Various Artists - KHJ Third Annual Appreciation Concert, Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA, 8-16-1968

First, some bad news. I've been having some problems with my computer, which is why I haven't posted anything here in the past couple of days. I had to take it into a repair shop. I was excited to get it back home today, only to find there are still some problems, so I have to take it back tomorrow for further fixes. But while I have it today, I can post some albums.

Now, the good news: I'm very psyched to post this concert. It's not often we get concerts like this from this 1960s, and this one was very hard to find. Hopefully it will get wider exposure now. It was put on by a Los Angeles radio station, KHJ, and it was broadcast on that station at the time. It featured four musical acts: the Yellow Payges, Tommy James and the Shondells, the (Young) Rascals, and Eric Burdon and the Animals.

As you can see from the title, this was the third such annual concert for KHJ. The first one, in 1966, featured Sonny and Cher (as the main headliners), Donovan, Bob Lind, the Knickerbockers, the Mamas & the Papas, the Modern Folk Quartet, Otis Redding, and the Turtles. It would be incredible to hear that, but I've never heard of a recording existing for it. Luckily, a recording for the second annual concert in 1967 does exist, and I posted it at this blog in 2024. The one featured Buffalo Springfield, the Fifth Dimension, Brenda Holloway, the Seeds, Johnny Rivers, and the Supremes. If you missed it, here's the page for the link:

https://albumsthatshouldexist.blogspot.com/2024/05/various-artists-khj-second-annual.html

Just like that 1967 concert, this one featured musical acts that rarely or never were bootlegged. Let's start with the first act, the Yellow Payges. If you've never heard of them, don't feel bad. They never had much commercial success, and have pretty much been forgotten. However, they released ten singles in the 1960s, as well as an album in 1969, before breaking up in 1970. Looking at their reviews at the crowd-sourced rateyourmusic.com, it seems they were pretty good, but struggled for a distinctive style. They ranged from poppy to acid rock. 

Their set here consisted almost entirely of covers, even though it seems they had some good original material. The only song they did in this set that wasn't a classic or hit for another musical act is "Crowd Pleaser."  

Here's their Wiki page, if you want to know more:

The Yellow Payges - Wikipedia

Tommy James and the Shondells were very popular in the mid to late 1960s. But they were seen as a light-weight singles band. They had many big hits that you probably know, even if you don't know they did the original hit versions. They had two songs that reached Number One in the U.S.:  "Hanky Panky" in 1966,  and "Crimson and Clover" in 1969. Some of their other big hits were "I Think We're Alone Now," "Mirage," "Mony Mony," "Sweet Cherry Wine," and "Crystal Blue Persuasion." Some of those, like "Crimson and Clover," hadn't been recorded yet at the time of this concert. But still, their set consisted of several original hits, plus some covers: a medley of "People Get Ready" and "Get Ready," "Baby I Need Your Loving," and "What the World Needs Now Is Love."

I have never seen any bootleg or even official live album from this musical act in their 1960s prime, so it's really nice to find this one. True, they were known for their singles, not their live performances, but still, they acquitted themselves well here. And it appears they never recorded the three covers I mentioned above, so those are all unique to this concert recording, I believe.

Here's their Wikipedia entry:

Tommy James and the Shondells - Wikipedia 

The Rascals were similar to Tommy James and the Shondells in that they were mainly known for their singles, and they had many hit singles in the 1960s. For the first couple years of their success, they were known as the Young Rascals. But even though they were still called that on the poster for this concert (as seen in the cover art), they actually changed their name to just the Rascals in early 1968, many months prior to this concert. At the time of this concert, they were probably at the peak of their popularity. Just one month earlier, they released the single "People Got to Be Free." It was their last huge hit, reaching Number One in the U.S. singles chart. Prior to that, their hits "Good Lovin'," "Groovin'," "How Can I Be Sure," and "A Beautiful Morning" all reached the Top Five in the U.S., with the first two making it to Number One. 

Unfortunately, starting in 1969, the band switched styles, lessening their popularity. They broke up in 1972, and had very few reunions after that. I posted one of their rare full reunions, meaning all the original members participated, as part of an Atlantic Records tribute concert in 1988. You can find that at this blog as well.

Just like Tommy James and the Shondells, there is very little live recordings from the Rascals in their 1960s prime. I've found some songs here and there they performed on various TV shows, and I made an album of that. I noticed just now I've never gotten around to posting that on this blog, so I should probably do that. But, other than that, the only 1960s bootlegs I've seen are short and problematic, and there are no official live albums either. So this has to be the best live recording from them in the 1960s.

Here's their Wikipedia entry: 

The Rascals - Wikipedia 

The final act of the concert, and the headliner, was Eric Burdon and the Animals. Funnily enough, just like Tommy James and the Shondells and the Rascals, there are surprisingly few good live recordings from this band from the 1960s. There are some, but most of those suffer from sound quality issues and/or are quite short. I've posted the best one I could find at this blog, a concert in Stockholm, Sweden, in January 1968. Their appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival was excellent (though short), and I've posted that here as well. Plus, there's a lot of BBC material from them as well. But still, considering how famous they were, one would have expected more live recordings to survive. At least this recording can be added in.

At the time of this concert, the Animals were on the decline. Singles were essential to success in the 1960s, and they only had one Top Forty hit in 1968, "Sky Pilot." They broke up at the end of the year. This concert avoided their earlier big hits and concentrated on material the band had done in the last year or so.

However, I strongly suspect there was more to their performance that isn't included here. They were the headliners for this concert. If you look at the 1967 KHJ concert, the headliners (the Supremes) for that one performed for about 50 minutes, 15 minutes longer than what we have for the Animals here. But that's just a guess, I don't know. However, clearly, this concert recording isn't 100 percent complete. For instance, we have DJ intros for the first three acts but not the Animals. Also, I got the Animals portion of this concert from a separate source than the rest, increasing the odds that something might be missing.

Now, let me address sound quality. This was broadcast on a radio station at the time, so this is really good for the 1960s. But still, broadcasting live music was rare in the 1960s, and the sound quality still left something to be desired. So I tried to fix the music as best I could. I ran every song through the MVSEP program twice, fixing different things each time. So it definitely sounds better now. However, the 1967 KHJ concert recording still sounds better, in my opinion.

This album is an hour and 58 minutes long. 

01 talk by emcee (Yellow Payges)
02 Uptight [Everything's Alright] (Yellow Payges)
03 Turn On Your Lovelight (Yellow Payges)
04 Sunshine of Your Love (Yellow Payges)
05 talk (Yellow Payges)
06 Crowd Pleaser (Yellow Payges)
07 Lady Jane (Yellow Payges)
08 I'm a Man (Yellow Payges)
09 talk by emcee (Tommy James & the Shondells)
10 People Get Ready - Get Ready (Tommy James & the Shondells)
11 Mirage (Tommy James & the Shondells)
12 Baby I Need Your Loving (Tommy James & the Shondells)
13 talk (Tommy James & the Shondells)
14 Gettin' Together (Tommy James & the Shondells)
15 What the World Needs Now Is Love (Tommy James & the Shondells)
16 Hanky Panky (Tommy James & the Shondells)
17 Mony Mony (Tommy James & the Shondells)
18 I Think We're Alone Now (Tommy James & the Shondells)
19 talk (Tommy James & the Shondells)
20 Gettin' Together [Reprise] (Tommy James & the Shondells)
21 talk by emcee (Rascals)
22 talk (Rascals)
23 Do You Feel It (Rascals)
24 Love Is a Beautiful Thing (Rascals)
25 talk (Rascals)
26 I'm So Happy Now (Rascals)
27 talk (Rascals)
28 Groovin' (Rascals)
29 A Girl like You (Rascals)
30 A Place in the Sun (Rascals)
31 A Beautiful Morning (Rascals)
32 People Got to Be Free (Rascals)
33 New York 1963 - America 1968 (Animals)
34 San Franciscan Nights (Animals)
35 talk (Animals)
36 Monterey - New York 1963, America 1968 - Monterey (Animals)
37 Sky Pilot (Animals)
38 talk by emcee (Animals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/rna1kUgu

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/wLgVu304138pdrc/file

I couldn't find any photos from this exact concert. However, I found some promotional material, so I used that. I had to make some changes to make it fit into a square shape. 

Various Artists - Monterey International Pop Festival, Monterey County Fairgrounds, Monterey, CA, 6-16-1967

The 1967 Monterey International Pop Festival was the first famous rock festival. In my opinion, it was one of the best, if not the very best, in terms of the quality of all the musical acts involved. 

Here's what the beginning of the Wikipedia entry about the festival has to say: "The festival embodied the theme of California as a focal point for the counterculture and generally is regarded as one of the beginnings of the 'Summer of Love' in 1967 and the public debut of the hippie, flower power, and flower children movements and era. Because Monterey was widely promoted and heavily attended, featured historic performances, and was the subject of a popular theatrical documentary film, it became an inspiration and a template for future music festivals, including the Woodstock Festival two years later. Rolling Stone publisher Jann Wenner said 'Monterey was the nexus: It sprang from what the Beatles began, and from it sprang what followed.'"

Here's the link to the full entry, if you're interested:

Monterey International Pop Festival - Wikipedia

I had no plans to post this festival at this blog, because there a four CD box set of festival highlights was released in 1992. I had that for ages, and added some other songs to it as I found them. But I changed my mind a few days ago. I happened to notice that the complete performances by Buffalo Springfield and the Byrds were released last year, but obscurely, as "record store day" limited releases. Each of those contained extra songs that I'd never heard before, at great sound quality. That inspired me to dig further, and I found a project someone named Simon put together in 2022, gathering everything he could find from the festival that was publicly available up until that time. This is basically what Simon did, plus a few more recent releases, especially the Buffalo Springfield and Byrds ones mentioned above. 

The 1992 box set contains five hours of music. But thanks mostly to Simon's work, I'm able to present eleven hours of music from the festival! That's more than double! And all of it is in fantastic sound quality, despite the fact that a big chunk of it is from unreleased sources. There's no audience bootleg sourcing here, except for half of one song later in the festival. So this is a must have, in my opinion, for anyone who enjoys music from this era. 

It is now accepted fact that something very special happened in the San Francisco Bay Area in the summer of 1967, a time which is now widely known as "The Summer of Love." I don't want to go into it too much, but there's a very big Wikipedia article about that as well:

Summer of Love - Wikipedia

In short, young people from all over the U.S., and even the world, were drawn to the Bay Area to experience the rising counter-culture there. The Monterey Pop Festival was a big part of that. There was one rock festival that took place a week before that in my opinion sounds even MORE musically amazing, the Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival. You can read about that here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fantasy_Fair_and_Magic_Mountain_Music_Festival 

Rolling Stone Magazine wrote a great article about it in 2014, which you can find here:

Fantasy Fair & Magic Mountain Music Fest: Story of 1st U.S. Rock Fest 

Unfortunately though, very little audio from that festival has survived (even though it seems there was an attempt to record it all). So it has pretty much been forgotten. But Monterey Pop was the opposite in that a popular documentary movie about it, "Monterey Pop," was released in 1968, and had a huge influence. Here's a quote from Wikipedia: "The screening of Monterey Pop in theaters helped raise the festival to mythic status, rapidly swelled the ranks of would-be festival-goers looking for the next festival, and inspired new entrepreneurs to stage more and more of them around the country." 

Another factor to consider is the song "San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)," written by John Phillips, the main songwriter for the Mamas and the Papas, and recorded by Scott McKenzie. According to an NPR report, "local authorities in Monterey were starting to get cold feet over the prospect of their town being overrun by hippies" attending the festival. Phillips specifically wrote it "to smooth things over." It succeeded beyond all expectations. The single "only" reached Number Four in the U.S. singles charts. But it had a long staying power, ultimately selling over seven million copies worldwide. It had a very real impact, like a pied piper call, drawing people to the Bay Area, and specifically to the Monterey Pop Festival. It's estimated 30,000 people attended the first night of the festival, but that grew to 60,000 by the third and last night. This was the very first big rock festival anywhere, with the exception of the somewhat smaller Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival the week previously.

Monterey, California, an hour or more drive from the Bay Area, was chosen as the location because there had been a popular Monterey Jazz Festival taking place there annually since the 1950s, as well as a similar Monterey Folk Festival. It was thought that by giving this festival a similar name in the same location, it would help give rock more credibility as an art form, like jazz or folk music, both of which were much more respected at the time. Even the same stage manager and sound company were hired. That resulted in the festival having truly exceptional sound quality for rock concerts at the time, which resulted in excellent sounding recordings as well.

I'll write more about the festival as a whole later. But for now, I want to explain how I split up the eleven hours of available music. The festival itself was split up into five separate tickets: one for June 16th, then another for the afternoon of June 17th, another for the evening of June 18th, then afternoon and evening tickets for June 18th as well. So I'm splitting this up in a similar way. This one, containing all the available music from June 16th, is the shortest by far. I'm guessing that each of those five time periods contained roughly the same amount of music, give or take. But this is the shortest because it's the one with the most missing music.

Here's yet another useful Wikipedia link. It shows all the songs known to be played by all the performers at the festival:

Monterey Pop Festival set list - Wikipedia 

Each act was allowed to play for 40 minutes, but is possible some of the lesser known acts got less than that. The Association performed first. But two songs are missing, and there were an unknown number of other songs missing as well. The second act was the Paupers. Their entire performance is missing. (Simon did find a couple of songs, but they were of such poor sound quality that I couldn't even include them as bonus tracks.) Next was Lou Rawls. We have three songs from him, but two more are missing, plus an unknown number additionally missing. Next up was British folk singer Beverly Martyn. She just played three songs, all missing. 

After that was Johnny Rivers. He was a big star at the time. Interestingly, his keyboard player at the festival was the great songwriter Jimmy Webb. He played eleven songs, which must have been right at the full allowed 40 minutes, but only one song from his set is publicly available. Here's an interesting quote from Rivers about the festival: "Driving north on Highway 101, I had never seen so many VW buses pained with paisley and flowers, cars, trucks, and lots of out of state license plates. People were from everywhere. The vibe was very mellow and kind of the theme of the whole thing. It was a gathering of tribes and hadn’t really gotten to the wild hippie stage yet. The 'Summer of Love' was [really more] the summer that came after that. It wasn't going to be frantic, out of control, but everyone digging on the music. Because there was such a variety of music."

It seems we only have the full performances of the two final acts, Eric Burdon and the Animals, and Simon and Garfunkel. The Animals played for 27 minutes. As an aside, lead singer Burdon was so moved by the festival that he wrote a song praising it, "Monterey." It became a Top Ten hit.

Simon and Garfunkel played for only 22 minutes, despite the fact that they had to be the most popular act of the evening, by far. It appears they wanted to play longer, but they couldn't due to some kind of curfew for the evening as a whole. We know this because you can hear Paul Simon talking about how he chose the last song played, an unusual (and at the time still unreleased) final choice of "Punky's Dilemma," because he'd just been told they only had two minutes left and that song was two minutes long.

Normally, I put all the source material details in the mp3 tags of each song. But for this festival instead, I'm just including a PDF made by Simon, since that contains a great chart showing the sources. Hopefully, more music from this day in particular will come out in recent years. It seems at least one set from the festival has been released each year as part of "record store day" releases for the past few years. So far, most of those have been big-name performers where all or most all of the set was already available. But if that keeps going, maybe they'll get to things like Johnny Rivers' set, where 90 percent of it is missing.

Note that although the sound quality was already excellent in general, one problem I've often noticed with concert recordings is the vocals being too low in the mix. I checked every song in this festival for that, and I'd estimate about half of them had that problem. So for all those songs, I remixed them using the UVR5 audio editing program. So this should now sound even better than before. 

Oh, one last thing. I had so many other things to write about that I didn't really get to discussing the quality of the music. I'd say it's excellent across the board. But in case you're curious, here's the link to an article written by music critic Michael Lydon, which came out in Newsweek just two days after the festival. (Disregard the 2009 date shown at the top.) He was overly critical sometimes, as critics usually are, but still it's interesting to see a fresh take from that time. Plus, he has a lot of interesting information about how the festival came to be, and what happened behind the scenes. For instance, there's mention of a private jam at the end of the festival that lasted four hours consisting of Jefferson Airplane, the Grateful Dead, and Jimi Hendrix. Wouldn't it have been amazing to have been a fly on the wall for that?

Monterey Pop: The First Rock Festival | Current | The Criterion Collection 

Here's a couple of relevant quotes about the festival. Art Garfunkel: "Monterey was the cherry on top of the sundae that was the 1960s. It was unprecedented, and the audience was unprecedented in their joy." And Tommy Smothers, who was one of the festival emcees: "There were no problems. The only problem was, just how happy could you get without hurting yourself?"

This album is an hour and 15 minutes long. Each section of the concert reportedly lasted about five hours. No doubt a lot of that was down time between acts. But still, I would imagine a full version of this part of the festival would consist of at least three hours of music. If more gets released in the future, I will try to add it in and revise this.

01 talk (John Phillips)
02 The Machine (Association)
03 Along Comes Mary (Association)
04 Windy (Association)
05 talk (Peter Tork)
06 Love Is a Hurtin' Thing (Lou Rawls)
07 Dead End Street (Lou Rawls)
08 talk (Lou Rawls)
09 Tobacco Road (Lou Rawls)
10 Memphis (Johnny Rivers)
11 talk (Chet Helms)
12 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
13 San Franciscan Nights (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
14 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
15 Gin House Blues (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
16 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
17 Hey Gyp (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
18 talk (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
19 Paint It, Black (Eric Burdon & the Animals)
20 talk (John Phillips)
21 Homeward Bound (Simon & Garfunkel)
22 At the Zoo (Simon & Garfunkel)
23 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
24 Feelin' Groovy (Simon & Garfunkel)
25 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
26 For Emily, Whenever I May Find Her (Simon & Garfunkel)
27 The Sound of Silence (Simon & Garfunkel)
28 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
29 Benedictus (Simon & Garfunkel)
30 talk (Simon & Garfunkel)
31 Punky's Dilemma (Simon & Garfunkel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/JdvDszNw

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/rCIzM8HEMC9QOil/file

It was too hard for me to pick just one picture for the cover, so I chose four, just like I did with the "Live Aid" albums I've posted. From top left clockwise, that's the Association, Lou Rawls, Simon and Garfunkel, and Eric Burdon of the Animals. All of them are from this exact concert. 

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 5: Sight and Sound, Golddigger's, Chippenham, Britain, 9-1-1983

I posted four volumes of the Animals performing for the BBC a while ago. I certainly didn't ever expect to see a fifth volume. But while looking for something else, I stumbled across this. Unlike the previous four, it's a concert (edited down quite a lot, no doubt). It took place during the band's 1983 reunion tour.

Normally, I wouldn't post this, because it's very similar to a live album I've already posted that took place only about a week later. All the songs played here were also played in that one. But I'm posting it for a few reasons. One, it seems very rare, at least as audio files, so I want to stop it from slipping into obscurity. (One can also find the video of it on YouTube, since it was broadcast on BBC TV.) Two, I managed to improve the sound quality by boosting the volume of the vocals in relation to the instruments. (Such a common problem, I've noticed.) And finally, this has excellent sound quality, and there's very little live Animals music available with this level of quality.

Note that Alan Price was part of this reunion tour. He sings one song here, "O Lucky Man."

This album is 48 minutes long.

01 It's Too Late (Animals)
02 Melt Down (Animals)
03 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
04 My Favourite Enemy (Animals)
05 Tryin' to Get to You (Animals)
06 I'm Crying (Animals)
07 Bring It on Home to Me (Animals)
08 O Lucky Man (Animals)
09 The House of the Rising Sun (Animals)
10 talk (Animals)
11 We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Animals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/zGaFi6DD

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/bB85SsNStWEUuuK/file

The cover photo shows the band's lead singer Eric Burdon in 1983. I don't know additional details.

The Animals - Mid-Hudson Civic Center, Poughkeepsie, NY, 9-7-1983

The Animals had a really good run from 1964 to 1968, with lots of critical acclaim and hit songs. Lead singer Eric Burdon had more success through 1970, especially with the hit song "Spill the Wine" done with the band War. But then Burdon's commercial profile went way down, with his singles and albums usually not even making the charts.

So it wasn't so surprising that the Animals eventually reunited. What was surprising was that all five members of the original band got together, including keyboardist Alan Price, who left in 1965 and had a fairly successful solo career, as well as bassist Chas Chandler who quite playing music in 1966, becoming a manager and record producer. (He's best known for managing Jimi Hendrix and Slade.) The reunited band released an album in 1977, "Before We Were So Rudely Interrupted," which was critically acclaimed by ignored by record buyers, since new sounds like punk and disco were all the rage in 1977. They didn't play any concerts to promote the album.

The Animals disbanded again for a few years after that. But with none of them having much success with solo careers, all five original members reunited again in 1983. They put out another album of new material that year, entitled "Ark." This one was not so well received critically, and the sales also were poor. The new wave sound was the thing, and the band tried to modernize their sound to some degree. It still wasn't a good time for 1960s bands to reunite. For instance, the original Hollies also reunited in 1983, and were pretty much ignored too. 

The Animals disbanded yet again. They never really got back together again, not even to be indicted into the Roll and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994, although individual members sometimes called their bands "the Animals" or "the New Animals" or even "the Animals II."

That said, I'm posting this for a couple of reasons. One, there's almost no live recordings of the 1960s Animals with good sound quality, other than their BBC recordings. The only full length concert recordings are from this 1983 tour. And two, they actually were still really good in their 1983 concerts. Although their album was only okay, they just played the best songs from it, which helped, as well as recent solo songs, and some other new songs that didn't get released until later, like "It's Too Late" and "Young Girls." It helped a lot that the live versions were more raw, without most of the 1980s production touches on the "Ark" album that didn't suit the band. But of course a good chunk of the concerts were their best 1960s songs. Burdon's voice would decline later, but he still sounded great here.

Two official live albums of their 1983 tour have been released, one called "Rip It to Shreds: Greatest Hits Live," and the other one "The Last Live Show." Those are from different concerts than this one. But both of those are fairly short, at about 40 to 45 minutes each, while this is nearly two hours long, so that's very different. They don't even sound that good. But this is an excellent bootleg, due to it being professionally recorded in order to be broadcast by a local radio station. So if you want just one live performance from the original Animals, this is the best one to get, by far, in my opinion, despite it being from 1983.

The last three songs actually are from another show on the same tour. That also is a soundboard quality boot. I added those because they were all good songs that weren't played on this night. "O Lucky Man" was a hit for Alan Price in 1973, and he sang this version too.

The album is an hour and 56 minutes long. If you don't include the last three songs from the different concert, the concert is an hour and 42 minutes long.

01 talk (Animals)
02 It's Too Late (Animals)
03 Melt Down (Animals)
04 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
05 The Night (Animals)
06 My Favourite Enemy (Animals)
07 Tryin' to Get to You (Animals)
08 Loose Change (Animals)
09 Just Can't Get Enough (Animals)
10 I'm Crying (Animals)
11 No John No (Animals)
12 talk (Animals)
13 Bring It on Home to Me (Animals)
14 Prisoner of the Light (Animals)
15 Love Is for All Time (Animals)
16 Heart Attack (Animals)
17 talk (Animals)
18 The House of the Rising Sun (Animals)
19 Hard Times (Animals)
20 Being There (Animals)
21 It's My Life - Don't Bring Me Down (Animals)
22 talk (Animals)
23 Young Girls (Animals)
24 Boom Boom (Animals)
25 talk (Animals)
26 We've Gotta Get Out of This Place (Animals)
27 When I Was Young (Animals)
28 O Lucky Man (Animals)
29 San Francisco Nights (Animals)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/yXE9yqf3

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/H4bqtsflW4byTXR/file 

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/bUQRa

The cover photo is just of lead singer Eric Burdon in 1983. I don't know exactly where or when it's from beyond that though.

Various Artists - NME Poll Winners' Concert, Empire Pool, London, Britain, 4-11-1965

I read an interesting article today (in January 2022) about how the sale of new music is continually falling to all time lows every year, while interest in older music continues to rise. It's a good article. I suggest you check it out:

https://tedgioia.substack.com/p/is-old-music-killing-new-music

As the article points out, there's still plenty of good new music, it's just that's not what gets promoted and makes it big, due to screwed-up record companies and other factors. Compare the artists on the top of the charts today to the quality of the mainstream artists at the time of this 1965 concert: the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Animals, Dusty Springfield, Them (with Van Morrison), the Moody Blues, Donovan, and many more, all sharing the same stage! Is it any wonder that lots of people (including me) are more interested in this kind of music than the generic, pre-packaged pop of today? The amount of sheer talent bursting up the charts in 1965 was staggering.

The reason so many big names played this one concert was because it was an awards show of sorts for NME - New Musical Express, a British music magazine. NME began giving out yearly poll winner awards in 1953, and continue to do it until this day (2022 as I write this). At least through 1971, there were annual concerts to celebrate the winners. But unlike most awards shows, this concert just focused on music instead of bogging things down with lots of speeches and award presentations (though there was a short section for that). 

I would love to hear the 1966, 1967, and 1968 shows in full, since music just got better and better as the 1960s went on, in my opinion, and all sorts of interesting artists played in those later shows, including Cream, the Small Faces, the Move, the Beach Boys, Cat Stevens, the Who, the Yardbirds, and lots more, including more appearances by big names in this concert, like the Beatles and Rolling Stones. It seems only the 1964, 1965 and 1966 shows are available on bootleg. I'm posting the 1965 one first as I think it's more interesting, with these mostly British Invasion acts more fully developed by then.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. This concert was professionally recorded in order to be broadcast on British TV a short time afterwards. The TV version was edited down, but somehow luckily a recording of the entire show has made its way to the public. You can watch the entire thing on YouTube, though it's only in black and white.

This concert took place before artists typically stretched out with lots of soloing and jamming and such. These songs don't differ that much from their studio versions (with a few exceptions, like Them and the Animals). But I still think this is a fascinating listen, as there aren't many quality concert recordings from this early in the 1960s. In particular, there were many artists who were pretty big back in the day but have little to no surviving audio or video of them in concert. Even for major names like the Animals and Dusty Springfield, there's very little from around this time period. And for the lesser known acts, this is often the only evidence of them in concert that seems to still exist.

I'm a big Kinks fan, so a minor disappointment for me is that the Kinks only played two songs. Even at this early stage in their career they were a big enough name to deserve more time. Apparently, this has to do with them being late to the show, as they had just got off a plane coming from another country. You can hear guitarist Dave Davies apologize about this between songs. According to some accounts, they actually played after the Beatles, as the very last act. However, the recording I used had them just before the Beatles, and that seems to fit in terms of the audience applause and announcement and such, so I'm keeping it that way.

As far as naming the artists for each song goes, technically I should have put the names of the emcee or emcees on many of the talk tracks. Some of those had band members talking, some had the emcees, and some where a mix. But rather than spend time dealing with all that, I just put the name of the act being introduced, for simplicity's sake. (Unfortunately, one of the emcees was DJ Jimmy Savile, who later was disgraced in a child molestation scandal. Thankfully, his role here is very minor.) I only put in the DJ names on the very first and last tracks, since those weren't linked to any particular artists.

A couple of the performers here are rather forgettable. I was tempted to cut out Freddie and the Dreamers and Sounds Incorporated in particular. But ultimately I decided it was best to present the entire thing unedited (although I cut out some annoying laughter by Freddie and the Dreamers between songs). Overall, I think the percentage of quality performers is quite high. 

The Beatles only got to do a 15 minute long set, but it's nice that you can actually hear them perform instead of being totally drowned out by screaming, as was typical of the time. Apparently, the arena (Empire Pool, later renamed Wembley Arena), held about 10,000 people. I'm sure that, by 1965, the Beatles could have filled up a much larger venue in London all on their own.

In case you're curious about who won the poll awards this year, there's a list at the NME website, which you can see here: 

https://www.nme.com/nme-awards/awards-history/1965-606223

It seems there were even more musical acts who performed but didn't make it to the recording for one reason or another. I'm not entirely sure if they actually performed, but these other names were included in the program given to the audience and were at least scheduled to perform: Tom Jones, the Bachelors, the Rockin' Berries, and Twinkle.  

This concert is two hours and 23 minutes long. I cut out some dead air between songs. But there was surprisingly little of that to begin with. Either this was already edited down, or this was a tightly run show.

01 talk (Keith Fordyce & Jimmy Savile)
02 Bo Diddley - Pretty Thing (Moody Blues)
03 Go Now (Moody Blues)
04 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
05 Little Bitty Pretty One (Freddie & the Dreamers)
06 talk (Freddie & the Dreamers)
07 A Little You (Freddie & the Dreamers)
08 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
09 Yeh Yeh (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
10 talk (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
11 Walking the Dog (Georgie Fame & the Blue Flames)
12 talk (Seekers)
13 I'll Never Find Another You (Seekers)
14 talk (Seekers)
15 A World of Our Own (Seekers)
16 talk (Herman's Hermits)
17 Wonderful World (Herman's Hermits)
18 talk (Herman's Hermits)
19 Mrs. Brown, You've Got a Lovely Daughter (Herman's Hermits)
20 talk (Ivy League)
21 Funny How Love Can Be (Ivy League)
22 talk (Ivy League)
23 Sweet and Tender Romance (Ivy League)
24 talk (Ivy League)
25 That's Why I'm Crying (Ivy League)
26 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
27 Time for You [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
28 talk (Sounds Incorporated)
29 In the Hall of the Mountain King [Instrumental] (Sounds Incorporated)
30 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
31 The Game of Love (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
32 talk (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
33 Just a Little Bit Too Late (Wayne Fontana & the Mindbenders)
34 talk (Rolling Stones)
35 Everybody Needs Somebody to Love (Rolling Stones)
36 Pain in My Heart (Rolling Stones)
37 Around and Around (Rolling Stones)
38 The Last Time (Rolling Stones)
39 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
40 Zip-A-Dee Doo-Dah (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
41 talk (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
42 Going Out of My Head (Cilla Black with Sounds Incorporated)
43 talk (Donovan)
44 You're Gonna Need Somebody on Your Bond (Donovan)
45 talk (Donovan)
46 Catch the Wind (Donovan)
47 talk (Them)
48 Here Comes the Night (Them)
49 Turn on Your Love Light (Them)
50 talk (Searchers)
51 Bumble Bee (Searchers)
52 talk (Searchers)
53 Let the Good Times Roll (Searchers)
54 talk (Dusty Springfield)
55 Dancing in the Street (Dusty Springfield)
56 talk (Dusty Springfield)
57 Mockingbird (Dusty Springfield)
58 I Can't Hear You [No More] (Dusty Springfield)
59 talk (Animals)
60 Boom Boom (Animals)
61 Don't Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
62 Talkin' 'bout You (Animals)
63 talk (Kinks)
64 You Really Got Me (Kinks)
65 Tired of Waiting for You (Kinks)
66 talk (Beatles)
67 I Feel Fine (Beatles)
68 talk (Beatles)
69 She's a Woman (Beatles)
70 talk (Beatles)
71 Baby's in Black (Beatles)
72 talk (Beatles)
73 Ticket to Ride (Beatles)
74 talk (Beatles)
75 Long Tall Sally (Beatles)
76 talk (Keith Fordyce)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/6niBfp48

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/RBH3ooSgczT5hrW/file

When I first posted this album in 2022, I used a black and white photo of the Beatles from the concert that I colorized. But looking at the cover again in 2026, I decided the photo wasn't very good. So I used a different photo of the Beatles from the concert that is zoomed in closer, and has more detail. This one also was black and white, and then colorized by me with the use of the Kolorize program.

I took most of the cover text from advertisements of the show, though I added in the list of some of the artists.

The Animals - Radiohuset, Stockholm, Sweden, 1-18-1968

As I get older, the issue of sound quality becomes more important to me. Life's too short, and there's too much good music out there, to listen to a murky bootleg, unless there's something extraordinary about it. When it comes to the Animals in the 1960s, it's amazing to me that there's virtually no worthy sounding concert recording of them... except for this one, which sounds great. This comes pretty late in the day, in the last year of the band's existence, and it's fairly short, at 39 minutes. But the key thing is the sound quality is excellent, as good as an officially released live album from the 1960s, and the performance is spot on as well. So here you are.

(By the way, there is one soundboard concert bootleg of the band in Italy in 1967, but it's so badly mixed, with the voice way too loud compared to the rest, that it doesn't pass muster for me. And there's an official album of the band in concert from 1963, but most of that has them backing up blues legend Sonny Boy Williamson, so I don't count that one. There also is a great recording of them playing at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, but that's only four songs long, not enough for an album.)

In this last week, I posted four albums of the Animals playing at the BBC. There's a lot of overlap between the songs on that and the songs here. But with this, the band gets to stretch out more than they typically did at the BBC, and you get banter between songs.

This album is 39 minutes long.

01 talk (Animals)
02 I'm So Excited (Animals)
03 It's My Life Baby (Animals)
04 Tobacco Road (Animals)
05 talk (Animals)
06 Yes I Am Experienced (Animals)
07 talk (Animals)
08 San Franciscan Nights (Animals)
09 talk (Animals)
10 Monterey (Animals)
11 talk (Animals)
12 Paint It, Black (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15471463/TAnimls_1968_RdiohustStockhlmSwedn__1-18-1968_atse.zip.html

It looks like the album cover photo was taken from a TV show appearance in 1967 or later, judging by the clothes and the decor, but I don't know the details.

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 4: 1967-1968

This is the fourth and final album of the Animals playing at the BBC. There can be no more because the Animals ceased to exist in 1968 (although they did get back together for two reunions many years later).

Technically speaking, the Animals ceased to exist in late 1966, and became "Eric Burdon and the Animals." But as I pointed out with Volume 3 in this series, I prefer to call them "the Animals" all the way through, for consistency and simplicity. But the name change was meaningful, because it marked some personnel changes, as well as a change of style. The Animals had been an R&B band. They retained some of that style, but they also dabbled quite a lot in psychedelic music. You can see that mix here, with some soulful and/or bluesy songs like "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and "It Hurts Me Too," but also ones celebrating the emerging psychedelic culture, like "San Franciscan Nights" and "Monterey."

As I've said many times before, BBC recordings are often bedeviled by BBC DJs talking over the starts and ends of songs. The first three volumes in this series didn't have much of that, helped by the fact that I'm only including one version of each song and I often had multiple versions to chose from with those earlier volumes. But for this one, seven of the songs needed to be edited to remove the DJ talking. Those are the ones marked with "[Edit]" in the titles.

Just like the previous albums in this series, all these performances remain officially unreleased. Generally speaking, the sound quality is good. But since the band appeared less often at the BBC in these years (or at least less of their BBC sessions have survived), I've often had to make do with less than pristine versions of some songs.

Only the last three songs here are from 1968. But the one and only really great sounding concert bootleg of the band from the 1960s is from 1968. I plan on posting that soon.

01 If I Were a Carpenter [Edit] (Animals)
02 Shake, Rattle and Roll (Animals)
03 When I Was Young (Animals)
04 A Love like Yours [Don't Come Knocking Everyday] (Animals)
05 Connection [Edit] (Animals)
06 San Franciscan Nights (Animals)
07 All Night Long [Edit] (Animals)
08 It's All Meat [Edit] (Animals)
09 Good Times [Edit] (Animals)
10 I'm So Excited (Animals)
11 Hey Gyp [Dig the Slowness] (Animals)
12 Monterey (Animals)
13 Anything [Edit] (Animals)
14 It Hurts Me Too [Edit] (Animals)
15 White Houses (Animals)
16 Every Day I Have the Blues (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15124066/TAnimls_1967-1968_BBSessionsVolume4_atse.zip.html

It seems there are very few good color photos of the band from their last two years. I had to resort to using a photo just of lead singer Eric Burdon at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967.

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 3: 1966-1967

Here's the next album in my series of four albums of the Animals performing for the BBC. 

In December 1966, after some personnel changes, the band name was changed from "the Animals" to "Eric Burdon and the Animals." But I'm going to continue to refer to all their songs as being by "the Animals" for simplicity's sake. That name changed also marked a stylistic change from R&B to psychedelic, but that isn't very noticeable until the next album in this series. All but one of the songs here are from 1966, and probably only the last three came after the name change.

As with most BBC albums, this has the problem of BBC DJs talking over the starts to some songs. Luckily though, for this album that only happened for three songs. Every single performance here is officially unreleased, but the sound quality is generally very good, with a few minor exceptions.

Most of the songs here are songs from Animals albums or singles. But there are some exceptions. I previously posted an album of Animals songs that were unique to BBC sessions. But in putting this album together, I came up with a few that I'd previously missed. I particularly like the duet between the Animals and soul music legend Otis Redding on the song "Shake," as well as a version of the soul classic "Hold On, I'm Coming." Both are from the British TV show "Ready Steady Go," and you can find the videos of them on YouTube.

This album is 49 minutes long.

01 Inside - Looking Out (Animals)
02 Sweet Little Sixteen (Animals)
03 She'll Return It [Edit] (Animals)
04 One Monkey Don’t Stop No Show (Animals)
05 Wee Wee Hours [Edit] (Animals)
06 That´s All I Am to You (Animals)
07 Shake (Animals)
08 Don't Bring Me Down (Animals)
09 Hold On, I'm Coming (Animals)
10 Shake (Animals & Otis Redding)
11 The Same Thing [Edit] (Animals)
12 Jailhouse Rock (Animals)
13 Paint It, Black (Animals)
14 Road Runner (Animals)
15 Tobacco Road (Animals)
16 McCulloch's Blues [Instrumental] (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15481489/TAnimls_1966-1967_BBSessionsVolume3_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo comes from an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show in February 1966.

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 2: 1965-1966

Here's the second of four albums of the Animals performing at the BBC. 

Most of what I have to say is a repeat of what I said for the first volume in this series, but I'll repeat the main points anyway. Surprisingly, nothing the Animals ever did for the BBC has been officially released, so all of this comes from bootlegs. Even so, the song quality is generally very good, though it varies sometimes.

As usual with 1960s BBC recordings, the BBC DJs sometimes spoke over the starts or ends of songs. Also as usual, I've tried my best to remove this talking from the songs with sound editing, usually thanks to the fact that intros are often repeated later in songs. Thankfully, I didn't have to do this very much on this volume, because the Animals did a lot of BBC sessions in 1965 and 1966. I was often able to find a version without talking. For instance, I think I literally had five or more versions of "We Gotta Get Out of This Place" to choose from. (It goes without saying that I've only included one version of each song, as I usually do for albums like these.) Thus, I only had to do edits for three of the songs. 

"Lucille" also has the "[Edit]" mark on it. But that's because there were some sound glitches in the middle of the song, not talking DJs. I was pretty much able to repair the problem though, so you shouldn't notice it.

As I mentioned for the previous volume, a year or two ago, I made an album of songs the Animals performed for the BBC but didn't put on album. I plan on updating that eventually, since I found some new songs and better versions of other songs. One example of a really rare song on this volume that I'd previously missed is "We're Gonna Howl Tonight." That's the one song here that wasn't done for the BBC at all. Instead, it was performed on a US TV special called "The Dangerous Christmas of Red Riding Hood."

01 We Gotta Get Out of This Place (Animals)
02 Squeeze Her, Tease Her [But Love Her] (Animals)
03 Work Song [Edit] (Animals)
04 Heartbreak Hotel (Animals)
05 Let the Good Times Roll (Animals)
06 Club A-Go-Go (Animals)
07 We're Gonna Howl Tonight (Animals)
08 Bright Lights, Big City (Animals)
09 I'm Gonna Change the World (Animals)
10 Lucille [Edit] (Animals)
11 Baby What's Wrong [Edit] (Animals)
12 Rosie (Animals)
13 I Can't Believe It [Edit] (Animals)
14 It's My Life (Animals)
15 Corrina, Corrina (Animals)
16 Maudie (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123988/TAnimls_1965-1966_BBSessionsVolume2_atse.zip.html

The album cover photo comes from an appearance the band did on the TV show "Ready Steady Go" in 1965.

The Animals - BBC Sessions, Volume 1: 1964-1965

Here's the start of a four volume series of the Animals at the BBC. The Animals are a band that has been particularly poorly served when it comes to archival releases. Virtually nothing new has been released from the 1960s, so everything here is officially unreleased. There are some bootlegs and grey market releases, including a popular bootleg called the "Deluxe BBC Files." But this series is at least double the size of that, at about the same sound quality all the way through.

Note that I previously posted an album of unreleased Animals songs from the 1960s, almost entirely from BBC performances. This new series supplants that. But once I'm done posting all four volumes, I'll update that one for the people who just want the unique songs. I've found some new ones, and others with better sound quality.

It so happens that there never was a good official live album of the Animals from the 1960s. I say "good" because there is an album of them backing Sonny Boy Williamson in late 1963, which has been released under many different names and variants due to some copyright loophole. But that doesn't really count in my opinion, since most of those songs were sung by Williamson, with the Animals just the backing band. I've searched for quality live bootlegs, and there aren't any excellent sounding ones I could find (other than one from 1968, which I probably will post here eventually). So when it comes to live versions from the 1960s, these BBC recordings are basically it.

The Animals hit it big with their classic single "The House of the Rising Sun" in June 1964, which went to number one in the US and Britain. Despite that, and two other Top Twenty hits in Britain that year, I could barely find any worthy recordings from 1964. I'm sure they made many appearances on the BBC and/or other TV and radio shows, but some were lip-synched and other recordings were lost. I particularly had much difficulty finding any non-lip-synched version of "The House of the Rising Sun," period. I've had to resort to a version with some crowd noise.

You may notice six songs in the song list with "[Edit]" in the song titles. That's due to the usual problem with BBC recordings of BBC DJs talking over the songs. And, as I usually do, I edited the songs to get rid of that talking, usually by patching in repeating musical sections from other parts of the songs, or patching in bits from the studio recordings. For this series, I've only included one version of each song. Luckily, I found multiple versions of many songs, so I often was able to pick a version that didn't have the DJ banter problem.

Note that this includes a cover called "Gonna Send You Back to Georgia," originally done by Timmy Shaw in early 1964. When it came time to record this for an album, the Animals changed the title to "Gonna Send You Back to Walker." It's the exact same song, except for the word "Walker" instead of "Georgia."  I looked this up, and it turns out the Animals' lead singer Eric Burdon hailed from the town of Walker, near Newcastle. I've put the other song title in parentheses.

In a similarly confusing vein, the Animals performed the cover song "C. C. Rider," often known as "See See Rider." Generally speaking, when the Animals did it, they called it "See See Rider," but the song is known by both spellings in about equal measure. I looked this up, and it turns out that it should be "C. C. Rider," because that stands for either "church circuit rider," a reference to traveling preachers, or "county circuit rider," a reference to traveling lawyers. So I've put that spelling first and the other one in parentheses.

This album is 45 minutes long. The other albums in this series have similar lengths. The sound quality is generally high, though a couple, like "The House of the Rising Sun," sound a bit rougher.

01 Talkin' 'bout You - Shout (Animals)
02 Around and Around (Animals)
03 The House of the Rising Sun (Animals)
04 Gonna Send You Back to Georgia [Gonna Send You Back to Walker] (Animals)
05 Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood (Animals)
06 Dimples [Edit] (Animals)
07 Mess Around [Edit] (Animals)
08 Boom Boom [Edit] (Animals)
09 Lawdy Miss Clawdy [Edit] (Animals)
10 What Am I Living For [Edit] (Animals)
11 C. C. Rider [See See Rider] (Animals)
12 I Got to Find My Baby [Edit] (Animals)
13 Bring It on Home to Me (Animals)
14 I'm Crying (Animals)
15 Drown in My Own Tears (Animals)
16 Ain't that a Shame (Animals)

https://www.upload.ee/files/15123913/TAnimls_1964-1965_BBSessionsVolume1_atse.zip.html

The cover art photo is of the band in 1964.