." Eric Clapton wrote the music and lyrics for the first verse, with lyrics about the tragic and untimely death of his young son. However, he got stuck at that point. He'd been impressed with Jennings being involved co-writing many hits for Steve Winwood, so Clapton recruited him to help. Jennings not only wrote the lyrics of the other verses, he wrote both the music and lyrics of the bridge. So that's a good example showing that while he was best known for his lyric writing, he was capable with music composition too.

The biggest hit here, though, has to be "My Heart Will Go On," the theme song for the blockbuster "Titanic" movie. It was a Number One song in the U.S., Britain, and over twenty more countries. It was the best selling single of 1998, and is currently listed as the tenth best selling single of all time, as I write this in 2025! It basically won all the awards, including Academy Award for Best Original Song, Grammy Award for Song of the Year, Grammy Award for Record of the Year, and Golden Globe Award for Best Original Song. 

The music to the song was written by James Horner. He didn't write many other big hits, but he did the scores to well over 100 movies. Originally, director James Cameron just wanted the theme song to be an instrumental. But Horner felt it needed lyrics, so he secretly got Jennings to write the lyrics, since he'd worked with Jennings on a few songs previously. After Cameron heard it, he wasn't keen on having vocals. But he was under intense pressure from the movie studio to make a profit since "Titanic" was the most expensive movie ever made up until that point. So Cameron ultimately gave the okay, and was glad he did, since the song helped make the movie the top grossing film of all time up until then.

After that though, Jennings didn't have many more hits. No doubt, at that point, he could have retired and slept on a hill of money from his "My Heart Will Go On" profits alone. He did have some more music projects into the early 2000s, but seems to have retired by about 2005. He died in 2024 at the age of 80.

As with "Volume 1," all the songs here are the original versions, which were usually hits. I could have included many more lesser hits, but I generally wanted to limit these volumes to the bigger hits, which usually were the best songs. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 Roll with It (Steve Winwood)
02 If We Hold On Together (Diana Ross)
03 Don't You Know What the Night Can Do (Steve Winwood)
04 Many a Long and Lonesome Highway (Rodney Crowell)
05 Holding On (Steve Winwood)
06 The Blues Come Over Me (B.B. King)
07 Tears in Heaven (Eric Clapton)
08 What Kind of Love (Rodney Crowell)
09 Help Me Up (Eric Clapton)
10 My Heart Will Go On [Love Theme from Titanic] (Celine Dion)
11 I Want to Spend My Lifetime Loving You (Tina Arena & Marc Anthony)
12 Please Remember Me (Tim McGraw)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3Pu5JVo1 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/XOU3PDIFFAyEJhE/file

The cover photo is from 1999. In full picture, Jennings is holding a Grammy Award in his hands.

Suzanne Vega - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1991-2023

Here's another album of Suzanne Vega performing for the BBC. This time, it's a collection of studio sessions.

As you can see from the title, this deals with a very long chronological era, 22 years, from 1991 to 2023. So this is a grab bag of lots of different things. Everything here is unreleased, except for tracks 5 and 6, which came out on a B-side to the song "99.9F" in 1992.

The first four songs are from a concert at the 1991 Cambridge Folk Festival. Maybe the BBC broadcast more of her performance, but I could only find these songs. I removed the applause at the ends of the songs using the MVSEP program, like I did with a few other live songs on this album.

The next four songs, tracks 5 to 8, are from a 1992 studio session. As mentioned above, two of them were released on a B-side. Tracks 9 to 11 are from an appearance on a BBC TV show in 1993. Track 12, an acappella version of "Tom's Diner," is from another BBC TV show, in 1994. Tracks 13 and 14 are from yet another BBC TV show, "Later... with Jools Holland," in 1997. 

After that, there's a very big chronological jump, to 2014, for track 15. That's from the BBC Folk Awards show that year. Then track 16, "Marlene on the Wall," is from the Glastonbury Festival in 2022. She did a whole set, but if there's a worthy recording of it, I couldn't find it. This is the one song the BBC posted on YouTube. Finally, the last three songs are from a 2023 BBC "Piano Room" session. That includes a cover of the Blondie classic "Dreaming," plus a song Vega wrote about the Ukraine war that started in 2021, "Last Train from Mariupol." And there's a second version of "Tom's Diner." I included both because they're very different from each other, with this one being backed by an orchestra.

There probably are some other BBC sessions from this 22 year time period that I'd missed. (Plus I didn't find anything interesting from before 1991.) If you have them, please let me know and I'll add them in.

This album is an hour and two minutes long.

01 Cracking (Suzanne Vega)
02 Predictions (Suzanne Vega)
03 talk (Suzanne Vega)
04 Men Will Be Men (Suzanne Vega)
05 Rock in This Pocket (Suzanne Vega)
06 In Liverpool (Suzanne Vega)
07 Gypsy (Suzanne Vega)
08 When Heroes Go Down (Suzanne Vega)
09 As a Child (Suzanne Vega)
10 talk (Suzanne Vega)
11 Blood Makes Noise (Suzanne Vega)
12 Tom's Diner [Acappella Version] (Suzanne Vega)
13 Birth-day [Love Made Real] (Suzanne Vega)
14 Headshots (Suzanne Vega)
15 Horizon [There Is a Road] (Suzanne Vega)
16 Marlene on the Wall (Suzanne Vega)
17 Dreaming (Suzanne Vega)
18 Last Train from Mariupol (Suzanne Vega)
19 Tom's Diner [Orchestral Version] (Suzanne Vega)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cmnEdZ25

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/MoxcFP0aYONvO36/file

The cover photo was taken near the Gorge Amphitheatre in George, Washington, during a Lilith Fair tour on July 5, 1997.

Alison Moyet - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: In Concert, Town and Country Club, London, Britain, 7-17-1991

Here's another Alison Moyet BBC concert album from 1991.

I posted a 1984 Moyet BBC concert back in 2022. Since there was just the one, that didn't have "BBC Sessions, Volume 1" in the name. But at the same time I'm posting this one, I'm making that "Volume 1." It seems Moyet hasn't toured that much, and live bootlegs from her are very rare, so I highly suspect there won't be a "Volume 3."

Moyet isn't very well known in the U.S., but she's had a lot more success in Britain. In 1991, she released the album "Hoodoo," which just about reached the Top Ten in Britain, but didn't even make the Top 100 in the U.S. This concert was naturally was part of a tour to promote that album.

The changes are good this was edited down from a longer concert by the BBC. So maybe that's why it didn't include her three big Top Ten hits since the 1984 concert I previously posted: "Is This Love," "Weak in the Presence of Beauty," and "Love Letters." However, it does include a nice version of the Aretha Franklin classic, "Chain of Fools," which Moyet had not yet released on album at the time.

I got very lucky with this recording. Most of it is unreleased. And the version I found started in the middle of the first song, "It Won't Be Long." But it turns out five songs from it were included as bonus tracks to a deluxe edition of the "Hoodoo" album, and one of them happened to be that song. So I used that version instead of the incomplete one I had.

Here's the link to the now renamed 1984 BBC concert mentioned above:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2022/11/alison-moyet-bbc-in-concert-dominion.html

This album is 58 minutes long.

01 It Won't Be Long (Alison Moyet)
02 Ordinary Girl (Alison Moyet)
03 Only You (Alison Moyet)
04 Hoodoo (Alison Moyet)
05 talk (Alison Moyet)
06 Rise (Alison Moyet)
07 talk (Alison Moyet)
08 Wishing You Were Here (Alison Moyet)
09 Never Too Late (Alison Moyet)
10 Chain of Fools (Alison Moyet)
11 Find Me (Alison Moyet)
12 talk (Alison Moyet)
13 [Meeting with My] Main Man (Alison Moyet)
14 talk (Alison Moyet)
15 Ne Me Quittez Pas (Alison Moyet)
16 Without You (Alison Moyet)
17 Don't Go (Alison Moyet)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/5yuKbNRd

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/E9NhyvXWVLNzNsW/file

All I know about the cover photo is that it is said to date to 1991.

Maria McKee - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: In Concert, University of Manchester Students' Union, Manchester, Britain, 3-23-1991

Generally speaking, I'm focusing only on posting BBC albums from musical acts where I've already posted at least some BBC albums from them already. But I'm making an exception here since I just put this together and it feels like a very long time since I've posted any music from the great Maria McKee. Besides, I have posted a BBC album by her 1980s band Lone Justice.

A live album has been released called "Live at the BBC." It is made up of selections from two BBC concerts she did, one in 1991 and the other in 1993. I thought that was all there was available, but I recently found a pretty good audience bootleg of the 1991 concert. So I used all the recordings from the official album that I could, since those have better sound quality. Then I filled in the missing songs from the audience boot. (In case you're curious, the songs from the live album are tracks 1, 2, 3, 9, 12, 13, and 17. Together, they make up about 30 minutes of this album.)

To improve the audience boot-sourced songs, I ran them through the MVSEP audio editing program, and removed all of the crowd noise, except for a little at the starts of songs and the usual cheering at the ends of songs. So basically I got rid of all the ambient noise during songs. That helped some, but still, the songs from the official live album sound better. Also, I think the person who taped this had the unfortunate habit of turning the recording off as soon as each song ended. I'm guessing this from the way the cheering sometimes got suddenly cut off, as well as the lack of any banter between songs, except for once near the end. So that's not ideal, but at least we got this much.

My favorite era of McKee's music was early in her solo career, when she was more steeped in roots music, like soul and country. So this is prime McKee for me.

This album is an hour and 14 minutes long.

01 I've Forgotten What It Was in You [That Put the Need in Me] (Maria McKee)
02 Am I the Only One [Who's Ever Felt This Way] (Maria McKee)
03 Shelter (Maria McKee)
04 A Real Life Story (Maria McKee)
05 Panic Beach (Maria McKee)
06 Wheels (Maria McKee)
07 Hold Me (Maria McKee)
08 This Property Is Condemned (Maria McKee)
09 Show Me Heaven (Maria McKee)
10 Breathe (Maria McKee)
11 Break It Up (Maria McKee)
12 I Found Love (Maria McKee)
13 A Good Heart (Maria McKee)
14 This World Is Not My Home (Maria McKee)
15 Sweet Sweet Baby [I'm Falling] (Maria McKee)
16 Ways to Be Wicked (Maria McKee)
17 Drinkin' in My Sunday Dress (Maria McKee)
18 Nobody's Child (Maria McKee)
19 talk (Maria McKee)
20 I've Got a Feeling (Maria McKee)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/cDKbZZSi

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/v9cj2VqvhF2swbz/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from an appearance on the "Kenny Live" TV show in 1991. I improved it a bit with the Krea AI program.

The Bee Gees - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: In Concert, Wembley Arena, London, Britain, 7-7-1991

At first, I wasn't going to post this, because I had already posted a BBC concert by the Bee Gees from 1989, just two years earlier. But I figure it's better to err on the side of posting more music, not less. Besides, on closer inspection I realized there actually is a pretty different set list here, helped by the fact that this is a considerably longer concert, about half an hour longer than the 1989 one. So here you are.

In March 1991, the Bee Gees released the studio album "High Civilization." So naturally this concert was to help promote that. The album was criticized for its dense production. The Wikipedia entry on the album says its "hard, loud percussion ensured that the drums and beats are loud in the mix, pushing the Bee Gees' vocal harmonies further back. The album favors a dance style with electronic instruments and studio effects, such as programmed drums and synthesizers..." One newspaper review at the time said the vocals were "mixed into oblivion." So this concert is a good chance to hear those songs with less of those trendy production techniques, if only because they're hard to reproduce in concert.

This album is unreleased. Apparently, the concert was broadcast not just in Britain as typical for the BBC, but to many other countries, according to the between-song banter. So the group must have given it their all. A big chunk of the middle of it was largely performed in acoustic mode.

I know of one more BBC concert after this, from 2001, so I plan on posting that soon.

This album is an hour and 44 minutes long.

01 Tragedy (Bee Gees)
02 You Win Again (Bee Gees)
03 I've Gotta Get a Message to You (Bee Gees)
04 talk (Bee Gees)
05 Juliet (Bee Gees)
06 House of Shame (Bee Gees)
07 talk (Bee Gees)
08 The Only Love (Bee Gees)
09 When He's Gone (Bee Gees)
10 talk (Bee Gees)
11 To Love Somebody (Bee Gees)
12 Ghost Train (Bee Gees)
13 How Can You Mend a Broken Heart (Bee Gees)
14 One (Bee Gees)
15 High Civilization (Bee Gees)
16 Words (Bee Gees)
17 Stayin' Alive (Bee Gees)
18 talk (Bee Gees)
19 Morning of My Life (Bee Gees)
20 And the Sun Will Shine (Bee Gees)
21 World (Bee Gees)
22 Too Much Heaven (Bee Gees)
23 Heartbreaker (Bee Gees)
24 Holiday (Bee Gees)
25 Saved by the Bell (Bee Gees)
26 Run to Me (Bee Gees)
27 New York Mining Disaster 1941 (Bee Gees)
28 Lonely Days (Bee Gees)
29 Dimension (Bee Gees)
30 I Started a Joke (Bee Gees)
31 Massachusetts (Bee Gees)
32 Secret Love (Bee Gees)
33 Jive Talkin' (Bee Gees)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KdoX3NqQ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/QOb7Taf08725Lyu/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Wembley in 1991. But I don't know if it's from this one or a different one, since the band played there multiple times that year.

Covered: Giorgio Moroder, Volume 2: 1983-1991

Here's the second and last Covered series album for Italian producer and songwriter Giorgio Moroder.

Moroder's commercial heyday was probably the late 1970s through the mid-1980s. So this generally deals with the second half of that. All the songs here are from 1983 to 1986 except for the last one, which is from 1991.

As I mentioned in Volume One, Moroder found great success composing the music for popular movies, and that continued well into the 1980s. For instance, he won Academy Awards and Golden Globes for the song "Flashdance... What a Feeling" in 1983, and "Take My Breath Away" in 1986. Both songs also hit Number One in the U.S. singles charts, as well as Number One in many other countries around the world. 

Perhaps it isn't too surprising that his music was so popular in the 1980s, because he'd been one of the main pioneers of using synthesizers for dance music in the 1970s, and in the 1980s synth-based danceable music was everywhere. But tastes gradually changed, especially with the rise of grunge starting in 1991. Perhaps in response to that, he effectively retired in 1993. 

For two decades, he didn't release any music. But he started a minor comeback in 2013, working with Daft Punk (who were heavily influenced by him) and putting out a solo album in 2015. He is still alive as I write this in 2024, but presumably his hit-making days are behind him, since he's 84 years old.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Flashdance... What a Feeling (Irene Cara)
02 Scarface [Push It to the Limit] (Paul Engemann)
03 Rush Rush (Debbie Harry)
04 Why Me (Irene Cara)
05 Together in Electric Dreams (Philip Oakey & Giorgio Moroder)
06 Here She Comes (Bonnie Tyler)
07 The NeverEnding Story (Limahl & Beth Anderson)
08 Love Kills (Freddie Mercury)
09 I Feel Love (Bronski Beat)
10 Danger Zone (Kenny Loggins)
11 Take My Breath Away (Berlin)
12 Love's Unkind (Sophie Lawrence)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17327897/COVRDGIGRIOMRDR1983-1991Vlume2_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/sSkZMqR1

The cover photo shows Moroder in 1987. I don't know the details. I used Krea AI to improve it a bit.

Covered: William 'Mickey' Stevenson & Ivy Jo Hunter: 1962-1991

The Covered series albums highlighting great songwriters keep coming. (I have dozens more in the pipeline!) This time, it's obscure Motown songwriters again. But in this case it's a songwriting team, William 'Mickey' Stevenson and Ivy Jo Hunter.

Once again, I'd be surprised if you've heard of these people. Stevenson is probably a little bit better known, because he was one of the main leaders of the Motown Records company. He joined Motown in 1959, the year the company was founded, and quickly became the head A&R person. That meant he was in charge of finding and recruiting new talent. But it seems most everyone who worked at Motown had musical aspirations - that's why they worked there instead of somewhere else. For instance, several famous singers got started as secretaries there. Stevenson fancied himself a singer, but he failed his audition. So instead he turned his attention to writing and producing songs while still leading the A&R department.

Hunter joined Motown a few years later, in 1963. He was trained in orchestral music, mainly playing trumpet and keyboards. He started out as a session musician, but he soon developed a talent for songwriting. Early on, Stevenson and Hunter became a songwriting team. They almost always shared songwriting credits 50-50, even though most of the time one or the other actually wrote the song alone. It seems Hunter did most of the songwriting, but I don't know the breakdowns of who wrote what exactly. (However, I do know their best known classic hit, "Dancing in the Street," was a genuine collaboration between them, with Marvin Gaye contributing as well.)

Generally speaking, this songwriting duo was considered second tier, and usually only wrote and/or produced songs for less famous Motown acts. The really big acts got songs from the most successful songwriters, like Smokey Robinson and the Holland-Dozier-Holland team. In some cases though, they did songs before famous acts got really famous, for instance writing songs for Marvin Gaye and the Four Tops before they really hit it big.

Stevenson got pushed out of his key A&R job in 1966, apparently because Eddie Holland wanted the job, and company head Berry Gordy wanted to appease Holland, since he was part of the company's top songwriting team, Holland-Dozier-Holland. Stevenson stayed a couple more years, but got a job as the head of MGM's soul and R&B section in 1969. However, he had far less success as a songwriter after leaving Motown, or perhaps he didn't write as many songs. 

After Stevenson was gone, Hunter lost influence in the company, since he wasn't adept at playing company politics like Stevenson was. He was pushed out altogether around the time Motown moved their headquarters to Los Angeles in 1972. He stayed in the music industry for many years afterwards, mostly as a producer, but didn't have nearly the same success he had while working for Motown. (I'm repeatedly astounded by how Motown practically seemed to be trying to lose most of their talented people around that time. Gordy moved the company to L.A. because he wanted to get involved with making movies and TV shows. That had limited success at best, but it blew up the company's Detroit hit-making machine.)

Here's the Wikipedia entry about Stevenson:

William Stevenson (songwriter) - Wikipedia

and here's the entry for Hunter:

Ivy Jo Hunter - Wikipedia 

Furthermore, I randomly came across this article about Hunter, which is worth checking out:

The Ivy Jo Hunter Story by Rob Moss - Soul Source (soul-source.co.uk)

As I write this in 2024, Stevenson is still alive at the age of 87. But Hunter died in 2022 at the age of 82.

As usual, the songs are in rough chronological order by year. But while most of the choices are the original hit versions, a few are not. That's because some songs were written with other Motown songwriters I'm also highlighting in the Covered series, especially Sylvia Moy. In order to avoid having the same versions of the same songs on different albums, I've tried to use alternate versions whenever they existed and were worthy. So "He Was Really Sayin' Somethin'," "You've Been in Love Too Long," "Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever," "Playboy," and "It Takes Two" are later versions. 

Aside from those five, most of the rest are Motown recordings, but there are a couple exceptions. "Devil with the Blue Dress" was a Motown song at first, but the non-Motown band Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels had a big hit with it in 1966, so I used that version. And "Footsteps Following Me" was a very late effort. It was written by Stevenson and Hunter in 1991 for a British company that was trying to revive the Motown glory days. It was minor hit there.

This album is an hour and 22 minutes long.

01 Beechwood 4-5789 (Marvelettes)
02 Stubborn Kind of Fellow (Marvin Gaye)
03 Jamie (Eddie Holland)
04 Hitch Hike (Marvin Gaye)
05 Fire (Gino Parks)
06 Pride and Joy (Marvin Gaye)
07 Oh Lover (Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells)
08 Dancing in the Street (Martha & the Vandellas)
09 My Smile Is Just a Frown [Turned Upside Down] (Carolyn Crawford)
10 Lucky Lucky Me (Marvin Gaye)
11 Needle in a Haystack (Velvelettes)
12 Once Upon a Time (Marvin Gaye & Mary Wells)
13 Danger Heartbreak Dead Ahead (Marvelettes)
14 Ask the Lonely (Four Tops)
15 I'll Always Love You (Spinners)
16 I'll Keep Holding On (Marvelettes)
17 Nothing's Too Good for My Baby (Stevie Wonder)
18 Devil with the Blue Dress - Good Golly, Miss Molly (Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels)
19 It Should Have Been Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
20 Behind a Painted Smile (Isley Brothers)
21 You (Marvin Gaye)
22 She Said Yes (Wilson Pickett)
23 Loving You Is Sweeter than Ever (Band)
24 You've Been in Love Too Long (Bonnie Raitt)
25 Sweet Understanding Love (Four Tops)
26 Playboy (Charity Brown)
27 He Was Really Sayin' Somethin' (Bananarama with Fun Boy Three)
28 It Takes Two (Tina Turner & Rod Stewart)
29 Footsteps Following Me (Frances Nero)

https://www.upload.ee/files/17294328/COVRDSTEVNSNHUNTR1962-1991_atse.zip.html

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r927G5gd

That's William 'Mickey' Stevenson on the left, wearing a tie, with Ivy Jo Hunter on the right.

I had a very difficult time finding decent photos of Stevenson and Hunter when they were young. Both pictures used in making the cover art were colorized by the Palette program. The Hunter one was especially rough, but I used the Krea AI program to enhance it.