Various Artists - Playboy After Dark (CBS Television City, Los Angeles, CA), Volume 10: April 1970

Here's another volume of music I compiled from episodes of the "Playboy After Dark" TV show. This is the tenth. There's only one more after this.

There's a lot of variety on this album, with country, soul, jazz, and rock. Some highlights are B.B. King, Billy Preston, and Linda Ronstadt making her second appearance. 

A couple of songs have "[Edit]" in their titles. This is due to the usual problem with this series, of people talking over the music. (Especially the T.W.A. advertisements I keep mentioning.) So I fixed those in the usual way, with the help of the MVSEP program. 

By the way, Barbara McNair is a rare case of one of the performers for this show who also posed naked for Playboy Magazine. But it's not like she had to do that in order to get on the show. She'd had an established career starting in the late 1950s, as a singer and an actress for plays, T.V., and movies. She was signed to Motown Records from around 1966 to 1969. She even had her own T.V. show from 1969 to 1971, called "The Barbara McNair Show." 

Her career would take a hit in 1972, however, when she was arrested for heroin possession, because she signed for a package sent to her house containing heroin. However, charges against her were later dropped, and her husband was charged instead. It seems like her husband was a seriously bad dude. He was murdered in 1976. It was alleged he was involved in the Mafia, and was killed at the same time he was trying to put a hit out on someone else.

You can read her Wikipedia entry here:

Barbara McNair - Wikipedia 

The music is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. 

This album is an hour and ten minutes long. 

01 Nobody Knows (Dillards)
02 Hey Boys (Dillards)
03 My Shining Hour (Carmen McRae)
04 I Love You More than You'll Ever Know (Carmen McRae)
05 Bending the Strings [Instrumental] [Edit] (Dillards)
06 Stand by Your Man (Lola Falana)
07 It Takes a Little Longer (Sonny Charles)
08 Friendship Train (Sonny Charles)
09 Walk a Mile in My Shoes [Edit] (Sonny Charles & Lola Falana)
10 Until It's Time for You to Go (Barbara McNair)
11 Son of a Preacher Man (Barbara McNair)
12 So Excited (B. B. King)
13 The Thrill Is Gone (B. B. King)
14 Lovesick Blues (Linda Ronstadt)
15 Long, Long Time (Linda Ronstadt)
16 Sing, Sing, Sing (Country Joe & the Fish)
17 The 'Fish' Cheer - I-Feel-Like-I'm-Fixin'-to-Die Rag (Country Joe & the Fish)
18 Everything's All Right (Billy Preston)
19 You've Made Me So Very Happy (Sammy Davis, Jr.)
20 God Bless the Child (Blinky)
21 Let's Get Together (Joanne Vent & Muscatel)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/UK1WoH6B

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Ox0RbnXqeJIZP7N/file

The cover image of Linda Ronstadt is a screenshot I took from a video of one of these episodes. 

Mar Y Sol Pop Festival, Manati, Puerto Rico, 4-1-1972, Part 2: B. B. King

Here's the second album from the first day of the Mar Y Sol Pop Festival. There are three albums from this day in total. This one consists only of a set by blues legend B. B. King.

As I explained in the first album from this festival, the festival was a bit of a fiasco overall. But there still was a lot of good music, and most accounts said that King's set was one of the highlights. Unfortunately, we only have some of the set. Just one song, "Why I Sing the Blues," made it onto the official album from the festival, "Mar y Sol: The First International Puerto Rico Pop Festival." So I used that version for that song. For the rest, I relied on a surprisingly good sounding audience bootleg that I mentioned in the write-up for the first album. 

But as I mentioned, that bootleg only has portions of the festival (or at least that's all that's been made public. This definitely wasn't King's full set. In fact, one of the songs, "Hummingbird," wasn't even complete. I found a different live recording of that from this era and used it to finish it off. That's why that song has "[Edit]" in its title.

Now, I want to say a little more about the festival that has nothing to do with B. B. King per se, but I didn't want to write too much in the write-up for the first album. I want to mention the musical acts that were supposed to attend the festival but didn't perform for some reason.

The biggest miss, by far, was John Lennon. He was very interested in performing at the festival, and that would have been a massively big deal, since he only performed a couple of full concerts after leaving the Beatles. Around 1972, he got to be friends with musician John Peel, who did perform at the festival, and he knew some other people who were going. So he wanted to be a part of it as well. Unfortunately, he was having legal problems with the U.S. government over his visa, and leaving the U.S. to go to Puerto Rico apparently would have added to those problems, despite the fact that Puerto Rico was and still is a U.S. territory. So instead, he and Yoko Ono sent a message of support. You can hear that here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KSGbEVUbZoY

There were other big misses. Black Sabbath made it to Puerto Rico, and were supposed to perform on the third and last night. But while other bands were flown by helicopter from a hotel in the main city of San Juan to the festival site, no helicopters were available for the band. It was also determined that the roads were clogged, due to the festival, so they couldn't make it that way either. In the end, they simply stayed in their hotel. They didn't mind that much, since they'd already been paid.

Bloodrock, Flash Cadillac, Fleetwood Mac, and Malo also didn't perform for various reasons. Probably a lot of it had to do with the uncertainty surrounding the festival, since it almost didn't happen due to legal issues. A bunch of other musical acts were scheduled to perform, but it's unknown if they did or not: Ashton, Gardner and Dyke, Savoy Brown, Roberta Flack, Al Kooper, Loggins & Messina, Poco,
Billy Preston, Mitch Ryder & the Detroit Wheels. If anyone reading this attended the festival and can shed some light on this, that would be great.

This album is 25 minutes long.

01 Everyday I Have the Blues (B.B. King)
02 Hummingbird [Edit] (B.B. King)
03 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
04 Guess Who (B.B. King)
05 Why I Sing the Blues (B.B. King)
06 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/HWrLrgKc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/Oeez4DxyNBChLXg/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. It's one of the few color photos I could find. The top of his head was missing, but I used AI features in Photoshop to fill out the missing part.
 

Various Artists - The Thrill Is Gone - A Tribute to B.B. King, Capitol Theatre, Port Chester, NY, 2-16-2020

The great blues legend B.B. King died in 2015, at the age of 89. I'm not sure what took so long, but five years later, there was this tribute concert celebrating his music. This is unusually long compared to most tribute concerts, at nearly four hours long. The vast majority of it was professionally recorded for a webcast, so the sound quality is mostly excellent. 

Note that I said "the vast majority" of this was professionally recorded, not all. That's because it seems a couple of performers didn't allow their songs to be included in the webcast. For those, I tried to find the songs elsewhere. I found a couple of the missing songs on YouTube, but the sound quality on those isn't as good as the rest. I couldn't find "You Shook Me" performed by Ann Wilson and Robert Randolph, as well as "Night Life" and "Take It Home" by Jamey Johnston. If anyone has those, please let me know and I'll add them in.

There was an impressive list of musicians who performed for this concert, including Buddy Guy, Warren Haynes, Derek Trucks, Susan Tedeschi, John Scofield, Ann Wilson (of Heart), David Hidalgo (of Los Lobos), Ivan Neville (of the Neville Brothers), Jimmie Vaughan (of the Fabulous Thunderbirds), Little Steven, Robert Cray, Robert Randolph, Shemekia Copeland, William Bell, and more.

Actually, this concert was performed two nights in a row, but only one night was broadcast. I don't know how different the other night might have been. 

The music here remains unreleased. The sound quality is excellent, except for the few I took from other sources. Most of those are near the end, for instance "When Love Comes to Town" by Ann Wilson.

This album is three hours and 47 minutes long. 

01 talk (Wavy Gravy)
02 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
03 BB's Theme [Instrumental] (Tony C.C. Coleman)
04 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
05 You Upset Me Baby (Tony C.C. Coleman)
06 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
07 I Got a Mind to Give Up Living (Bob Margolin)
08 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
09 Let Me In (Bobby Rush)
10 talk (Bobby Rush)
11 Garbage Man (Bobby Rush)
12 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
13 Hummingbird (Val B. King & Frank Bacombe)
14 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
15 Let the Good Times Roll (Little Steven)
16 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
17 Beautician Blues (Southside Johnny)
18 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
19 Never Make a Move Too Soon (John Scofield & Ivan Neville)
20 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
21 Why I Sing the Blues (Kingfish)
22 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
23 Powerhouse [Instrumental] (David Hidalgo)
24 talk (David Hidalgo)
25 Need Your Love So Bad (David Hidalgo)
26 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
27 Please Love Me (Jimmy Vaughan)
28 talk (Jimmy Vaughan)
29 Woke Up This Morning (Jimmy Vaughan)
30 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
31 Blue Shadows (William Bell)
32 talk (William Bell)
33 Ain't Nobody Home (William Bell)
34 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
35 Paying the Cost to Be the Boss (Shemekia Copeland)
36 talk (Shemekia Copeland)
37 Call It Stormy Monday (Shemekia Copeland & John Scofield)
38 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
39 Three O'Clock Blues (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
40 talk (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
41 You Don't Know (Derek Trucks & Susan Tedeschi)
42 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
43 So Excited (Warren Haynes)
44 How Blue Can You Get (Warren Haynes)
45 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
46 Ghetto Woman (Robert Randolph with Ivan Neville)
47 talk (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
48 Don't Cry No More (Robert Randolph & Ivan Neville)
49 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
50 I Like to Live the Love (Robert Cray)
51 Troubles, Troubles, Troubles (Robert Cray)
52 When Love Comes to Town (Ann Wilson)
53 Sweet Little Angel - It's My Fault (Buddy Guy)
54 talk (Buddy Guy)
55 The Thrill Is Gone (Buddy Guy, Derek Trucks, Ann Wilson, Robert Cray & Shemekia Copeland)
56 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
57 talk (Tony C.C. Coleman)
58 Everyday I Have the Blues (Everybody)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/YVLheabH

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/90vA8uFEYrvrlzM/file

The cover photo shows an encore from this exact concert. In the front row, from right to left: Robert Cray, Warren Haynes, William Bell, Susan Tedeschi, Shemekia Copeland, and (probably) Robert Rudolph.

Muddy Waters with B.B. King - Ebbets Field, Denver, CO, 6-19-1974

If you like listening to the blues, what a remarkable concert recording this is! It started out as a concert starring blues legend Muddy Waters and his band performing in a small club in Denver. But then, halfway through, blues legend B.B. King came on stage, playing lead guitar and also singing a couple of songs. I don't know of any other recordings of these two absolute legends performing together like this, so this is a special treat.

I did a little research on this. It turns out King happened to perform at a different venue in Denver that evening. When his show was over, he went to the Waters concert and joined in. At the time, even though Ebbets Field was only a small venue holding a maximum of about 200 people, many of its concerts were broadcast live on a local radio station, and this was one such concert. So that's why we have this recording with excellent sound quality. One can find various "grey market" releases of this, meaning they are put on the market in Europe due to legal loopholes. But none of them are legit, with profits going to the performers (or the performers' estates).

I have to admit there are two instrumentals at the start, before Waters joined the stage, that I cut out. I didn't find them that interesting, and I wanted to get to the "good stuff" with Waters and King. If you're interested in those, check out one of those grey market releases I mentioned.

At the time of this concert, Waters was 61 years old, and already nearing the end of his career. Pretty much all of his classic recordings were behind him, but he was far from done as a performer. In fact, he had a bit of a career renaissance in the late 1970s, thanks to some albums he made with the help of blues musician Johnny Winter. Waters kept performing pretty much right until his death in 1983. By contrast, King was ten years younger, and in the middle of an exceptionally long career. He also kept playing almost until his death, much, much later, in 2015, at the age of 89.

I came across this concert after discovering that there were a whole bunch of great radio broadcasts from this venue in the mid-1970s. In recent days, I posted two other concerts that took place there (Gene Clark and Dan Fogelberg). At some point, I'd like to get around to posting more, but it might be a while until that happens.

By the way, if anyone knows the names of either or both of the instrumentals (tracks 1 and 14), please let me know so I can fix the titles. 

This album is 50 minutes long. 

01 Introduction (Muddy Waters)
02 talk (Muddy Waters)
03 My Sweet Little Baby (Muddy Waters)
04 talk (Muddy Waters)
05 Rock Me (Muddy Waters)
06 talk (Muddy Waters)
07 Can't Get No Grindin' [What's the Matter with the Meal] (Muddy Waters)
08 I Got My Mojo Working (Muddy Waters)
09 Forty Days and Forty Nights (Muddy Waters)
10 talk (Muddy Waters)
11 I Know You Didn't Want Me (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
12 talk (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
13 The Thrill Is Gone (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
14 Instrumental (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
15 talk (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
16 Caldonia (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)
17 talk by emcee (Muddy Waters & B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/wzvyEcr8

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/p4WBvfAPdsMuojL/file

The cover photo is a real photo of Waters and King. However, I drastically edited it. The full photo actually shows James Cotton standing between Waters and King, as well as Johnny Winter off to the side. I cropped out Winter, and then used Photoshop to bring Waters and King closer together, cutting out Cotton along the way. It's from a concert at the Radio City Music Hall in New York City, on June 29, 1979. Also, it was in black and white. I used the Kolorize program to colorize it.

B.B. King & Various Artists - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 8-30-1974

Here's another album from the "Midnight Special" TV show. It's a special one, because it's another musical themed episode. I believe this is the only show that exclusively focused on blues music, at least in the 1973 to 1975 time frame that I've investigated so far. The main host was blues legend B.B. King. However, there were a number of others blues figures too: Paul Butterfield, Jimmy Witherspoon, John Lee Hooker, Big Mama Thornton, Joe Williams, and Papa John Creach.

Normally, I edit these episodes down to just the music performed by the host, plus maybe one more musical act. But because this episode had a coherent theme, I included all the music. I did cut out some things, as I usually do, such as the theme song at the beginning, and announcements of commercial breaks, as well as announcements of who would be on the show in the next episode. The first track has "[Edit]" in the title, because I removed the usual theme song and replaced it with cheering in the background instead, using the MVSEP program to do so.

The sound quality is excellent throughout. The only problem was that the last song faded out before it really got going. So I don't even know what that song is. I just called it "Outro," since it had B.B. King giving some final words before the fade out started. I considered adding in some extra crowd cheering, but I decided to just keep it as it was, fading out into silence.

The music is excellent as well. I doubt there were many instances of the blues getting this kind of exposure on a national TV show, though admittedly one that was broadcast late at night. One special highlight is "Gettin' It Together," in which blues legends B.B. King and John Lee Hooker joined forces, assisted by violinist Papa John Creach. King and Hooker were actually long-time friends, with both of them starting their musical careers not far from each other, in the late 1940s. 

This album is an hour and four minutes long. 

01 talk [Edit] (B.B. King)
02 Why I Sing the Blues (B.B. King)
03 talk (B.B. King)
04 Meet in the Bottom (Paul Butterfield's Better Days)
05 talk (B.B. King)
06 Nothing's Changed (Jimmy Witherspoon)
07 talk (B.B. King)
08 Boogie with the Hook [Edit] (John Lee Hooker)
09 talk (B.B. King)
10 Ball and Chain (Big Mama Thornton)
11 talk (B.B. King)
12 Who She Do (Joe Williams)
13 I Like to Live the Love (B.B. King)
14 talk (B.B. King)
15 Goin' Down Slow (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
16 talk (B.B. King)
17 John's Other [Instrumental] (Papa John Creach)
18 talk (B.B. King)
19 Gettin' It Together (B.B. King, John Lee Hooker & Papa John Creach)
20 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
21 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King)
22 Love Is a Five Letter Word (Jimmy Witherspoon)
23 Tell Me Where to Scratch (Joe Williams)
24 talk (Wolfman Jack & B.B. King)
25 I Got Some Help I Don't Need (B.B. King)
26 Outro (B.B. King)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gLzcWuLc

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/jkeglxL80nYZq0T/file

The cover photo is a screenshot taken from a video of this exact concert. From right to left: John Lee Hooker, B.B. King, & Papa John Creach.

Gladys Knight & the Pips with B.B. King - The Midnight Special, NBC Studios, Burbank, CA, 10-5-1973

At first glance, you might be wondering, "Wait, didn't he just post a Gladys Knight "Midnight Special" album from 1973 just a few days ago. And that's true, I did. But she was on that show enough for two albums. The first one I posted was from early 1973, and had Dr. John as a special guest. This is from late 1973 and early 1974, and has B.B. King as a special guest.

The first nine tracks come from the October 5, 1973 date mentioned in the title. Since B.B. King did a duet with Knight on his classic song "The Thrill Is Gone," I included the two other songs he did on his own. The other musical acts on that episode were Focus, Stories, Chris Smither, Earth, Wind & Fire, and a duet of Wolfman Jack and Monda. Hopefully, some of those will show up in later albums.

"Where Peaceful Waters Flow" is from a September 14, 1973 episode. It was the only song Knight performed in that episode. (It seems that was a teaser to help promote the fact she and her band would be hosting the show in a couple of weeks.) The remaining songs, tracks 11 through 15, are from a March 8, 1974 episode. 

Note that I've included two versions of "Midnight Train of Georgia." This song was released as a single in August 1973, and went all the way to Number One on the U.S. singles chart, becoming Knight's signature song. Normally, I don't include two versions of the same song on an album. But this is such a great song that I made an exception in this case. If you don't want it, it's easy to delete the second one, since it's the last song on the album.

The music here is unreleased. The sound quality is excellent. As usual for this TV show, I converted the YouTube video to audio, then broke it into mp3s. And I added in more applause to smooth transitions between songs. There are two talk tracks in a row for tracks two and three, because those are from different points in the concert. 

This album is 45 minutes long. 

01 Daddy Could Swear, I Declare (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
02 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
03 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
04 To Know You Is to Love You (B.B. King)
05 Heavy Makes You Happy (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
06 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
07 The Thrill Is Gone (Gladys Knight & B.B. King)
08 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
09 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
10 Where Peaceful Waters Flow (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
11 I've Got to Use My Imagination (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
12 talk (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
13 Best Thing that Ever Happened to Me (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
14 On and On (Gladys Knight & the Pips)
15 Midnight Train to Georgia (Gladys Knight & the Pips)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/htPuWyEy

alternate: 

https://bestfile.io/en/wWthF5jPrVRa8mW/file 

The cover image is from this exact concert. But it's actually a combination of two images. I wanted a picture of Gladys Knight and B. B. King. So I looked through their duet song, "The Thrill Is Gone." The problem was, they never were standing right next to each other. So I took a screenshot of each of them, and then moved them close together in Photoshop. The red background with the lines of lights was the same, so lined that up to get them to match.

Texas International Pop Festival, Dallas International Motor Speedway, Lewisville, TX, 9-1-1969, Part 2: B. B. King

Here's the second act from the third day of the 1969 Texas International Pop Festival: blues legend B.B. King. (Unfortunately, I'm mostly just guessing on the performance order for this and most albums on this day.)

1969 was a pivotal year for B.B. King. He'd been releasing albums since 1956. However, they pretty much had only appealed to fans of blues music. But in the late 1960s, electric blues got to be very popular, thanks mostly to British bands like Cream and Fleetwood Mac. So King's popularity rose. He released two albums in 1969, and both of them rose higher on the pop charts (about Top Forty) and R&B charts (about the Top Ten) than any of his previous albums.

One of those albums, "Completely Well," contained the song "The Thrill Is Gone." That would become his biggest hit and his signature song. Unfortunately, that song wasn't released a single until December, a few months after this. So it's not performed here.

A bunch of acts performed twice over the course of the three days of the festival. Few performed three times, but King was one of them. Apparently, his set caused some amusement, because he didn't realize that most of the audience stayed for all three sets, and he played the same songs with most of the same banter between songs. But despite that glitch, his music went over very well. A review in the "Times Herald" newspaper said that King "seemed to improve with each performance, flawless, hitting those low blues-filled notes and proving his birthright to the title of King of the Blues." 

King also was more savvy than most blues musicians of his generation by playing festivals full of hippies like this. In between songs, he King told the audience, "Now you can go let everyone know that we can get together outside of Woodstock and have a good time." 

This album is 43 minutes long.

01 talk (B. B. King)
02 Sweet Sixteen (B. B. King)
03 Please Accept My Love (B. B. King)
04 talk (B. B. King)
05 Everybody Wants to Know Why I Sing the Blues (B. B. King)
06 Don't Want a Soul Hanging Around (B. B. King)
07 What's Wrong Little Mama (B. B. King)
08 How Blue Can You Get (B. B. King)
09 Whole Lot of Lovin' (B. B. King)
10 Everyday I Have the Blues (B. B. King) 

https://pixeldrain.com/u/R9fc7uBt

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/DhmPBDoFFQauK9K/file

The cover photo is from this exact concert. The original was in black and white, and quite blurry in places. I used Kolorize to colorize. I tried to use Krea AI to reduce the blurriness, but you still see that with his hand and guitar.

B.B. King with Richie Sambora - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 1-29-2009

Here's yet another episode of the "PBS Soundstage" TV show. This time, it's blues legend B.B. King. He's joined by three special guests: Terrence Howard, Solange, and Richie Sambora.

I was reluctant at first to post this, due to B.B. King's advanced age. He was about 83 years old at the time. And if you watch the video, he sat the entire time, and it looks like that's because he had to. However, I gave it a listen and his vocals and guitar playing were still very good, so I'm posting it. He would finally pass in 2015, at the age of 89.

It's pretty remarkable to consider that he did another episode of this show in 1976 (with Bobby 'Blue' Bland), 33 years earlier, and his music career had already been going for four decades prior to that!

The first guest was Terrence Howard. That was a rather strange choice, considering that Howard was famous for being a movie star, not a musician. He only released one album, in 2008. Since that was right before this concert, I guess he was trying to branch out into having a music career too, but gave it up not long thereafter. His singing was good, certainly nothing to be embarrassed about, as is the case with many other movie stars trying to be musicians. 

The second guest was Solange. She's a neo-soul singer (and a sister to Beyonce). At the time of this concert, her music career was just getting started, but she would later have a couple of very critically acclaimed albums. Her singing was very good also.

The third and final guest was Richie Sambora, the long-time lead guitarist for the band Bon Jovi. His appearance was all about jamming on guitar with King. It's a bit unfortunate that both Solange and Sambora wanted to play on King's signature song, "The Thrill Is Gone," so that song appears twice in relatively close proximity.

This album is 53 minutes long.

01 Every Day I Have the Blues (B.B. King)
02 See That My Grave Is Kept Clean (B.B. King)
03 How Many More Years (B.B. King)
04 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
05 I Need You So (B.B. King & Terrence Howard)
06 talk (B.B. King & Terrence Howard)
07 I Got Some Outside Help [I Don't Really Need] (B.B. King & Terrence Howard)
08 talk (B.B. King)
09 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King & Solange)
10 talk (B.B. King)
11 Let the Good Times Roll (B.B. King with Richie Sambora)
12 talk (B.B. King with Richie Sambora)
13 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King with Richie Sambora)
14 Blues (B.B. King)
15 When the Saints Go Marching In (B.B. King with Solange, Richie Sambora & Terrence Howard)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/gdZFhsi7

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/KqvxLt8efGBDDw9/file

The cover photo is a screenshot I took from a YouTube video of this exact concert. That's King, sitting, with Sambora.

B.B. King & Bobby 'Blue' Bland - PBS Soundstage, WTTW Studios, Chicago, IL, 3-17-1977

Here's another "PBS Soundstage" TV show episode. This time, it stars blues legends B.B. King and Bobby 'Blue' Bland.

Both King and Bland had successful music careers going back to the 1940s. While doing some Googling for this write-up, I was surprised to read that they actually were in an informal band together as far back as 1949, called the Beale Streeters. Starting in the mid-1970s, they often performed together. This resulted in the joint albums "Together for the First Time... Live" in 1974 and "Together Again... Live" in 1976. Apparently, they continued to sometimes tour together well into the 1980s, until Bland's health became poor. (However, he didn't die until 2013, while King died in 2015.)

That said, note that for most of this concert, King and Bland largely performed separately. King starts with two songs, then Bland does five, then King performs three more, before the finale, where they play two songs together.

This concert could well have been recorded in late 1976. (With these Soundstage shows, I often don't know if a date is the broadcast date or the actual recording date, and the broadcasts usually happened months after the recording.) However, the songs on this album and their 1976 live album are almost entirely different, with only "Let the Good Times Roll," "Call It Stormy Monday," and "The Thrill Is Gone" appearing on both.

In the mid-1970s, Bland had a commercial resurgence, with the R&B hits "Ain't No Love in the Heart of the City" and "I Wouldn't Treat a Dog." Unfortunately, neither of those songs are here. Also unfortunately in my opinion, by this time, Bland developed an annoying vocal technique that he heavily leaned on for the rest of his music career. I found a review for the "Together for the First Time... Live" album that describes this better than I could:

"Bland's tremendously irritating later-period singing tic is in full flower: what I refer to as his 'Gollum' sound. That deep, guttural throat sound when he's particularly ripping into a lyric that's as if Bland has a goiter or is trying to hack up the world's largest fur ball. Gollum - I mean Bland - lets loose with this annoying sound with stunning frequency."

Luckily, for this concert, Bland went relatively light on his Gollum sound. I was pleasantly surprised. You'll hear it from time to time, but he certainly did it less than on either of the two live albums mentioned above.

The last song has "[Edit]" in the title due to announcer voiceover while the song was playing. As I usually do, I used the UVR5 program to get rid of that talking while keeping the underlying music, but there was some damage for about half a minute near the end of the song.

This album is 58 minutes long. It is unreleased. It also was very difficult for me to find in full, so I'm glad to make it easily available again.

01 Let the Good Times Roll (B.B. King)
02 How Blue Can You Get (B.B. King)
03 Ain't That Loving You (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
04 Today I Started Loving You Again (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
05 The Feeling Is Gone (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
06 Call It Stormy Monday (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
07 Drifting Blues (Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
08 I Like to Live the Love (B.B. King)
09 I Got Some Outside Help [I Don't Really Need] (B.B. King)
10 Lie a Little (B.B. King)
11 The Thrill Is Gone (B.B. King & Bobby 'Blue' Bland)
12 It's My Own Fault [Edit] (B.B. King & Bobby 'Blue' Bland)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/t2rxBREC

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/JRM17UecqZnByNl/file

The cover image is from a screenshot I took of a video of this exact concert. The quality was low-res, so I used the Krea AI program to improve it.

U2 - BBC Sessions, Volume 6: In Concert, Point Depot, Dublin, Ireland, 12-31-1989

This is a particularly good installment in the series of U2 BBC albums. It came at the very end of the tour to promote the 1988 album "Rattle and Hum," so it mostly contains songs from that album, plus the album before it, "The Joshua Tree." It's highlighted by a guest appearance from blues legend B.B. King.

The recording of this concert has a strange history. It has been officially released, but just barely. It was broadcast live not just by the BBC in Britain, but in many other countries, so it was widely bootlegged from the beginning. In 2004, it was released as part of the digital box set "The Complete U2." But you could only get it if you got the entire, very large box set. As the Wikipedia entry makes clear, you can't buy the tracks individually on iTunes or anywhere else:

Live from the Point Depot - Wikipedia

As I mentioned above, B.B. King was a special guest. He played and sang on the "Rattle and Hum" track "When Loves Come to Town," so naturally he joined U2 in playing that song in this concert. But he also joined in "Love Rescue Me," including singing some lead vocals. And I don't think he was on stage, but his band helped perform the song "Angel of Harlem," adding a horn section that was key to the song.

Note that this concert is billed as taking place on December 31, 1989. I'm sure that's what appeared on the tickets, so that's the date I'm using here. But if you listen to the recording, it starts with a New Year's countdown and a performance of "Auld Lang Syne." So pretty much everything after the first minute is really from very early on January 1, 1990. 

Note that some of the songs in the song list are more like snippets. For instance, "The Times They Are A-Changin'" is really just one verse sung acappella. "Dirty Old Town" was also brief. There are some other snippets not mentioned in the song titles, such as a bit of "Exodus" by Bob Dylan during the performance of " I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for," and a bit of "Suspicious Minds" in "Angel of Harlem." And unfortunately, "All I Want Is You" was cut way down, to less than a minute.

This concert marked the end of an era for U2, since it was the last show of a long tour. Lead singer Bono famously mentioned during his banter that the band was going to go away for a while and rethink their sound. That's exactly what they did. They would reemerge two years later with the classic album "Achtung Baby."

Unfortunately, it would be much, much longer before they performed for the BBC again. But they would eventually, so this album series will continue.

This album is an hour and 43 minutes long.

01 talk (U2)
02 Auld Lang Syne (U2)
03 Where the Streets Have No Name (U2)
04 I Will Follow (U2)
05 talk (U2)
06 I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking for (U2)
07 MLK (U2)
08 One Tree Hill (U2)
09 Gloria (U2)
10 God Part II (U2)
11 Desire (U2)
12 All Along the Watchtower (U2)
13 All I Want Is You (U2)
14 Bad (U2)
15 Van Diemen's Land (U2)
16 Bullet the Blue Sky (U2)
17 Running to Stand Still - Dirty Old Town (U2)
18 The Times They Are A-Changin' (U2)
19 New Year's Day (U2)
20 Pride [In the Name of Love] (U2)
21 Trash, Trampoline and the Party Girl (U2)
22 talk (U2)
23 Angel of Harlem (U2)
24 When Love Comes to Town (U2 & B.B. King)
25 talk (U2 & B.B. King)
26 Love Rescue Me (U2 & B.B. King)
27 '40' (U2)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/n1hDjHkv

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/o1OzR78U6g9LyaD/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/eFsQX

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Newport Folk Festival, Festival Field, Newport, RI, 7-25-1968 to 7-28-1968, Part 6 - B. B. King

I posted five albums of the 1968 Newport Folk Festival, but there are ten in all. So here's the sixth one. It's a set from legendary blues guitarist B. B. King.

King was a tireless concert performer, usually playing concerts well over 300 nights a year. So it's highly likely this was his well-honed typical set done with a full band, without any changes for the folk theme or folky crowd of the festival. But that's fine. He was in peak form in the late 1960s, with his most acclaimed live albums from that time period, so it's good to have another live recording like this from him.

As with the other albums from this festival, there was some problem with wind blowing on the microphone, especially during the applause and banter. But I cleaned that up using the Izotope 10 audio editing program, just like I did for the other albums.

This album is 32 minutes long.

076 talk by George Wein (B. B. King)
077 Everyday I Have the Blues (B. B. King)
078 How Blue Can You Get (B. B. King)
079 Whole Lot of Loving (B. B. King)
080 talk (B. B. King)
081 Please Accept My Love (B. B. King)
082 talk (B. B. King)
083 I'm Gonna Do What They Do to Me (B. B. King)
084 Sweet Sixteen (B. B. King)
085 Paying the Cost to Be the Boss (B. B. King)
086 talk by George Wein (B. B. King)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16033193/NewprtFlkFestivl_1968_06BBKng.zip.html

The cover photo is from this exact concert.

Various Artists - Roy Orbison Tribute Concert to Benefit the Homeless, Universal Amphitheater, Los Angeles, CA, 2-24-1990

I recently stumbled across this Roy Orbison concert. As far as I can tell, it's never really appeared as a bootleg, other than as a single file with no song titles or artists given. So I had to some research just to figure out what this was exactly. But I think it was worth it because it's a very interesting show, with lots of big names. Despite it being ostensibly about Roy Orbison, probably the biggest musical event of the concert was the reunion of three key members of the Byrds - Roger McGuinn, David Crosby, and Chris Hillman - who were then joined by Bob Dylan for the song "Mr. Tambourine Man." Dylan wrote it in 1964, and the Byrds had a Number One hit with it in 1965, but they'd never done the song on stage together.

Roy Orbison died of a heart attack at the end of 1988, when he was only 52 years old. The timing of his death was especially unfortunate because he hadn't had much commercial success in the 1970s and 1980s, but that drastically changed right as he died, with him being a member of the Traveling Wilburys supergroup. He even had his first Top Ten hit in over 25 years with "You Got It." 

Regardless, Orbison was a much admired musical legend. So when he died, his wife Barbara Orbison put together a tribute concert that also doubled as a benefit concert to help the homeless. It's an odd concert as these things go, because most of the acts paid tribute to Orbison by covering his songs, but some other acts went in a different direction and played songs that seemed to have no link to Orbison whatsoever. For instance Iggy Pop played "Home," a song from his then-current album. Speaking of Iggy Pop, another odd aspect to the concert was the musical acts involved. Some made lots of sense, because they'd been heavily influenced by Orbison, such as John Fogerty or Chris Isaak. 

Others were more mystifying musically. For instance, you may well wonder what Patrick Swayze is doing here, dueting on the Everly Brothers song "Love Hurts" with Larry Gatlin. Yes, that Patrick Swayze, the famous actor. He released a few songs here and there, but never put out an album. Apparently, some acts mainly got involved because they liked the charitable cause.

Aside from Iggy Pop, the Patrick Swayze and Larry Gatlin duet, and the Byrds songs, plus a duet version of "I'm in the Mood" by John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt, and "The Thrill Is Gone" by B. B. King, I believe all the rest of the songs have some Orbison connection. For instance, "In the Real World," "Rock House," "Chicken Hearted," and "That Lovin' You Feelin' Again" are fairly obscure songs, but they were all written and/or sung by Orbison. (He also did "Love Hurts," although the Everly Brothers did it first.)

Anyway, this contains all of the music performed at the concert that I could find. However, I cut out some of the talking between songs. There were some pitches for people to donate to the charitable cause, which is no longer relevant since the phone number mentioned has long gone dead, I'd assume. But I suspect there was more banter between songs, and maybe even more songs, that didn't get bootlegged. The show was broadcast on TV, but I think it's a safe bet a lot of edits were made to get it to fit within the allowed screen time. There were some acts involved that didn't get any songs featured at all, such as Michelle Shocked and the duet of Wendy and Lisa. They did help out along with some others on the all-female version of "Oh, Pretty Woman," but I wouldn't be surprised if they did songs that got cut from the TV show, and thus this bootleg, because they weren't so famous.

Also, near the end of this concert, the Byrds did four songs: "Turn, Turn, Turn," "Mr. Tambourine Man," "Eight Miles High," and "He Was a Friend of Mine." Dylan took part with "Mr. Tambourine Man," as I previously mentioned. " He also took part in "He Was a Friend of Mine," but just barely, because he merely strummed along on guitar and didn't sing at all, so I didn't add his name to the credits for that song. I know this because I found a video of it on YouTube.

The Byrds performances of "Turn, Turn, Turn" and "Mr. Tambourine Man" have been officially released on a Byrds box set. But the other two remain unreleased, as far as I know.

This album is an hour and 39 minutes long. If anyone knows the correct order of the songs, please let me know.

UPDATE: On February 12, 2023, I updated the mp3 download file. Musical associate Lilpanda had a different source for this concert, with the same high quality sound. Most of it was the same, but there were five songs I didn't have. So I added those. I don't know the correct song order, so I put three of the newly discovered ones at the start (the ones by NRBO, Joe Ely, and Syd Straw). That also included two songs by the Byrds, "Eight Miles High" and "He Was a Friend of Mine," so I put those with the rest of the Byrds' set. That added about 20 minutes of music to the album.

01 Chicken Hearted (NRBQ)
02 Working for the Man (Joe Ely)
03 She's a Mystery to Me (Syd Straw)
04 talk (John Fogerty)
05 Ooby Dooby (John Fogerty)
06 Mean Woman Blues (Levon Helm)
07 I'm in the Mood (John Lee Hooker & Bonnie Raitt)
08 talk (Chris Isaak)
09 Leah (Chris Isaak)
10 Dream Baby [How Long Must I Dream] (Shrunken Heads [Tom Tom Club & Jerry Harrison])
11 Crying (k. d. lang)
12 The Thrill Is Gone (B. B. King with Al Kooper & Don Was)
13 You Got It (John Hiatt with Don Was)
14 It's Over (Was [Not Was])
15 In the Real World (Booker T. Jones)
16 Home (Iggy Pop)
17 Oh, Pretty Woman (k.d. lang, Bonnie Raitt & Emmylou Harris)
18 That Lovin' You Feelin' Again (Emmylou Harris & Michael McDonald)
19 Claudette (Dwight Yoakam)
20 talk (Bernie Taupin)
21 Running Scared (Benny Mardones)
22 Love Hurts (Larry Gatlin & Patrick Swayze)
23 talk (Stray Cats)
24 Rock House (Stray Cats)
25 talk (Barbara Orbison)
26 talk (Bonnie Raitt)
27 Candy Man (Bonnie Raitt with Chris Isaak)
28 Turn, Turn, Turn [To Everything There Is a Season] (Byrds)
29 Eight Miles High (Byrds)
30 talk (Roger McGuinn)
31 Mr. Tambourine Man (Byrds & Bob Dylan)
32 He Was a Friend of Mine (Byrds)
33 Only the Lonely (Everyone)

https://pixeldrain.com/u/3by8k2RW

alternate:

https://bestfile.io/en/FNC3nsZwXP8dae0/file

alternate:

https://www.imagenetz.de/m7zft

For the cover, I used a photo of Dylan with the three former Byrds from this exact concert. The section at the top with the title comes from some promotional artwork for this concert, but I cropped and stretched it to fit.

Various Artists - Apollo Hall of Fame, Apollo Theatre, New York City, 7-15-1993

The Apollo Theatre is a concert venue in the New York City neighborhood of Harlem with a legendary history. With Harlem being a predominantly black neighborhood and a center of black cultural trends, it's best known for featuring black musicians, especially in the soul genre. In 1993, the people running the venue decided to start a yearly hall of fame ceremony. For their first one, they had a two hour show broadcast on national TV honoring the first few inductees. Apparently, this hall of fame tradition has continued, but I've only found good recordings from the 1993 one.

I haven't been able to find the full show, so I only know bits and pieces. But it seems that year's inductees included Ray Charles, James Brown, Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald.

Here's an article about it, from Variety Magazine at the time:

Apollo Theatre Hall of Fame - Variety

Ray Charles showed up and played, but James Brown did not. Billie Holiday and Ella Fitzgerald had passed away by that time. But many other famous musicians performed. Some were in tribute to the inductees. For instance, Diana Ross sang two of Billie Holiday's songs. But other performers just seemed to be celebrating the legacy of the Apollo Theatre in general. 

When it comes to bootleg recordings, this concert is best known for the last few songs, led by blues guitarist B. B. King. First, he did a duet with guitarist Eric Clapton on the song "Rock Me Baby." Then he brought on guitarists Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, and Buddy Guy as well. The five of them all played solos on the same song, "Sweet Little Angel." After that, they were joined by everyone else from earlier in the show for the finale "Let the Good Times Roll." That probably was the only time those five guitar legends all played on stage together.

But the rest of the show has a lot going for it. Many soul legends from the 1950s, 60s, and 70s played. Some of them were getting up there in age and this would be their last time on a national TV, a kind of last hurrah.

This album is 54 minutes long. The TV special was two hours long. Even if you figure in time for commercials, there are songs I've missed. I found about half of this from a high quality bootleg, and the other half from YouTube videos. But, in my opinion, the sound quality is about the same from the two sources.

By the way, note that the shows two hosts were the actors Danny Glover and Bill Cosby. Since then, Cosby has been hit by sex scandal and has been imprisoned. It's strange for me to hear him host this show in light of what's happened to him. I've tried to minimize his comments between songs, but I kept the bare minimum in for things to be understood.

01 talk (Smokey Robinson)
02 This Little Light of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Dixie Hummingbirds)
03 talk (Smokey Robinson)
04 Little Girl of Mine (Smokey Robinson & the Cleftones)
05 talk (Smokey Robinson)
06 Good Times (Bryan Adams & Smokey Robinson)
07 talk (Chuck Jackson)
08 Any Day Now (Chuck Jackson)
09 talk (Ben E. King)
10 Save the Last Dance (Ben E. King)
11 talk (Al Green)
12 Let's Stay Together (Al Green)
13 talk (Teddy Pendergrass)
14 Close the Door (Teddy Pendergrass)
15 Stand by Me (Ben E. King, Chuck Jackson, Al Green & Teddy Pendergrass)
16 Still Crazy After All These Years (Ray Charles)
17 talk (Diana Ross)
18 God Bless the Child (Diana Ross)
19 Fine and Mellow (Diana Ross)
20 talk (B. B. King)
21 Rock Me Baby (B. B. King & Eric Clapton)
22 talk (B. B. King)
23 Sweet Little Angel (B. B. King, Eric Clapton, Jeff Beck, Albert Collins & Buddy Guy)
24 talk (B. B. King)
25 Let the Good Times Roll (B. B. King & Everyone)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16701193/VA-ApolloHallFmeAplloThetreNYC__7-15-1993_atse.zip.html

For the cover, I found a photo of all five guitarists that played together near the end of the show. From left to right, it's Jeff Beck, Albert Collins, B. B. King, Eric Clapton, and Buddy Guy. It looks like the photo was taken backstage before or after the show. It's rather blurry, so if you know of a better version, or a better one, please let me know.

B. B. King and Friends - A Night of Blistering Blues, Ebony Showcase Theater, Los Angeles, CA, 4-15-1987

Hopefully, if you're a fan of the blues, you'll take a look at the list of artists mentioned on the cover art, say, "Wow!" and download this immediately. This concert mainly features B. B. King, who does all the talking, but his special guests are: Paul Butterfield, Eric Clapton, Phil Collins, Dr. John, Etta James, Albert King, Chaka Khan, Gladys Knight, Billy Ocean, and Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Why did all of these big names of soul and blues get together for this concert? I don't know if there was some special occasion or anniversary, but this show was filmed for a TV special shown on Cinemax, alternately called "A Night of Blistering Blues" or "A Blues Night." I've gone with the former name because it's more interesting.

Generally speaking, King did the lion's share of lead vocals. But he shared vocals with Albert King, Etta James, Billy Ocean, Gladys Knight, and Chaka Khan. I believe Phil Collins played drums on all the songs, along with another drummer. Paul Butterfield did all the harmonica playing. Eric Clapton and Stevie Ray Vaughan played lead guitar, and on more songs than just the ones they're credited on below. B. B. King and Albert King played lots of lead guitar as well.

This really was a once in a lifetime gathering of musical greats, and they rose to the occasion. I don't know why this has never been officially released as an album. The only flaw is that the last song was a blues jam with all the lead guitarists: B. B. King, Albert King, Eric Clapton, and Stevie Ray Vaughan. But unfortunately, it fades out after only a minute of guitar soloing from B. B. King. If you watch the video of this on YouTube, you'll see the credits are rolling and the recording ends when the show finishes.

This album is 56 minutes long.

01 Why I Sing the Blues (B. B. King, Albert King, Etta James, Billy Ocean, Gladys Knight & Chaka Khan)
02 talk (B. B. King)
03 Please Send Me Someone to Love (B. B. King & Gladys Knight)
04 talk (B. B. King)
05 The Thrill Is Gone (B. B. King with Eric Clapton & Phil Collins)
06 talk (B. B. King)
07 I'd Rather Go Blind (B. B. King, Dr. John & Etta James)
08 talk (B. B. King)
09 When Something Is Wrong with My Baby (B. B. King, Chaka Khan & Billy Ocean)
10 talk (B. B. King)
11 The Sky Is Crying (B. B. King, Paul Butterfield, Albert King & Stevie Ray Vaughan)
12 talk (B. B. King)
13 Something's Got a Hold on Me (B. B. King & Etta James)
14 talk (B. B. King)
15 In the Midnight Hour (B. B. King & Billy Ocean with Paul Butterfield & Stevie Ray Vaughan)
16 talk (B. B. King)
17 Ain't Nobody's Business (B. B. King, Etta James, Chaka Khan & Gladys Knight)
18 talk (B. B. King)
19 Let the Good Times Roll (B. B. King, Albert King & Etta James)
20 Take My Hand, Precious Lord (B. B. King, Etta James, Chaka Khan & Gladys Knight)
21 talk (B. B. King)
22 Blues Jam [Instrumental] (B. B. King)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687605/BBKNG1987_NghtofBlistrinBlusEbnyShwcseThetr__4-15-1987_atse.zip.html

I haven't seen any good photos from this concert. So I took a screenshot from the YouTube video. The quality is rather low-res, but this is all there is. From right to left, you can see: Stevie Ray Vaughan, B. B. King, Albert King, Eric Clapton, and Etta James.

B. B. King - BBC in Concert, Hammersmith Odeon, London, Britain, 10-14-1978

B. B. King had a long career as one of the giants of the blues. He was in his element in concert, touring close to 365 days a year, year after year after year. He put out some classic live albums from 1965 to 1971, but there isn't nearly as much live recordings from the rest of the 1970s. So it's good this unreleased BBC broadcast from 1978 fills a gap.

King was consistently good, and he delivers as expected here. There's not much else to say except that the sound quality is excellent, like you'd expect from a BBC broadcast. The set list had changed a lot from his classic 1960s and 1970s albums, though there are a few standards included like "How Blue Can You Get" and "The Thrill Is Gone."

Note that the last song ends with King leaving the stage, but his band still vamping as the song fades out. I faded it out right before a BBC DJ came on and started talking over the music. There was just a bit of that before that recording came to an end, with the band still vamping.

This album is an hour long. I'm guessing that wasn't the full concert, though it might have been if there were other big acts on the bill.

01 Caledonia (B. B. King)
02 How Blue Can You Get (B. B. King)
03 The Life I Sing About (B. B. King)
04 Night Life (B. B. King)
05 Think I'm Going Out of My Mind (B. B. King)
06 When It All Comes Down [I'll Still Be Around] (B. B. King)
07 Hold On (B. B. King)
08 Made Your Move Too Soon (B. B. King)
09 The Thrill Is Gone (B. B. King)
10 I Believe to My Soul (B. B. King)
11 You Let Me Down (B. B. King)

https://www.upload.ee/files/16687598/BBKNG1978_BBCncertHmmersmithOdon__10-14-1978_atse.zip.html

The cover photo comes from a 1978 concert in Copenhagen, Denmark. The text for his name at the top is taken directly from his 1965 album "Live at the Regal."