Covered: Neil Young, Volume 10: 2023-2026

Finally, here's the tenth and last volume for the Neil Young "Covered" series. A big thanks again to Fabio from Rio for doing most of the work to put these together.

Before I go to Fabio's notes about the songs, I want to mention something. My rule here was to include only one cover version of each song (and no versions performed by Young himself). We kept to that, except for two songs, "Heart of Gold" and "Cortez the Killer," where we had two versions. Now that I'm posting this last volume, you can look over all the volumes and see just what songs we included or didn't include. Let us know if you think there are any great Young songs that we didn't include a cover for.

Also, Fabio says he's going to make a kind of "extras" album or albums, consisting of cover versions that he liked that didn't make it here. That's a good opportunity to have second covers of some songs, instead of just one. So if you have ideas of covers that you don't see here, please post them in the comments. I'm sure Fabio will look those over and take that feedback into consideration for his "extras."

One more thing. Fabio wanted this to end on a strong song Young wrote in recent years, specifically "Green Is Blue." But we didn't have a good cover version for that one. So Fabio reached out to the Neil Young "Rust" community. A person named Jeff Winter stepped up and recorded a version of that song just for this collection. So thanks to Jeff as well.

Now, here's Fabio's comments about this time period. 

More than sixty years after Neil Young first emerged in the folk clubs of Toronto, Canada, and later with Buffalo Springfield in the mid-1960s, his songs continue to travel across generations, genres, and continents. The covers gathered throughout these ten volumes show how Young's catalog has become a kind of shared musical language: interpreted by classic rock veterans, indie artists, folk revivalists, Americana performers, and even bedroom musicians recording from home studios.

In recent years this process has only accelerated. Streaming platforms, Bandcamp releases, and fan communities have made it easier than ever for musicians to reinterpret songs from every era of Young's career - from the fragile acoustic ballads of the early seventies to the politically charged songs of his later decades. At the same time, Young himself has continued to release new music and expand his archival releases, ensuring that both longtime fans and new listeners keep rediscovering the depth of his songwriting.

This final volume works almost like an epilogue to the project: a reminder that Neil Young's songs remain very much alive, constantly finding new voices and new meanings. Even when he will no longer be with us - after all, we are all mortals - as long as musicians keep picking up guitars or sitting down at a piano, these songs will continue their journey.

As a final note, I'd like to add that putting together this collection has been both a challenge and a pleasure. Revisiting more than six decades of songwriting made it clear once again how remarkably durable Neil Young's music is: the same songs can survive countless reinterpretations while still retaining their emotional core.

My thanks go to Paul for the idea, the patience, and the many suggestions along the way - and also to the worldwide community of fans, collectors and musicians (the "Rusties") who keep discovering, performing and sharing these songs. Without that ongoing enthusiasm, projects like this would hardly be possible.

Most of all, this collection is simply a tribute to one of the most distinctive songwriters of the last sixty years. As long as people continue to listen to, perform and sing these songs, Young's music won't burn out nor will it rust. And his legacy will never fade away. 

--- 

Note that Fabio wrote individual paragraphs about all the songs in this volume. To see that, please look at the Word file added to the download zip file. Thanks again to Fabio for his help putting these albums together.  

This album is an hour and six minutes long.

01 Ten Men Working (Enrico Di Bella)
02 Berlin (Jens Thomas)
03 There’s a World (Sufjan Stevens)
04 Hitchhiker (Minus 5)
05 Out of My Mind (Minus 5)
06 Crime in the City [Sixty to Zero Part 1] (Paul Besselle)
07 No More (Gil Michael)
08 One of These Days (Kassi Valazza)
09 Borrowed Tune (Chris Eckman)
10 Lookin' for a Love (Jeffrey Martin)
11 Philadelphia (Brandi Carlile)
12 White Line (Kurt Vile)
13 Cowgirl in the Sand (Anders Osborne)
14 Here We Are in the Years (Sharon Van Etten)
15 Sail Away (Tyler Ramsey & Carl Broemel)
16 Green Is Blue (Jeff Winter)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/FNWt2ezZ

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/5h1gcKPqlUwhS7q/file

The cover photo is from 2019. 

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.

Joe Walsh with Stephen Stills - VetsAid 2023, North Island Credit Union Amphitheater, Chula Vista, CA, 11-12-2023

The other day, this concert appeared on my YouTube feed. I was intrigued by the fact that it wasn't a typical Joe Walsh concert, because Stephen Stills joined him for three songs, singing lead vocals on two of them. It was originally from a webcast, meaning the sound quality is excellent, so I decided to post it.

It turns out this set was from a larger benefit concert called VetsAid. It's been held annually since 2017. Joe Walsh has been a prime mover behind the concerts, along with his wife Marjorie. Both of them had parents who were military veterans. The money raised by the concerts goes to fund non-profits that help veterans. Unusually, the concert is held in different towns each year, towns that typically don't have concerts like this. For instance, this one was held in Chula Vista, near San Diego. The 2025 one was in Witchita, Kansas, and the 2022 one was in Columbus, Ohio.

Each year, there's a different line-up of prominent music acts. For this concert, the other acts were the War on Drugs, Lucius, the Flaming Lips, and Electric Light Orchestra. Stills didn't perform a set of his own.

All the songs here came from a YouTube video of the webcast, except for one song, so the sound quality was excellent. As I often do, I converted the video to audio, then chopped it into mp3s. However, the vocals were low in the mix, so I fixed that with help of the MVSEP program. 

 

The one song not from that webcast was "Rocky Mountain Way," which was removed due to some copyright issue. I found a different version of that song on YouTube, probably recorded by someone in the audience with their cell phone. Not surprisingly, the sound quality isn't as good on this one. I did some extra edits on that to try to improve the sound quality. It sounds somewhat better, but it's still rougher than the other songs.

Walsh and Stills were no longer spring chickens at the time of this concert, but they certainly could still play guitar. There's a lot of excellent lead guitar work here. For instance, "Turn to Stone" is 11 minutes long, with most of that soloing. And the songs with Stills are a highlight, due to the guitar dueling between Walsh and Stills.

 

I found an article about this concert in a San Diego newspaper, if you want to know more: 

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/2023/11/13/joe-walsh-and-fellow-rock-roll-hall-of-famers-made-san-diego-vetsaid-a-benefit-concert-to-remember/

By the way, if anyone has any of the other webcasts of the VetsAid concert, including the other acts from this one, please let me know. I got the impression that there have been webcasts of these concerts every year, but they're surprisingly hard to find. 

This album is 57 minutes long. 

01 talk (Joe Walsh)
02 In the City (Joe Walsh)
03 Life's Been Good (Joe Walsh)
04 talk (Joe Walsh)
05 Turn to Stone (Joe Walsh)
06 Funk No. 49 (Joe Walsh)
07 talk (Joe Walsh)
08 talk (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
09 For What It's Worth (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
10 Love the One You're With (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
11 talk (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
12 Rocky Mountain Way (Joe Walsh & Stephen Stills)
13 talk (Joe Walsh)
14 All Night Long (Joe Walsh)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/geYXyByG

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/L1ue4d2PVQgQoAr/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. Stephen Stills is on the left, with glasses, and Joe Walsh is on the right.

Covered: Tom Waits, Volume 4: 2013-2023 (A Fabio from Rio Guest Post)

Here's the fourth and last album in the Covered series celebrating the songs of Tom Waits by collecting cover versions.

Once again, I have to thank Fabio from Rio for being the prime mover behind putting these Waits albums together. He selected a large number of songs, and I narrowed it down to a reasonable amount. And one again, Fabio was nice enough to do the write up. So, take it away, Fabio:

--- 

Waits released his last studio record to date ("Bad as Me") in 2011. His later works revisit all earlier phases in fragmented, refined form. Waits alternates tender ballads with abrasive rhythm experiments, presenting a distilled, self-aware summary of his artistic language rather than a new stylistic break.

This last volume with performances from the 2010s and 2020s is mostly filled with female voices, hinting that, musically, Waits has become something of a ladies' man — at least for a younger generation of singers.

Here again we have a wild range of different styles, from forties-like doo-wop (Ice Cream Man) to eighties-drum-machine-electro-pop ("All Stripped Down"), from jazz and blues rock ("Fumblin' with the Blues", "Shore Leave") to americana and alt-country ("Walk Away", "Blue Skies").

We will also find adult contemporary ("In-Between Love"), dark cabaret ("Little Drop of Poison", "Starving in the Belly of a Whale"), R&B ("Such a Scream"), and confessional ballad ("Martha") in the mix.

Tom Jones makes "Bad as Me" his own. "Emotional Weather Report" is a deep cut taken from the little-known jazz and spoken-word Waits seventies album "Nighthawks on the Radio", which highlights Tom Waits' deadpan humor. 

Other standouts are Rosanne Cash's "Time" and Aimee Mann's version for "Hold On" - which kind of reminded me, in spirit if not in sound, of the acappella version sung by Emily Kinney as Beth Greene in "The Walking Dead" - one of the most poignant moments of the entire series(*). 

(*) You can check it out (along with Tom Waits' original version) at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNeGLUAUbgQ&list=RDGNeGLUAUbgQ 

---

This album is 55 minutes long.

01 Walk Away (Steel Wheels)
02 Bad as Me (Tom Jones)
03 Emotional Weather Report (Marissa Mulder)
04 All Stripped Down (Lisa Bassenge)
05 Ice Cream Man (Hazelnuts)
06 Blue Skies (Lisa Bassenge)
07 In Between Love (Jennifer Porter)
08 Such a Scream (Good Paper of Rev. Rob Mortimer)
09 Fumblin' with the Blues (Natascha & the Spy Boys)
10 Little Drop of Poison (Ellie Gunn and the Firethornes)
11 Hold On (Aimee Mann)
12 Time (Rosanne Cash)
13 Starving in the Belly of a Whale (Belladone)
14 Martha (Jackie Greene)
15 Shore Leave (Nickel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/QwFCJsny 

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/qn4qIm97mvtE5WO/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from a video of an interview he did around 2020.

The Wild Honey Orchestra - Tribute to the Nuggets Album, Alex Theatre, Glendale, CA, 5-19-2023

I'm particularly happy to be posting this album. Most every year, a big, loose collection of professional musicians in the Los Angeles area come together to put on a benefit concert that celebrates a favorite musical act or album. In 2023, this group, the Wild Honey Orchestra, did it again. This time, they targeted the 1972 album "Nuggets." 

"Nuggets" was a collection of garage rock from the mid-1960s. It was a hugely influential collection, especially since it helped inspire the punk rock movement a few years later. It also led to an entire cottage industry of similar releases, often with similar names like "Pebbles," mining obscure garage rock gems from that era.

The last Wild Honey Orchestra concert I could find with worthy sound quality was the one from 2019, celebrating the music of the band Lovin' Spoonful. Then a year was skipped due to the Covid pandemic. The 2022 concert celebrated the band Big Star. Then came this one in 2023. Then 2024 was skipped for some reason. Most recently (as I write this in January 2026), there was a 2025 concert celebrating singer-songwriter Warren Zevon.

The only place I've found any of these concert with worthy sound quality was from the Wild Honey Orchestra's YouTube page. But it seemed they stopped posting their concerts after 2020, so I had resigned myself to not finding any more. But I took another look at that page a few days ago, after not going there for a year or two, and I found a video of most of this Nuggets concert, with excellent sound quality. All the songs were there, but lots of the banter between songs was missing. So I converted it to audio format and chopped it into mp3s.

That was good, but I wanted to do something about the missing banter. The emcee for the concert was Lenny Kaye. He was the person who compiled the album back in 1972, and wrote the liner notes. He later played lead guitar for Patti Smith in the 1970s, and then again from the mid-1990s until the current day. For this concert, he gave brief spoken introductions to each of the songs. But about half of them were missing from the video I found. I wanted to do something about that. 

Luckily, I discovered an audience bootleg of the same concert. The sound quality was far worse, but at least it was complete, which meant it had all the missing intros. If I had wanted to take some music from this boot, that would have been a problem. But sound quality didn't matter so much just for talking between songs. Even there, there were sound issues. So I ran all the banter I took from this boot through the Adobe voice enhancer program. That made a drastic difference. Now, I think in most cases, one can't tell which talking tracks were from the original video and which were from the audience boot. Oh, and I also boosted the lead vocals relative to the instruments on the songs that needed that, which was most of them. 

The Wild Honey Orchestra was the backing band for the entire concert, with members coming and going from the stage depending on the musical instruments needed for each song. Furthermore, each song typically had a different lead vocalist, though some sang two or three songs. 

The vocalists generally fell into two categories. The first was musicians who actually played on the original recordings over 50 years ago, or were otherwise from that era. That's pretty remarkable, considering how many years had passed. The others were somewhat younger musicians who just really liked this kind of music. Overall, there weren't that many "big names." Probably the most famous musician was Susanna Hoffs of the Bangles, who sang two songs. For one of them, she was joined by musical comedian Weird Al Yankovic, but he only played accordion and didn't sing. All in all though, it was a pretty old crowd on stage, and I'll bet in the audience as well.

I still can't find worthy audio from the Big Star and Warren Zevon tribute concerts. Let's hope those emerge someday. But in the meantime, at least there's this.  

If you like listening to garage rock, you really should listen to this. True, most of the performers were in their sixties and seventies, but I swear you can't tell by listening. These "old geezers" still knew how to rock! 

This album is two hours and 26 minutes long. 

Before I post the set list, I made this list of the original musical acts for each song, as well as the years the songs were released. Some track numbers are skipped, due to those being talk tracks. The vast majority of the songs on the 1972 "Nuggets" album were performed, but not all of them. Plus, some songs not on that album (but similar in spirit) were played. For instance, "96 Tears," "7 and 7 Is," and "Crazy like a Fox."

02 Oh Yeah - Shadows of Knight (1966)
05 Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl - Barbarians (1965)
07 A Little Bit of Soul - Music Explosion (1967) 
09 Don't Look Back - Remains (1966)
12 96 Tears - Question Mark & the Mysterians (1966)
14 Liar, Liar - Castaways (1965) 
16 [Just Like] Romeo and Juliet - Reflections (1964) 
18 Sugar and Spice - Cryan' Shames (1966)
20 Lies - Knickerbockers (1965)
22 Dirty Water - Standells (1966)
24 Little Girl - Syndicate of Sound (1966)
26 Talk, Talk - Music Machine (1966)
28 Crazy like a Fox - Link Cromwell (1966)
30 Pushin' Too Hard - (Seeds 1966)
32 It's-a-Happening - Magic Mushrooms (1966)
35 You're Gonna Miss Me - 13th Floor Elevators (1966)
37 Baby Please Don't Go - Amboy Dukes (1968)
39 Sit Down, I Think I Love You - Mojo Men (1967)
41 Run, Run, Run - Third Rail (1967)
43 My World Fell Down - Sagittarius (1967)
45 An Invitation to Cry - Magicians (1965) 
47 I Want Candy - Strangeloves (1965)
49 I Had Too Much to Dream [Last Night] - Electric Prunes (1966)
51 No Time like the Right Time - Blues Project (1967) 
53 Hey Joe - Leaves (1966) 
55 Let's Talk about Girls - Chocolate Watchband (1967) 
57 Psychotic Reaction - Count Five (1966) 
59 Open My Eyes - Nazz (1968) 
61 7 and 7 Is - Love (1966)
63 Tobacco Road - Blues Magoos (1966)
65 Farmer John - Premiers (1964)
67 Gloria - Them (1965) 

Here's the usual song list: 

01 talk (Lenny Kaye)
02 Oh Yeah (Mike Stax)
03 talk (Lenny Kaye)
04 talk (Cindy Lee Barryhill)
05 Are You a Boy or Are You a Girl (Cindy Lee Barryhill)
06 talk (Lenny Kaye)
07 A Little Bit of Soul (Paley Brothers)
08 talk (Billy Vera)
09 Don't Look Back (Billy Vera)
10 talk (Lenny Kaye)
11 talk (All Day Sucker)
12 96 Tears (All Day Sucker)
13 talk (Lenny Kaye)
14 Liar, Liar (Nick Guzman)
15 talk (Lenny Kaye)
16 [Just Like] Romeo and Juliet (Ron Dante)
17 talk (Lenny Kaye)
18 Sugar and Spice (Andrew Sandoval & Chris Price)
19 talk (Lenny Kaye)
20 Lies (Peter Case)
21 talk (Lenny Kaye)
22 Dirty Water (Peter Zaremba)
23 talk (Peter Zaremba)
24 Little Girl (Peter Zaremba)
25 talk (Peter Zaremba)
26 Talk, Talk (Peter Zaremba)
27 talk (Lenny Kaye)
28 Crazy like a Fox (Lenny Kaye)
29 talk (Lenny Kaye)
30 Pushin' Too Hard (Lenny Kaye & Paul Kopf with Daryl Hooper)
31 talk (Lenny Kaye)
32 It's-a-Happening (Paul Kopt)
33 talk (Lenny Kaye)
34 talk (Carla Olson, Kathy Valentine & Pearl Bentley)
35 You're Gonna Miss Me (Carla Olson, Kathy Valentine & Pearl Bentley)
36 talk (Lenny Kaye)
37 Baby Please Don't Go (Mike Peters with Wayne Kramer)
38 talk (Lenny Kaye)
39 Sit Down, I Think I Love You (Susanna Hoffs & Owen Elliot with Weird Al Yankovic)
40 talk (Lenny Kaye)
41 Run, Run, Run (Tom Kenny)
42 talk (Lenny Kaye)
43 My World Fell Down (Evie Sands)
44 talk (Evie Sands)
45 An Invitation to Cry (Evie Sands)
46 talk (Lenny Kaye)
47 I Want Candy (Susanna Hoffs)
48 talk (Lenny Kaye)
49 I Had Too Much to Dream [Last Night] (James Lowe)
50 talk (Lenny Kaye)
51 No Time like the Right Time (Cameron Dye)
52 talk (Lenny Kaye)
53 Hey Joe (Jim Pons & John Beck)
54 talk (Lenny Kaye)
55 Let's Talk about Girls (David Aguilar)
56 talk (Lenny Kaye)
57 Psychotic Reaction (Kenn Eliner)
58 talk (Lenny Kaye)
59 Open My Eyes (Three O'Clock)
60 talk (Lenny Kaye)
61 7 and 7 Is (Johnny Echols with John Easdale)
62 talk (Lenny Kaye)
63 Tobacco Road (Tara Austin & Rob Laufer with Kathy Valentine)
64 talk (Lenny Kaye)
65 Farmer John (Peter Buck, Scott McCaughey & Lenny Kaye)
66 talk (Lenny Kaye)
67 Gloria (Lenny Kaye & Everyone)
68 talk (Lenny Kaye)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/ZjhTUbAN

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/7LzIelePtiW6Dx7/file

The cover image is taken from a promotional poster for this exact concert. However, I had to make a lot of changes to get all the key parts of that rectangular poster into a square shape. The art in the middle section is the original "Nuggets" cover (which was also the main part of the poster). The list of musical acts at the bottom is not completely acccurate, since there were some no-shows (like Van Dyke Parks) and some surprise guests (like Susanna Hoffs). But I figured it was close enough to get the gist.

Covered: Antonio Carlos Jobim, Volume 3: 2012-2024

Here is the third and final Covered album celebrating the songwriting of Antonio Carlos Jobim.

I didn't get around to writing about the basics of Jobim's life with the first two volumes in this series, so let me do that now. Jobim was born in 1927 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. In the 1940s, he made a living playing piano in bars and nightclubs in Rio. His first song to be recorded by someone happened in 1953. But he didn't have significant success until 1958, when Joao Gilberto recorded what would become one of his most famous songs, "Desafinado (Out of Tune)." Then, in 1964, he really hit it big with "The Girl from Ipanema." A version of that song by Stan Getz and Astrud Gilberto reached the Top Five in the U.S. singles chart. But its success went way beyond that. In fact, it has become the second most recorded song of all time, behind only "Yesterday" by the Beatles.

This song led many people to discover not only other songs written by Jobim, but songs from Brazil in general, especially bossa nova music. For a couple of years, there was a sort of bossa nova craze in Western countries, especially in the jazz world. Jazz musicians in particular fell in love with Jobim's songs, because they were both musically complicated and interesting while being tuneful and catchy. Many of his songs became standards. Looking at the website secondhandsongs.com in 2025, which tallies cover versions, I count 34 songs written or co-written by Jobim that have been covered over 100 times. It may not sound like a lot, but that's a crazy amount. By comparison, only 18 songs by Bob Dylan have been covered over 100 times. Or consider Carole King, one of the most successful songwriters of all time. Only eight of her songs have been covered over 100 times.

Jobim released several dozen albums, with about half of them being collaborations with other famous musicians. He often collaborated with singers, since he wasn't much of a singer himself. His own albums didn't sell that well, but his collaboration albums often did. Overall, he had much more success with other musicians covering his songs. 

Here's his Wikipedia entry, if you want to know more:

Antônio Carlos Jobim - Wikipedia 

He died in 1994 at the age of 67. As a result, all of the songs here are from well after his death. Most of them were written in the 1950s to 1970s, and it just so happens these are the versions that Fabio from Rio and I liked the best (since all three of these albums were put together by Fabio and myself). As with the two previous volumes in the series, the focus was on songs sung in English, when in fact there are even more covers of his songs in other languages, especially Portuguese, which is spoken in his home country of Brazil.

Thanks again to Fabio of Rio for his helping putting this Jobim albums together. I already had plans to make Covered albums from Jobim on my own. But they wouldn't have been nearly as good without Fabio's input, since he's much more familiar with this type of music than I am. 

This album is 46 minutes long. 

01 I Love You [Eu Te Amo] (Alessandra Maestrini)
02 Somewhere in the Hills [O Morro Nao Tem Vez] (Lisa Sanchez & Jon Eriksen Quartet)
03 Forever Green [Sempre Verde] (Trudy Kerr)
04 Photograph [Fotografia] (Stephanie Patton)
05 Little Bird [Passarim] (Daniel Vincke)
06 Once I Loved [O Amor em Paz] (Baila Nova)
07 This Happy Madness [Estrada Branca] (Delicatessen)
08 Useless Landscape [Inutil Paisagem] (Emma Pask)
09 Meditation [Meditacao] (Nicole Magolie)
10 One Note Samba [Samba de Uma Nota So] (Arpi Alto)
11 Wave (Natalie Jacob, Tamir Hendelman, Anthony Wilson & Kevin Winard)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/uUAZTVi5

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/kSoOFxh4c0rb9Nm/file

The cover photo is cropped from a photo of Jobim with Sting. I don't know when it was taken, but I'd guess it's from the 1990s, because the two of them collaborated on a song around then which was released in 1996. The original version was black and white, but I colorized it with the help of the Kolorize program.

Various Artists - A Grammy Salute to the Beach Boys, Dolby Theatre, Hollywood, CA, 2-8-2023

A few days ago, a commenter suggested I should post this concert. It so happened that I already had it all ready to go (except for making the cover), which is the case for countless hundreds, if not thousands of albums. But since it was requested, I put it at the top of the pile, and here it is. It's a Grammy salute to the Beach Boys from 2023.

This tribute was shown on prime time television, so that meant it was faced paced, and with lots of guest stars. Famous actor Tom Hanks started things off with a spoken tribute, and actors John Stamos and Drew Carey also had turns to speak. 

I found a video of this concert, converted it to audio, and then broke it into mp3s. So I don't think it's circulated as an audio bootleg before. The music is unreleased, and the sound quality is excellent.

This album is an hour and eleven minutes long. 

01 talk (Tom Hanks)
02 Help Me Rhonda (Little Big Town)
03 talk (John Stamos)
04 California Girls (Weezer)
05 talk (Jimmy Jam)
06 Sail On, Sailor (John Legend)
07 Barbara Ann (Hanson)
08 In My Room (Brandi Carlile)
09 Wouldn't It Be Nice (Charlie Puth)
10 Don't Worry Baby (Michael McDonald & Take 6)
11 talk (John Legend)
12 The Warmth of the Sun (Norah Jones)
13 Do It Again (Foster the People)
14 Surfer Girl (Lady A)
15 talk (Drew Carey)
16 Do You Wanna Dance (Fall Out Boy)
17 talk (emcee)
18 Sloop John B (Beck)
19 Caroline, No (LeAnn Rimes)
20 talk (Mumford & Sons)
21 I Know There's an Answer (Mumford & Sons)
22 Darlin' (Andy Grammer)
23 talk (Norah Jones)
24 You Still Believe in Me (St. Vincent)
25 I Get Around (My Morning Jacket)
26 talk (LeAnn Rimes)
27 Heroes and Villains (Pentatonix)
28 talk (John Stamos)
29 Surfin' U.S.A. - Fun, Fun, Fun (Luke Spiller & Taylor Momsen)
30 Good Vibrations (Beck & Jim James)
31 talk (Brandi Carlile & John Legend)
32 God Only Knows (Brandi Carlile & John Legend)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/BvP9j4sK

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/I8sT7w5JNg2CT8v/file

The cover image is from this exact concert. It shows Brandi Carlile singing to John Legend, who has his back to the camera.

Norah Jones - Tryin' to Keep It Together - Non-Album Tracks (2020-2023)

Here's another collection of non-album tracks from Norah Jones.

The Covid pandemic dominated 2020 until 2022. During that time, Jones kept quite busy with frequent home concerts. She played enough unique songs in those concerts for me to post two albums of those (as well as all of his home concerts in full). This avoids all of that in other to avoid duplication. Additionally, during this time she hosted a podcast and played even more unique songs. I'm avoiding all those as well. Hopefully those will be the subject of a future album or two posted here, though she also has released an album of highlights from her podcast, called "Playing Along."

The first two songs are bonus tracks from her album "Pick Me Up Off the Floor." Tracks 3, 4, 7, 8, and 10 are unreleased. All of those are from concerts, though most of those were not in front of audiences due to the Covid pandemic at the time. For the two that did have audience applause, I got rid of that using the MVSEP program, so they would better fit in with the studio tracks.

Tracks 5 and 6 are bonus tracks from her 2021 Christmas album, "I Dream of Christmas." The song "I Dream of Christmas" was co-written by Jones, so it's a bit strange it was only a bonus track for the album that was given the same name as the song. Track 9, "Steer Your Way," is from a Leonard Cohen tribute album. The last two are also from a concert, but an officially released one, celebrating Willie Nelson's 90th birthday. 

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 Street Stranger (Norah Jones)
02 Tryin' to Keep It Together (Norah Jones)
03 Yes We Can Can (Norah Jones with Emily King, Abeena Koomson-Davis & Amy Helm)
04 Help Me (Norah Jones)
05 I Dream of Christmas (Norah Jones)
06 The Christmas Waltz (Norah Jones)
07 I've Got a Feeling (Norah Jones)
08 Let It Be (Norah Jones)
09 Steer Your Way (Norah Jones)
10 The Warmth of the Sun (Norah Jones)
11 Seven Spanish Angels (Allison Russell & Norah Jones)
12 Down Yonder (Norah Jones)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/r5vZwP11

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/3pMRR4toL41ylIB/file

The cover photo is from 2022. 

Ron Sexsmith - Reasons to Believe, Volume 8: 2016-2023

Back in early 2024, I started posting this series of non-album tracks by Ron Sexsmith. This was the idea of a musical associate, Pete the Greek, and I wouldn't have done it without his instigation and continual help. Finally, after a year and a half, the series comes to an end with this eighth volume. (Or at least it's ending until Sexsmith puts out another albums' worth of stray tracks, but that could take years.)

This album is a fairly even split between released and unreleased songs. The released ones are tracks 1, 2, 3, 4, 7, 9, 10 and 11. One of those, "Flowers All Along the Pathway," is a bonus track from the Sexsmith album "The Vivian Line." Most of the rest are appearances on albums by other musical acts, or on various artists compilations.

That leaves the unreleased songs, which are the remaining six. These are all from concerts, home concerts, or radio shows. For the ones that had audience applause, I got rid of that using the MVSEP program to help them fit in with the other songs without applause. 

Thanks again to Pete the Greek for all his help with this series, and sorry it took so long to post it all.

This album is 49 minutes long. 

Here's a list of the original artists for each song: 

01 Twilight of the Season - Hidden Cameras with Ron Sexsmith
02 Don't Make Promises - Tim Hardin
03 Stay Loose - Gordon Lightfoot
04 Sorrow Town - Jamie Lawson & Ron Sexsmith
05 Suzanne - Leonard Cohen
06 Driving Home for Christmas - Chris Rea
07 How're You Holding Up - Humanist with Ron Sexsmith
08 If Not for You - Bob Dylan
09 The Faith - Leonard Cohen
10 Flowers All Along the Pathway - Ron Sexsmith
11 Granddad's Song - SunYears
12 I'll Never Fall in Love Again - Dionne Warwick
13 Dirty Life and Times - Warren Zevon
14 You Can Call Me Al - Paul Simon

Here's the usual song list: 

01 Twilight of the Season (Hidden Cameras with Ron Sexsmith)
02 Don't Make Promises (Hidden Cameras with Ron Sexsmith)
03 Stay Loose (Ron Sexsmith)
04 Sorrow Town (Jamie Lawson & Ron Sexsmith)
05 Suzanne (Ron Sexsmith)
06 Driving Home for Christmas (Ron Sexsmith)
07 How're You Holding Up (Humanist with Ron Sexsmith)
08 If Not for You (Ron Sexsmith)
09 The Faith (Ron Sexsmith)
10 Flowers All Along the Pathway (Ron Sexsmith)
11 Granddad's Song (SunYears with Ron Sexsmith)
12 I'll Never Fall in Love Again (Ron Sexsmith)
13 Dirty Life and Times (Ron Sexsmith)
14 You Can Call Me Al (Ballroom Thieves & Ron Sexsmith)  

https://pixeldrain.com/u/KVari7Y6

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bwFSMMo5FWin5lc/file

The cover photo is from 2017. That's all I know about it.

Brandi Carlile - Cover Songs, Volume 9: 2022-2023

A couple of days ago, I posted a Brandi Carlile set from the 2025 Glastonbury Festival. That reminded me that I had fallen behind posting cover song albums from her. So I searched the Internet and found enough material for this album. Also, I'm only a couple of songs short for the next one, so hopefully that'll happen soon.

Also, before I talk about the content on this album, note that in recent days I went through all of the earlier albums in this cover songs series and got rid of the applause on the songs that had applause, using the MVSEP program. So you might want to redownload those, because that often makes the songs sound clearer, especially in cases where there's a steady stream of audience noise through the songs.

Furthermore, I recently went through all the Dusty Springfield "On TV and Radio" albums, and used the same technique to get rid of the audience noise there as well. That was a big project, because there are 12 of those albums. And while I was at it, I redid most of the album covers using the Krea AI program, including some outside of that series. So you might want to redownload those as well.

Now, let's turn to the content of this album. A few of the songs here are officially released. They generally come from Carlile's appearances on the albums of other musical acts, and they are covers of songs first done by those acts. Those are "How" by Marcus Mumford and Brandi Carlile (which actually is cowritten by Carlile), "You're Gonna Go Far" by Noah Kahan, "Thousand Miles" by Miley Cyrus, and "Dear Insecurity" by Brandy Clark. The only other released song is "Closer to Fine," done for the 2023 "Barbie" movie.

The rest all are unreleased. All of those come from concerts, and are versions of famous songs. For those, I used the MVSEP program to get rid of as much of the crowd noise as possible, so the live tracks would fit in with the studio ones. 

This album is 48 minutes long. 

Here are the original artists for each song: 

01 Coat of Many Colors - Dolly Parton
02 How - Marcus Mumford & Brandi Carlile
03 Every Day Is a Winding Road - Sheryl Crow
04 You're Gonna Go Far - Noah Kahan
05 She's Got You - Patsy Cline
06 Thousand Miles - Miley Cyrus
07 In My Room - Beach Boys
08 Closer to Fine - Indigo Girls
09 God Only Knows - Beach Boys
10 Dear Insecurity - Brandy Clark
11 Islands in the Stream - Kenny Rogers & Dolly Parton 
12 Shine - Joni Mitchell

Here's the usual song list: 

01 Coat of Many Colors (Brandi Carlile & Pink)
02 How (Marcus Mumford & Brandi Carlile)
03 Every Day Is a Winding Road (Brandi Carlile & Sheryl Crow)
04 You're Gonna Go Far (Noah Kahan with Brandi Carlile)
05 She's Got You (Brandi Carlile)
06 Thousand Miles (Miley Cyrus with Brandi Carlile)
07 In My Room (Brandi Carlile)
08 Closer to Fine (Brandi Carlile & Catherine Carlile)
09 God Only Knows (Brandi Carlile & John Legend)
10 Dear Insecurity (Brandy Clark & Brandi Carlile)
11 Islands in the Stream (Brandi Carlile & Nathaniel Rateliff)
12 Shine (Brandi Carlile with Lucius & Celisse)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/oC9aQYDt

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/xqgaQsHKYaJnbi3/file

The cover photo is from a concert in Nashville, Tennessee, on September 22, 2023.

The Buggles - The Buggles Live (2004-2023) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

When guest poster Mike Solof came to me recently with the idea of posting a live album by the Buggles, I have to admit I was pretty surprised. I only knew of the Buggles as a one-hit wonder, "Video Killed the Radio Star," from 1979. But Mike assured me that there's a lot more to this band than that, despite the fact that they only released two albums, one in 1980 and the other in 1981. So I said sure, let's do it, and here we are.

The three original members of the Buggles were only together for a short while because singer and bassist Trevor Horn and keyboardist Geoff Downes were recruited to join the band Yes mere months after the first Buggles album came out. From there, both of them found even more success as producers, as well as being members of other bands. It turns out the original Buggles did no concerts at all, although they did lip-sync on TV a few times.

However, interest in the music of the Buggles remained strong, considering their short existence. In 2004, the three original members reunited briefly to play two songs at a high profile concert celebrating the career so far of Trevor Horn. Those two songs are here, but not in the album proper. Instead, Mike elected to have the videos of them included as bonus tracks.

Then, in 2010, the band got together again for a single concert. But there was no more activity until 2023, when the band finally went on tour for the first time. Most of this album (the first 13 tracks) are from a 2023 concert. The sound quality of those tracks is excellent. The remaining songs (tracks 14 through 18) are from the 2010 concert. The sound quality of those isn't as good. So only the songs not performed in the 2023 concert are included.

If you want to know more, please read Mike's PDF included in the zip download file. I think this album makes a strong case that the Buggles were much more than just a one-hit wonder. 

This album is 53 minutes long. Everything here is unreleased.

01 Two Tribes [Instrumental] (Buggles)
02 talk (Buggles)
03 Living in the Plastic Age (Buggles)
04 talk (Buggles)
05 Elstree (Buggles)
06 talk (Buggles)
07 I Am a Camera (Buggles)
08 talk (Buggles)
09 Close [To the Edit] (Buggles)
10 talk (Buggles)
11 Owner of a Lonely Heart (Buggles)
12 talk (Buggles)
13 Video Killed the Radio Star (Buggles)
14 Kid Dynamo (Buggles)
15 I Love You Miss Robot (Buggles)
16 talk (Buggles)
17 Astroboy (Buggles)
18 Johnny on the Monorail [A Very Different Version] (Buggles)

Clean, Clean (Bruce Wooley & the Camera Club)
Living in the Plastic Age [2004 Version] (Buggles)
Video Killed the Radio Star [2004 Version] (Buggles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/v4BvriaB

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/ZICz7OnKhnZCpz0/file 

The cover photo shows Trevor Horn in concert in 2004.

Covered: Dan Penn & Spooner Oldham, Volume 2: 1968-2023

Here's the second and final album of the Covered series for the songwriting team of Dan Penn and Spooner Oldham.

In the first volume, I noted that Penn and Oldham had a lot of success writing hit songs from about 1966 to 1968, while based in Memphis, Tennessee. The first song here is from 1968. But after that, there was a sharp drop with their musical successes. Penn later claimed that there was a lot of fruitful collaboration between white songwriters like Spooner and him and the black singers they were mainly writing for during that time period, but that changed as the years went on. He saw the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968 as a key moment. After that, race became more of an issue, and the expectation grew that soul music songs sung by black singers would be written by black songwriters too.

Due to this changed environment, Penn and Oldham split up. Oldham moved to Los Angeles, where he found a lot of success playing keyboards as a session musician. That continued for decades, with him playing on albums by the likes of Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Aretha Franklin, Jackson Browne, the Everly Brothers, J.J. Cale, Linda Ronstadt, and many, many more. 

Meanwhile, Penn moved to Nashville, the home of country music, and tried to find success writing country songs. However, although his style had always been an interesting combination of soul and country music, he didn't do well writing just  for country singers. In 1973, he finally released his first solo album, "Nobody's Fool." While it was critically acclaimed, it sold very little. He did have some success as a songwriter and/or producer, but in a low-key way.

In 1994, Penn and Oldham reunited for Penn's second solo album, "Do Right Man." This mostly consisted of Penn's versions of his biggest hits from the 1960s. It was critically acclaimed. And while it also wasn't a big seller, it generated enough interest for Penn and Oldham to essentially start a new career as duo, going on tour to promote the occasional new album by Penn. Since then, Penn has released three more studio albums. The two of them have built up a following. As I write this in 2025, they are still going on tour, despite the fact that they're both in their early eighties.

Penn continues to write new songs, though it seems not often with Oldham anymore. He's had the occasional successful late career song. For instance, "Don't Give Up on Me" was the title track to Solomon Burke's acclaimed 2002 album by that same name. And "Memphis Women and Chicken" from Penn's 1994 album is usually performed in the concerts by Penn and Oldham.

Most of the songs here were written by Penn with others instead of Oldham. However, "Lonely Women Make Good Lovers" was written by Oldham without Penn. Unlike the hit-filled Volume 1, there really aren't any big hits here, though arguably some could be considered classics, and the songwriting is still at a consistently high level. Some of the songs were written much earlier than when the versions here were recorded. For instance, "Keep On Talking," recorded by Texas in 2023, was first released by someone else in 1965. In cases like that, these are the versions I like best.

This album is 45 minutes long.

01 I Met Her in Church (Box Tops)
02 A Woman Left Lonely (Janis Joplin)
03 Rainbow Road (Percy Sledge)
04 Lonely Women Make Good Lovers (Bob Luman)
05 Zero Willpower (Irma Thomas)
06 Like a Road Leading Home (Jerry Garcia Band)
07 Where There's a Will [There's a Way] (Dan Penn)
08 Time I Took a Holiday (Nick Lowe)
09 Don't Give Up on Me (Solomon Burke)
10 Memphis Women and Chicken (Gary Nicholson)
11 I Hate You (Nicki Bluhm)
12 Keep On Talking (Texas)

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

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/ImNWdOz5yf5WAU7/file

I don't know what year the cover photo is from. But I did find this photo of the two of them together, probably in the 1990s. I used Photoshop to move them closer together.

Covered: Lee Hazlewood, Volume 2: 1968-2023

Here's Volume Two of my Covered Series albums highlighting the songs written by Lee Hazlewood.

A large percentage of the songs in Volume One were hits. That's much less the case here, since most of this deals with a far less portion of his career, basically from about 1970 onwards until his death (due to cancer) at the age of 78 in 2007.

The first song here, "Some Velvet Morning," was a hit, and is one of his best known songs. What a fascinating song it is. In 2003, the British newspaper The Daily Telegraph placed the single at the Number 1 spot on their 50 Best Duets Ever list. Here's a portion from the article about that list: "These two weirdly complementary sides of Hazlewood's persona unite on 'Some Velvet Morning,' a standout track from Nancy and Lee. On that track, Hazlewood and Sinatra sound like they don't inhabit the same universe, let alone the same song. ... 'Some Velvet Morning' sounds like two songs spliced together by a madman, or an avant-garde short film in song form." 

In the late 1960s, Hazlewood and Sinatra were keeping their successful hit formula going. "Lady Bird" was another big hit song as a duet sung by them, although just to vary things up a bit I've included a version by Virgil Warner & Suzi Jane Hokom instead. (Hokom was Hazlewood's girlfriend in the late 1960s and into the early 1970s.) However, his fortunes changed drastically around 1970, when he decided to move to the Sweden. He ended up living there for ten years. He later claimed that he went there for several reasons, including so his son could avoid getting drafted to fight in the Vietnam War, tax trouble, and bailing out on a failing record company he had tried to run for a few years. One song here, "No Train to Stockholm," details some of his feelings about making that move.

Unfortunately, back in that era, the world was less connected, and going to Sweden was almost suicide for his music career. For instance, his highly successful collaboration with Nancy Sinatra mostly had to come to an end. However, they did reunite occasionally, for instance with an album called "Nancy and Lee Again" in 1972. That contained a Number Two hit in Britain, "Did You Ever." But I didn't included that song here because Hazlewood wasn't involved in writing it.

For much of the 1970s and 80s, he was semi-retired from the music business, although he did release his own albums from time to time. But as more time passed, his music was discovered by younger generations, and his music increasingly achieved a kind of cult status. That led to tribute albums, collaborations, and so on. He also revived his own performing career, including another album with Sinatra in 2004, and a well-regarded final album "Cake or Death," released in 2006, just one year before he died. The song "Baghdad Knights" is from that album.

A lot of the choices here are highly idiosyncratic, meaning someone else putting this together almost certainly would have made many different selections. I tried including at least a little bit of some of his different styles, including three songs he released in his own name, since I couldn't find good cover versions for those. 

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 Some Velvet Morning (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
02 You Turned My Head Around (Ann-Margret)
03 Sweet Ride (Dusty Springfield)
04 Lady Bird (Virgil Warner & Suzi Jane Hokom)
05 No Train to Stockholm (Lee Hazlewood)
06 For a Day like Today (Suzi Jane Hokom)
07 She Comes Running (Waylon Jennings)
08 Paris Summer (Nancy Sinatra & Lee Hazlewood)
09 Las Vegas (Lee Hazlewood)
10 Easy and Me (Kathryn Williams)
11 The Cheat (Jarvis Cocker & Richard Hawley)
12 It's Sunday Morning (Kid Loco with Tim Keegan)
13 Baghdad Knights (Lee Hazlewood)
14 The Night Before (Kristoffer & the Harbour Heads)
15 Your Sweet Love (Sungaze)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/15hZDJ7S

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/1jUKwWZhrurYWeZ/file

I don't know what year the cover photo is from. But I think it's from a little later than the cover photo for Volume 1, due to a little more grey in his hair.

The Beatles - The Beatles Uncovered, Volume 11: Mike's Mixes (1963-2023) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Here we go again. Like a dancing fool who just can't stop dancing, Mike Solof just can't stop editing Beatles songs. By now, you should know the drill. Mike takes songs by the Beatles, and well as a few from their solo careers, and remixes them in ways to bring out aspects you may not have appreciated before.

He really outdid himself with the first song here, "Run So Far." That song, written by George Harrison, first appeared on an Eric Clapton album in 1989. Then it appeared on a Harrison album in 2003. Discovering the two versions were in the same key, Mike combined the lead vocals to create a truly unique acappella mash-up, thanks to over 300 edits for just three minutes of music. Check it out! Then enjoy all the other interesting mixes.

Oh, and as usual, if you want to know more details, like what the edits are for each song, check out the PDF including in the download.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Run So Far [Mike's Mix 2025] (George Harrison and Eric Clapton)
02 Now and Then [Orchestra Version] [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
03 Piggies [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
04 Drive My Car [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
05 From Me to You [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
06 Good Day Sunshine [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
07 Rocky Raccoon [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
08 Rock and Roll Music [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
09 All My Loving [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
10 Norwegian Wood [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
11 Blackbird [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
12 You Know My Name [Look Up the Number] [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
13 Yer Blues [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
14 Got to Get You into My Life [Band Version] [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
15 Maybe I'm Amazed [Mike's Mix 2025] (Paul McCartney)
16 The Long and Winding Road [De-Spectorized Version] [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)
17 No. 9 Dream [Mike's Mix 2025] (John Lennon)
18 Maggie Mae [Mike's Mix 2025] (Beatles)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/dmbRp1er

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/a1g6298C9uDpe0J/file

Mike selected the cover photo. I'm sure it's from 1969, but I don't know any details.

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.

Elton John - BBC Sessions, Volume 17: In Concert, Glastonbury Festival, Worthy Farm, Pilton, Britain, 6-25-2023

I truly thought I was done posting Elton John BBC albums. I'd posted no less than 16 of them already! I could have done even more, but some of them were rather repetitious, with similar set lists. However, I found this and decided, okay, one last time. Elton John suggested this could be his last full concert he ever plays in Britain. Even if that turns out not to be true, sadly, he's getting near to the end of his career. I think this is a good way to sum up his many BBC concerts over the years.

It seems Elton John was determined to go out with a bang. The set list was all killer, no filler. The only recent song performed was "Cold Heart," which was a Number One hit for him in 2021. He also had some guest stars to promote relatively new talent: Brandon Flowers (of the Killers), Jacob Lusk, Stephen Sanchez, and Rina Sawayama.

At the time of this concert, John was about 73 years old. But if there were any signs of age, I couldn't hear them. His voice was still in fine form. 

This concert is unreleased. I could only find a high quality video of it. So I converted that to audio and then broke it up into mp3s.

This album is an hour and 56 minutes long.

01 Pinball Wizard (Elton John)
02 The Bitch Is Back (Elton John)
03 talk (Elton John)
04 Bennie and the Jets (Elton John)
05 talk (Elton John)
06 Daniel (Elton John)
07 Goodbye Yellow Brick Road (Elton John)
08 I Guess That's Why They Call It the Blues (Elton John)
09 talk (Elton John)
10 Philadelphia Freedom (Elton John)
11 talk (Elton John)
12 Are You Ready for Love (Elton John & Jacob Lusk)
13 Sad Songs [Say So Much] (Elton John)
14 talk (Elton John)
15 Someone Saved My Life Tonight (Elton John)
16 talk (Elton John & Stephen Sanchez)
17 Until I Found You (Elton John & Stephen Sanchez)
18 Your Song (Elton John)
19 Candle in the Wind (Elton John)
20 talk (Elton John)
21 Tiny Dancer (Elton John & Brandon Flowers)
22 talk (Elton John)
23 Don't Go Breaking My Heart (Elton John & Rina Sawayama)
24 Crocodile Rock (Elton John)
25 Saturday Night's Alright for Fighting (Elton John)
26 I'm Still Standing (Elton John)
27 talk (Elton John)
28 Cold Heart (Elton John)
29 talk (Elton John)
30 Don't Let the Sun Go Down on Me (Elton John)
31 talk (Elton John)
32 Rocket Man [I Think It's Going to Be a Long, Long Time] (Elton John)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YMLVfJ3Y

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/7VWVGF5njI638qk/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Amanda Marshall - Acoustic and Full Band Rarities (1992-2024) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Before I finish off the last day of the 1982 US Festival, here's a guest post by Mike Solof.

Personally, I had never heard of Amanda Marshall until Mike came to me with this album idea. It turns out she has a great voice, but she never had a big hit song or album, at least in the U.S. (She's Canadian, and her albums were big sellers in Canada.) She's had a strange career in that she put out three albums in 1995, 1999, and 2001, and then waited 22 years before reviving her career with an album in 2023.

Anyway, if you want to know more about her, I suggest you read Mike's PDF included in the download. Also, here's her Wikipedia page:

Amanda Marshall - Wikipedia

One kind of curious thing I should also mention though is this is kind of two albums in one. There's basically an album of acoustic rarities, and another album of full band rarities presented here. But Mike wanted them bundled together. So there's an overall album cover, as well as covers for the acoustic and full band sections. 

ACOUSTIC RARITIES:

01 Birmingham (Amanda Marshall)
02 Fall from Grace (Amanda Marshall)
03 Trust Me [This Is Love] [Acoustic Version] (Amanda Marshall)
04 Dark Horse (Amanda Marshall)
05 Shades of Grey (Amanda Marshall)
06 Calgary (Amanda Marshall)
07 I Hope She Cheats (Amanda Marshall)
08 Believe in You (Amanda Marshall)
09 Castles Made of Sand [Edit] (Amanda Marshall)
10 Love Lift Me (Amanda Marshall)
11 Why Don't You Love Me (Amanda Marshall)
12 Chill Out for Christmas (Amanda Marshall)

FULL BAND RARITIES:

01 Marry Me (Amanda Marshall)
02 I Can't Stand the Rain - Let It Rain (Amanda Marshall)
03 Cross My Heart (Amanda Marshall)
04 Don't Let It Bring You Down (Amanda Marshall)
05 Just Love Me (Amanda Marshall)
06 Until We Fall In (Amanda Marshall)
07 Hey Goodlooking (Amanda Marshall)
08 Closer to the Ground (Amanda Marshall)
09 Eleanor Rigby (Amanda Marshall)
10 Believe in You [Long Version] (Amanda Marshall)
11 This Could Take All Night (Amanda Marshall)
12 Chrome Plated Heart (Amanda Marshall)
13 Snake Charm (Amanda Marshall)

https://www.imagenetz.de/eb9qq

alternate:

https://pixeldrain.com/u/bFSqwS82

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/UaJcwUO056tCIpe/file

I'm not sure about any of the details of the cover photo. Mike picked it.

Various Artists - Songs in the Key of Life - A Grammy Awards Tribute to Stevie Wonder, Nokia Theatre, Los Angeles, CA, 2-10-2015

Here's something a little different than my usual stuff. It's a tribute concert for Stevie Wonder. But because it's from relatively recently, 2015, it has a whole different bunch of musical acts performing songs for him than those that typically show up in these kinds of tribute concerts that I post. There are very big stars that I usually don't have on my blog, such as Beyonce, Ed Sheeran, Lady Gaga, and Ariana Grande. Whether you like those kinds of stars or not, they all performed classic Stevie Wonder songs, so it was very hard to go wrong. Plus, the concert ended with a short set by Stevie Wonder himself.

This concert was professionally recorded and broadcast on TV in 2015. I hasn't been officially released in any format as far as I know, not even on video. But I found the video of it on YouTube. The sound quality is excellent, so I did my usual thing of converting it to audio and cutting it into individual mp3s. 

I edited out some sections where there was talking while video montages of Wonder's life were shown on a big screen. That didn't translate well to just a listening experience. I also edited out some speeches that didn't have much do to with the songs performed. There also is some banter by famous people who weren't always introduced, or at least not introduced each time, like LL Cool J, Jamie Foxx, and Tyler Perry. So keep an eye on the song list for those details.

This album is an hour and 20 minutes long.

01 Fingertips, Part 2 (Beyonce)
02 Master Blaster [Jammin'] (Beyonce & Ed Sheeran)
03 Higher Ground (Beyonce, Ed Sheeran & Gary Clark Jr.)
04 talk (LL Cool J)
05 I Believe [When I Fall in Love It Will Be Forever] (John Legend)
06 talk (Maya Rudolph)
07 talk (Lady Gaga)
08 I Wish (Lady Gaga)
09 talk (Jason Derulo)
10 Signed, Sealed, Delivered [I'm Yours] (Ariana Grande & Babyface)
11 talk (LL Cool J)
12 My Cheri Amour (Annie Lennox)
13 talk (Pharrell Williams)
14 Don't You Worry 'bout a Thing (Pharrell Williams & Ryan Tedder)
15 talk (Tony Bennett)
16 For Once in My Life (Tony Bennett)
17 I Was Made to Love Her (Ed Sheeran)
18 talk (Tyler Perry)
19 You Haven't Done Nuthin' (Band Perry)
20 talk (Mary Wilson)
21 talk (Janelle Monae, India.Arie & Jill Scott)
22 As (Janelle Monae, India.Arie & Jill Scott)
23 talk (Andrea Bocelli)
24 I Just Called to Say I Love You (Andrea Bocelli)
25 talk (Jennifer Hudson)
26 All in Love Is Fair (Jennifer Hudson)
27 talk (LL Cool J)
28 Isn't She Lovely (Ne-Yo with Aisha Wonder)
29 talk (Jamie Foxx)
30 Contusion [Instrumental] (Stevie Wonder)
31 Sir Duke (Stevie Wonder)
32 You Are the Sunshine of My Life (Stevie Wonder)
33 Overjoyed - Ribbon in the Sky (Stevie Wonder)
34 Superstition (Stevie Wonder)
35 talk (LL Cool J with the voice of Martin Luther King, Jr)
36 talk (Stevie Wonder)
37 Happy Birthday (Stevie Wonder & Everyone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16667103/VA-2015SngsinthKyofLfeAGrmmyAwrdTrbteNkaThetrLsAnglsCA__2-10-2015_atse.zip.html

 The cover is from this exact concert. From left to right, that's Stevie Wonder on piano, Tony Bennett, Lady Gaga, and Jennifer Hudson.

Various Artists - Bill McClintock Mash-Ups, Volume 5: 2023-2024

I'm more convinced that ever that Bill McClintock is a twisted genius. Back in February 2023, I posted four albums containing mash-ups created by McClintock and posted on YouTube. Since then, I've been waiting for him to post enough new songs for a fifth volume. Here were finally are.

If you heard and liked any of the first four volumes, you should definitely like this. For those who don't know what I'm talking about, there are a lot of people who have made mash-ups, combining the recordings of two songs to hopefully create something new and interesting. But in my opinion, McClintock is the master of this technique, and his soaring YouTube views are evidence of that.

I've mentioned in the past that McClintock has pretty much single-handedly created a new genre of music, "soul metal," by combining soul songs with heavy metal songs. The resulting mash-ups are fascinating. In my opinion, many of them could be big hits in some bizarro alternate universe. I'm not even much of a heavy metal fan, but I don't think you have to be to enjoy these.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

Note that, as with the other albums in this series, the track list is rather unusual. The song titles are the titles created by McClintock that often jokingly combined the titles of the source material. Then in brackets are the names of the original songs, with "vs." in between them. Then for the artist names in paranetheses, I've put both artists who created the source songs, with "vs." between those names as well.

01 Wake Me Up Before You Go Go to the Grave [Wake Me Up Before You Go Go vs. Children of the Grave] (Wlam vs. Black Sabbath)
02 More Forgiven Today than Yesterday [The Unforgiven vs. More Today than Yesterday] (Spiral Starecase vs. Metallica)
03 Shake Your Dude Thing [Shake Your Groove Thing vs. Dude Looks like a Lady] (Peaches & Herb vs. Aerosmith)
04 She's Got the Sentinel [She's Got the Look vs. The Sentinel] (Judas Priest vs. Roxette)
05 Could You Be a Freak on a Leash [Could You Be Loved vs. Freak on a Leash] (Bob Marley vs. Korn)
06 I Was Made for Boogie Wonderland [I Was Made for Lovin' You vs. Boogie Wonderland] (Kiss vs. Earth, Wind & Fire)
07 Let's Get Bleeding [The Bleeding vs. Let's Get It On] (Five Finger Death Punch & Marvin Gaye)
08 Freeze Frame City [Freeze Frame vs. Detroit Rock City] (J. Geils Band vs. Kiss)
09 Superfools [Supernaut vs. Chain of Fools] (Aretha Franklin vs. Black Sabbath)
10 Take the Soul Power Back [Take the Power Back vs. Soul Power] (James Brown vs. Against the Machine)
11 Dirty Deeds Around the Christmas Tree [Dirty Deeds Done Dirty Cheap vs. Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree] (AC-DC vs. Brenda Lee)
12 Still Coming Undone [Coming Undone vs. Feel it Still] (Korn vs. Portugal. The Man)
13 Unchained Love Machine [Unchained vs. Love Machine] (Van Halen vs. Miracles)
14 Squareboys from Hell [Square Biz vs. Cowboys from Hell] (Teena Marie vs. Pantera)
15 Celebrate Both Worlds [Good Times vs. Best of Both Worlds] (Van Halen vs. Kool & the Gang)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/xa8EUwfA

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/C4vBdsV9QOmLPNs/file 

The cover is basically the exact same as the previous four in this series, with only a bit of the text and the background color changing. That's because I was lucky to find any photos of McClintock at all. 

Sara Bareilles - Non Sequiturs, Volume 1 (2007-2023) (A Mike Solof Guest Post)

Have you heard of Sara Bareilles? Up until recently, I had not. But frequent guest poster Mike Solof came to me recently with a proposal to post an album of original, unreleased songs by her. I listened to it and thought it was good, so I approved posting it. But I also wondered how many people will download it if they hadn't heard of it before, like me. So I suggested to Mike that he make an album of cover songs she's done, all from stray tracks, so people who just love good music can listen to her and discover she has a great voice. So that's what this is.

As usual with Mike's post, you can find a lot more information in his PDFs he writes and includes in the downloads. So check that out. And the other Sara Bareilles album I mentioned is in the works and should be posted here too.

This album is an hour and four minutes long.

01 I Want You Back (Straight No Chaser & Sara Bareilles)
02 Single Ladies [Put a Ring on It] (Sara Bareilles)
03 Oh Darling (Sara Bareilles)
04 I Can Let Go Now (Sara Bareilles)
05 In Your Eyes (Sara Bareilles)
06 I've Had the Time of My Life (Sara Bareilles)
07 Fuck You (Sara Bareilles)
08 Truly Brave [Mash-Up of Brave and True Colors]] (Sara Bareilles, Cyndi Lauper & Hoda Kotb)
09 I Don't Know How to Love Him (Sara Bareilles)
10 River (Sara Bareilles)
11 What's Going On (Sara Bareilles, Clarence Bekker & Titi Tsira)
12 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Sara Bareilles)
13 When You Wish upon a Star (Sara Bareilles)
14 Chandelier (Sara Bareilles)
15 Stoney End (Sara Bareilles)
16 You've Got a Friend (Sara Bareilles)
17 California (Sara Bareilles, Brandi Carlile & Lucius)
18 Come On Eileen (Sugarland & Sara Bareilles)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16631634/SARBARLLES2007-2023NnSqitrsVlum1_atse.zip.html

I have no idea when or where the cover photo is from, and I doubt Mike does either. But he presented a bunch of options to me for the cover photo, and I liked this one the best, so here we are. I'm guessing there are different colors on her because she was sitting near a stained glass window, which I think is a cool effect.